Making Sense of This Suffering: Birth in the Bible Series

A few months ago, I got an opportunity to speak at a missions’ conference about birth, the Gospel, and this passion of mine (that’s what the silly picture is below)!! I thought that I would break up my seminar into a few different blogs over the next few months so you can get an opportunity to not only read what I spoke on but also get a chance to hear my heart on birth.  

I have always gravitated to birth. Ever since I was young, I was interested in learning about breastfeeding, how it works, and how labor moves in the birth setting. I think the reason was that my heart quickly resonated with the spirituality and holiness of birth. And as I went deeper and deeper into the birth world, I found a simple yet profound truth.  

Birth shows our gospel so clearly! Birth profoundly points us to the gospel. We see throughout the Bible that God chooses to use our natural humanness and experiences as pictures and windows to understand his heart better and to understand our place in this grand narrative of the gospel. When we experience the gospel ourselves, we use this birth language. We say we're “born again”. That's how we enter into the kingdom. 

There's this great story of Nicodemus in the bible. He's a teacher and he's sitting across from Jesus in John 3. I'm picturing a specific episode where this story is depicted in The Chosen TV series. If you watch that show, there's this awesome episode where Nicodemus is talking to Jesus and it's totally like a coffee date. Ya know, just your casual chat with Jesus. And Nicodemus, in all of his confusion and all of his excitement asks Jesus, “How do I enter into this Lord?” And Jesus answers with this beautiful imagery. 

“[Nicodemus] came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” John 3:1-6 (NIV)

Birth is the picture that Jesus uses to show how we enter into the kingdom of God ourselves. Birth is a central part of the conversation and invitation into the gospel narrative. 

Let’s take a look also at the birthplace of the redemptive story itself. The garden. And where my business finds its name. Eden. 

God is a creator. He creates this beautiful garden for us to dwell in, and he doesn't stop there. He creates us and he doesn't even stop there. He invites us into being a part of taking care of this garden. And he also invites us to a choice of choosing him and not choosing control. We in our humanness choose power and choose ourselves. Because of this, sin enters and because of sin entering into the garden, we are exiled from the garden. We see our exiling every single day. We see it in the news. We see it in the brokenness around us. Where do you see your exiling? 

But we have hope. It doesn’t always look like hope, but it’s there. 

 We see a great image of our hope in Romans. 

“All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.” Romans 8: 22 - 25 (MSG) 

Paul uses this picture of birth to describe how suffering produces our future glory. And while we wait for the garden, we know that we experience suffering. We groan inwardly just as in the pains of birth.

Birth helps us to make sense of being exiled, yet also make sense of our future hope in Christ. 

The joy we will experience far outweighs the suffering we have now. A mother going through the groans of pregnancy and labor then will experience the joy of holding her child. And not only that, women sign up for this multiple times!! There is something about experiencing the joy that far outweighs the suffering. 

There's both suffering and joy in birth, and there's this tension in all of life. The gospel is a tension of life and death. And in birth, there is a tension between trauma and joy. 

So, we see that not only is birth an image of how we enter into the kingdom, but also birth is an image of how we can make sense of both our suffering and our hope.