“When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
Jesus speaks these words to the disciples shortly before His betrayal, crucifixion, burial and resurrection. He compares this time of trial and sorrow to the pain, anguish, and worrisome time of expectation that happens at the time of childbirth. From the perspective of a woman giving natural birth, there is sorrow, perhaps fear, and certainly pain even with various medications to numb it, but once the child is born, the excitement and uncertainty is passed, the mother worn but joyful, embraces her newborn. That, is of course, the ideal outcome. But the reason for the fear and worry before the birth is that much could go wrong during the actual childbirth: internal breeding and hemorrhaging, heart troubles, strokes, blood clots for the mother, umbilical cords wrapping around where it shouldn’t, breeches, and so on. Will both the mother and child be healthy? How long will the labor last?
No doubt some of the same emotions of doubt, fear, sorrow, pain, anguish and uncertainty went through the hearts and minds of the disciples after the arrest, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus. “Oh no! What is happening? What will happen? How much longer will this trial last? Surely, they will find Him innocent. Wait, now He is dying, will He be rescued? Now He is dead. What now? What will happen to us?” Yet after and through all those labors of Jesus, Jesus had given the answer to these questions. God had not abandoned them: He had not abandoned His servant, His Christ, His Son. No, Jesus now having broken through the bonds of death and the grave, has become the first born of the dead in the glorious resurrection of body and soul for eternity. Jesus is the first born of the resurrection victory triumph. He kept the Law, took our sin, our sorrows, and the punishment that we deserved at the cross in His suffering and sorrow of His crucifixion so that we might be born from above as His people now by faith, but ultimately to be brought forth into the resurrection of our flesh and soul at the last Day. But what about in the meantime? How do exist and survive in a world that seems so often hostile to God, His Word, and His Church?
You know, it is very interesting. Today is the first time that I can recall that this particular text has fallen upon our secular holiday and remembrance known as “Mother’s Day”. This is a day in which we give thanks for the gift that God has given called motherhood through which God brings forth life. Sadly, not all mothers are good at raising their children once they have come out of the womb. Some try hard and make mistakes, some don’t try to be good mothers at all which is among the worst mistakes, and some women do not understand that to conceive a child is a great gift and make the mistake and sin of aborting the life of their child.
Furthermore, we know that taking care of the child is not just about what you do after the child is out of the womb, but how to take care of the child while it is yet, unborn, within the womb is very important. What foods should a mother eat to feed its child through her body: supplements, exercise, taking care of the body, making sure that bad substances are not taken in, lest it affect the child being formed. Now they say, avoid recreational drugs, smoking, low nutrient foods and both mother and child will fare better.
This is where Jesus’ words to the disciples apply to us, as we exist in our current life and situation as members of that body of the church militant. We speak of ourselves as Sons and daughters of God and indeed we are. As St. John says in the epistle this morning: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”
The life that we live now in our relation to God is kind of like the relation of an unborn child in relation to his mother and father. We were conceived by the Holy Spirit by the Word of God into belief and faith, attached to the womb of the Church by Holy Baptism in Christ’s blood, and we receive ongoing sustenance from the umbilical cord of the liturgy and the Sacrament of the Altar, and through the Word of God spoken in and through our mother of the church, we also hear the voice of our Father. We have not yet seen Him face to face. We are still being formed for what is yet to come. We are yet, weak and unable to breathe the pure air of holiness with perfectly constructed body and soul that we shall receive after the labor and birth pangs of the judgement of this world.
As we live in this world and this life and we look to the world to come and ponder its mysteries, it really is like a child in the womb who lives and if possible could ponder what life outside the womb may be. But ponder as it may, it cannot fully conceive the idea of sunshine, breathing air through lungs, eating food though the mouth, or any of the other things that we on this side of our earthly mother’s womb know. So the joys of heaven remain somewhat a mystery.
As we remain in the womb of the Church, Christ’s bride, we receive a foretaste of that joy as our knowledge of God in Jesus Christ is ever growing and maturing. What we are right now as people of sinful flesh and bone is different than what we will be. Though differently from what exactly happens in the womb of our earthly mothers, God is forming us and fashioning us. We are now weak, and we cannot take care of ourselves as we ought. We sin, we see the labor pangs of the devil and the world pressing about us and we fail. We think upon death and the different life that we are being trained for and we fear and tremble and sorrow. We wriggle and fight. We momentarily despair that our heavenly Father will not bring us safely through the trials and travails of this world. We wonder if truly He sees us. Again as a child in the womb has no knowledge of the ultrasound images that its parents sees, we are ignorant of how much better God sees us and has mercy upon us and is taking care of us even now.
From Psalm 139 we declare:
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
Dear Brothers and sisters in Christ, God has created, formed and named us with His name. He sent Jesus Christ to die for you to forgive you of your sins and to give you eternal life. Look at the miracle that is your physical body, despite its taint of sin, it is a miracle and wonder and He has redeemed it for the sake of Christ crucified for something even better. It is already being made more perfect as you receive from Him grace, mercy, forgiveness of sins, here in His Word, here with His body and blood. God is ever faithful and bountiful in goodness to you and for you in Christ.
Rejoice, be of good cheer, though there may be times when the Church Militant cries out in pain, the labor of this life and these trials are very short compared to the eternity that is yet to come. Remember death is swallowed up in Christ’s Victorious Resurrection. You are by faith in Jesus Christ appointed to eternal life, soul and body. As Jesus said, “so also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
In the meantime, look to the cross and the empty tomb. As it is written “they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not grow faint. God’s understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.”
Grow in Him and be formed by Him in His strength, abiding in the womb of His church. Hear His voice and have peace and joy now until we are delivered to heavenly birth in eternal life. There we shall see Him face to face and live with Him in an everlasting innocence, righteousness, and blessedness in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Pr. Aaron Kangas