A silent, holy, messy night
Reflections of the birth of Jesus.
Thought
I have watched our five children be born. 4 in-person and 1 via video call because I was awaiting my visa to arrive for the United States. Cassandra fortunately has had very textbook, and by many standards easy labors and delivery. I say easy very cautiously because I don’t know what childbirth feels like and none of it could be called “easy”.
But when I hear the tales and even horrors of other people’s pregnancies and deliveries, I think Cassandra’s were comparatively straightforward, without complication.
But even though this is the case, childbirth, even in our very sterile and put together hospitals is a very messy business. Labor, especially natural labor, is hard.
Whilst childbirth truly is a wonder to watch. My mind often reflects upon the birth of Jesus Christ all those years ago in what must have been a dirty and dusty barn devoid of all the comforts and equipment so readily at our disposal today.
Even if Mary’s delivery of Jesus was textbook and all went well, it would still have been messy and dirty and uncomfortable. Sometimes I wonder how helpful it is that we gloss over the implications of what we are reading. We see and watch glossy versions of that event.
There is no reason that acknowledging and even portraying the realities of that night should make it any less silent and holy.
Quote.
Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order f nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find you have excluded life itself.
- C.S. Lewis (The Problem of Pain, p.25)