Heaven and Nature Sing: 5 Days to Reflect During AdventSýnishorn

When Mary answered the call of God with “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38),she agreed to a process that, in an earthly sense, had no guaranteed outcome. Beyond discomfort and pain, she also faced complications like preeclampsia, breech presentation, loss of blood, hemorrhaging of the uterine wall, and the ever-present threat of infection that could snatch her away even weeks after delivery.

Today in the developing world, such things rarely lead to death, but for most of history, death was a constant companion to birth without regard to class, education, or social status. Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr (two of Henry VIII’s six wives) died as a result of childbirth as did Mary Wollstonecraft, who passed after giving birth to Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Martha Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s wife, also succumbed from complications of childbirth, and poet Phillis Wheatley, the first woman and African American to be published in the New World, lies with her infant in an unmarked grave after she died the same way.

Not that Mary was unaware of the risks. She had undoubtedly known women lost in childbirth or at least heard the stories.

So when Mary’s hour comes, it comes with both expectation and uncertainty. And with the earth itself, she groans, longing to be delivered.

But Mary’s pain is not necessarily the point here—no more than any other suffering is an end in itself. Because in the wisdom of God, the child she gives birth to will reverse the very thing that threatens her. In the wisdom of God, childbirth itself will become one of the ways we understand the Promised Son’s work in the world and within us. In the wisdom of God, we will be reborn through faith in him.

Make no mistake. The pain is real. The danger is real. But so is faith in God’s promises, and so is the joy that follows. Because as soon as Luke tells us that Mary’s time has come, he also tells us that she gave birth.

After all the years, after all the waiting, after all the longing and disappointed dreams, after all the loss, all the pain, and all the struggle, the Promised Son is finally here. He has come. And faith is made sight.