I
was present at the birth of all three of my children. Susannah, our first, was
born at the hospital, in a brand-new maternity wing. Noah and Elijah were both
born at home. We benefitted from a one-to-one midwife system, where we saw the
same midwife throughout pregnancy, labour, giving birth, and for follow-up
care. At the hospital, Jo had made use of a birthing pool to relieve labour
pain. She had found it so helpful that we took advantage of the midwives’
scheme of delivering inflatable birthing pools for home births. Both Noah and
Elijah were born in such pools at home. So not only was I present, but I was
actively involved, in inflating and filling the pools, and regulating the water
temperature. It just so happened that when Jo went into labour with Noah, one
mid-January, our boiler broke down. I borrowed electric urns from our church kitchen
and had pans of water boiling on all our oven hobs!
I
am led to believe that my experience of childbirth as a man puts me very much
in the minority, historically. Most fathers have been kept out of the room, out
from under the women’s feet. Our best understanding of Luke’s account of Jesus’
birth is that Mary gave birth in the main room of a family home, attended to by
her husband’s female relatives and most likely a couple of other women who
fulfilled the role of midwives to the community; while Joseph, along with any
other male relatives, waited anxiously in the smaller guest room he and Mary
were staying in at the time.
Of
course, the adult Jesus would have no conscious memory of his own birth; but he
would no doubt be familiar with childbirth, as would his disciples. For the
majority of humanity, birth has always taken place in the home, and has almost
always come with genuine uncertainty, and therefore anxiety, as to whether
mother and child will both survive. For the majority of humanity, the moments
surrounding birth have been those where men – whether the father or any other
relative – have found themselves most helpless, most dependent on women, most
returned to their own infancy. For the majority of humanity, birth is both a
familiar everyday event and a significant crisis. And one where, if it goes
well, the men benefit from something they did not bring about.
In
our passage from the Gospel According to
John, we listened-in on Jesus talking to his disciples on the night before
his death. But the context – and in particular, the verses immediately
preceding our reading – makes it clear that Jesus is not simply trying to
prepare them for his death and resurrection. Indeed, how could they prepare for
what lay just ahead? But more than that, Jesus is trying to convey something of
what will be brought-about through those events. And the best way of putting it
that the greatest communicator who ever lived could find is to compare it to
childbirth.
Something
new is about to be birthed. They won’t get to witness it. The process will remain
for them a mystery. They will play no part in making it come about, other than
the clumsy awkwardness of betrayal and denial and desertion and standing
utterly bereft at the foot of the cross and standing at the threshold of the
tomb unsure of what to do next, and being dependent on a woman to bring them
news. They will play no part in making it come about; but they will get to benefit
from it. They will get to rejoice, with joy that no-one can take from them.
What
is this new thing that is about to be birthed? It is one-ness with the Father –
a heavenly Father who is not at a remove in heaven, in the next room so-to-speak.
Jesus is both ‘going to the Father’ and, in so doing, making the way for us to experience
that one-ness too, not just in some future point but in the here-and-now.
In
this regard, we are all men, whether male or female, and whether we have given
birth or not (just as in another context we might speak of being, corporately,
the bride of Christ, whether we are female or male). We don’t make one-ness
with God come about through our efforts, our labour. We are simply recipients
and beneficiaries. True, we might experience pain, though not alone, for the Father
who would be with Jesus in his pain is consequently with us. And the deepest
response is rejoicing.
We
find ourselves on the other side of the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
(and, indeed, on the other side of his ascension, though we’ll come to that
next month). The question we are presented with is this: are our lives
remarkable on account of joy that is not dependent on circumstance?
If
so, we shall rejoice indeed. If not, Jesus continues, instructing us ‘Ask and
you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.’
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