I'm taking a week's break from reading Morning Prayer daily in order to read through the book of Romans (and to just take a break. I figure a vacation from MP will be the sort of vacation that makes me realize, once it's over, how happy I am to be back home). It's the moody time of month, which is annoying (I hate being mad or weepy at every little thing), but today I discovered that though the downside of PMS is that it makes me more sensitive, the upside of PMS is that it makes me more sensitive. Reading Romans 8 this morning, I was tearing up reading over how I'm allowed to call God "Abba, Father" because of Christ's great act of love for us.
Anyway, the other thing I noticed, and not for the first time, is how commonly "the pains of childbirth" or "like the pains of a woman in labor" is used as a metaphor in the scriptures. When I was pregnant, I'd read these words with forboding. Instead of making me think that the tribulation must be pretty horrible if you could compare it to childbirth, I'd sit there thinking that childbirth must be pretty horrible if you could compare it to the tribulation. (And I was right. Ha!)
But, on reading Romans 8 today, and not being pregnant (as far as I know), the idea of creation "groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time" struck me differently. It struck me less as terror-inducing metaphor, and more as kindly explanation. The "pains of childbirth" are - know ye all - really, truly awful. Terrible, horrible, entire body-wrenching pain. And I see how you can compare life in this present world to that and be completely right. I mean, have you read the news recently? Heard about Sudan? the persecution of Christians in North Korea? Closer yet, heard recently of murders, suicide, abuse? Homelessness, cancer? Yes, terrible, horrible, entire-life-consuming pain.
So here's why I find Romans 8:22 a kindly explanation. Because it lets you know that the pain will have a purpose. Yes, it's fallen and messed up that there has to be pain to produce a child. But since we live in a fall and messed up world, it's nice to know - when you're in labor - that the pain is going to have a good result. Given that you're in the middle of it, and that's just so and you don't have any choice at this point but to be in the middle of it, isn't it nice to know the ending? Isn't it hope that lets us endure? It is kind, I think, of Paul, to let us know that it's not going to be pain, pain, pain, death. Or even just pain, pain, pain, pain ad infinitum. (Anyone here every give birth and not, at some point, a) think you were going to die and/or b) think it was never going to end?) No, it is to be pain, pain, pain, life.
And, as we learned in The Princess Bride, "Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."
Paul's not selling something. He's not lying about the pain. He's saying that this world is constantly in pain as bad as a woman in labor, and boy-howdy, that's pain. But he is giving us the hope that the pain is going to be as productive as that of a woman in labor. And, boy-howdy, that's hope. Thanks be to God.
peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell
3 comments:
Jessica, that is a beautiful, thought provoking essay. Thank you for posting it.
I read through Romans a couple months ago and I remember being struck by that exact same revelation at that same point. It is easy to focus on the pain, rather than thinking it through to promise of fruition - but it is that promise that makes the analogy so perfect, not the pain. And thanks be to God for that promise!
I found that labor and giving birth brought the life giving nature of the cross starkly before my eyes. I think I had always focused so much on the dying of Jesus for me, but its so much more than that. The dying and suffering and pain of Jesus was for the purpose of giving life. And the same dying to myself had to take place in giving birth. I had to make the decision, to say yes to a new life, and no to the comforts of my own flesh, to die to myself. I was quite overpowerd by this death in myself, and so desperately grateful for the willing suffering of Christ to give me life. And grateful to God for giving me a glimpse of his own nature and sacrifice. Amen to Romans. Some day I'm going to try and memorize it, after I've had a good nights sleep.
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