Birthing presents us with a paradox as Advent draws towards Christmas. It is such an active word, conjuring up the creative energy, agency and force of one nurturing new life and giving birth. It conjures up for us the courage needed to bring to birth new human life shaped, borne and birthed by the body of another. Or artistic creativity which, though born in clay, paint, stone or words, still seems to be cast from the cells of its maker. We may think of scientific discovery and breakthrough, a labour of skill and insight, and bringing innovation – bringing hope. All tell us something about the labour of giving birth.
And we do labour as we give birth, whether to new stages of our lives, new ideas or new generations. Giving birth is a work which includes struggle and sweat, rupture and repair as the new emerges. But so too does it include surrender, because the very act of bringing new life into the world, also involves that moment when the balance tips and the one called to give birth surrenders to the energy of new life taking over and completing the work. That moment when a part of us whispers too loudly to be stilled; when ideas form so brightly and fully that they spill over; when the body can no longer hold in the infant who must move into the world.
And here is some of the paradox of this birthing. Emerging from waiting and accepting; carried in journeying which cannot be backtracked, the birthing of Advent is an active surrender to the new life of God growing within us. Advent invites us into the labour of open-hearted commitment to nurturing life in Christ and becoming vulnerable to the life-giving bruise of God’s loving challenge. But it finally requires us to grasp that, even as we do the work of nurturing God, it is God who is the shaper, creator and nurturer; the one who loves us into life; the originator of all birth and birthing.
Any number of Advent images invite us into this paradox of human labour and divine birth. One such image is Tissot’s painting of Mary with the infant Jesus. It shows us a glorious moment of wonder, love and an almost fearful veneration. Mary, swathed, bowed and adoring, looks at the new life as it lies uncontained before her, coursing through her (and our) world. There has been labour; there has been an opening of heart and body, and now in the vulnerability of this utterly dependent, utterly life-changing infant, there is new nurturing to be done, and a new life which will shape hers.
As Advent moves towards Christmas, may we ask ourselves about this time of birthing, and what is being called forth from us. And may we ask ourselves how we will meet the God who shapes us and calls us to surrender to new life.
The Revd Dr Carys Walsh is a priest in the Diocese of Peterborough, and formerly taught Christian Spirituality at St Mellitus College, the training college for Anglican clergy.