Advent lessons from the pregnant women
Although it’s a crazy, busy time of year, I love Advent. I love it for all of its wondrous, yet not quite realized, images of anticipation, waiting, pregnancy, and birth. Christianity has never fully embraced these concepts, probably because so much about them is grounded in the experience of women. Instead, Christianity has often found itself relying on starkly contrasting views of women—on the one hand, the perfect almost not quite human female, epitomized by Mary mother of Jesus, and on the other hand, the prostitute, like Mary of Magdala (although there’s no actual evidence that she was a prostitute).
Despite its best attempts to minimize the significance of women in the created order, Advent is chock-full of concepts that are very much a part of the experiences of many women. Although the church has spent little time reflecting deeply and expansively on the images of pregnant women in scripture, such as Mary and Elizabeth, these stories offer meaningful and rewarding opportunities through which all Christians should consider their lives of faith.
As I suspect both Mary and Elizabeth experienced, pregnancy can be amazing and wondrous, but it can also be difficult, uncomfortable, and unpleasant. It’s difficult to describe what it’s like to have an actual human being growing inside one’s body. It’s miraculous and mind-boggling. But, pregnancy can also include lots of other experiences as well, among them morning sickness (mine went on well beyond morning and lasted for many months), a body that feels increasingly unfamiliar, the middle of the night kicking of the growing child (why the middle of the night?), and exhaustion.
