Birth is Gross

Have you ever been in a delivery room? I was there for both my kids. I don’t like blood. Okay, and to be fair, with my second child I fell asleep and snored. Loudly. But I was awake for the big moment.

Now, I had a vague idea of how it all worked. There were contractions, an expansion of the birth canal, lots of pain and pushing, fluids come out, some blood, and the baby covered in grossness. I really and truly had no idea about the placenta. 🤢

Did I mention I’m not a fan of blood? At least I got to be a spectator and not a real participant other than cutting the cord. She did not have to have a c-section. I did not pass out. I might have gagged a bit.

We have two children. We had great insurance. We had a great doctor and the nurses were incredible. We had a sterile delivery room, lots of lights, and my wife got an epidural. My mother-in-law and father-in-law came. I got to go sleep at home so I wouldn’t snore and keep my wife up.

While you are all focusing on the election and many of you are raging against what you think is a stolen election or unfairness, there is a far more important matter for you to focus on.

Two thousand years ago, not in a hospital, but in a manger, surrounded by animals and waste, a small baby boy passed through a birth canal into the world connected by an umbilical cord to a placenta that had to be disposed of as he was cleaned up. The Creator of this entire universe squeezed out of his mother into the world and she had no epidural or doctor or nurse or sterile room.

It was not a silent night. He was a baby. He cried. Fully God, he was fully human too, complete with new baby Eau de Barnyard smell. A lot more blood flowed too — the blood of scores of children murdered in his place as he and his family fled to Egypt.

He came into the world so that you don’t have to fret about this temporary place so many idolize. Even now, he is smashing your idols so that you look more fully to him and less to this world.

The God of all things came down at Christmas and I encourage and implore you at we enter Advent Season to take a break from fretting, worrying, dread, and anger and appreciate how badly he wants the relationship with you that you are instead giving to other things in your life.

That baby would grow up, be tortured, beaten to an inch of His life, crucified, died, and buried all to restore this broken world and your relationship with His and your Father. He conquered death and He will be back.

He matters more than whatever it is you are worrying about right now. One day you will bow before Him whether you believe in Him or not.

So put your trust there, not here, in Him and not them and those other things. Rejoice and relax. God’s got this. He’s got you.