Continuing...
A long time ago, even in eternity past you and I were in the heart of the Trinity. This heart was like a womb for in order for something to be birthed there needs to be a womb. The full expression of this womb within God was found in Jesus.
The coming of Christ at Christmas was not only the beginning of His human life here on earth but it was also the coming of us in Him. For all of His life Jesus carried us within Himself. The days He experienced hardship, thirst, the heat of the desert, the cold winter rains, sweat and toil, times of rejection, sadness ~ these were all labor pains. Jesus wouldn't have traded these pains for anything for He dearly loved what He carried in His heart-womb, You and I. We were so special and precious to Him. He, Abba and Spirit delighted in the glorious secret growth of God's holy intention.
Jesus was the one Vine, the shoot of Jesse planted in the barren earth. He had yet many branches within, unseen to all the world. Jesus had great joy in His hidden knowledge and He longed for the day when that which was hidden would be revealed.
"I have a baptism to undergo. How I am longing for it to be accomplished."
"With great desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer."
So often people who did not understand who Jesus was and His hidden mystery tried to kill Him but that was before His time. Only a mother truly knows when it is time. Our mother Jesus knew when the time had come for us to be delivered.
"A woman when her times has come is sad because she knows she is about to deliver a child into the world. But once she has delivered her child her sadness turns into joy." Jesus said these words at the last supper, the night before His death. He announced His time had come.
He had carried us through eternity past, and into His incarnation, throughout all the days of His boyhood, even unto His manhood and now in the prime of His life the labor pains intensified. Throughout His Passion how terrible the oain.
The beatings
The lashing
The crowning of thorns
The mocking
The spitting
The carrying of the cross
The crucifixion
All during His contractions Jesus never lost focus of you and I. He knew and loved us as any good mother would love her child in the womb. He knew we would have days of great joy, days when we would experience a wonderful closeness with Him, days when we would be obedient, when we would learn and grow, but He also knew there would be days we would stumble and fall, days when we would disobey and throw temper tantrums wanting our own way. He even knew their would be days when we would distance ourselves from our good mother. Yet this knowledge did not in the least cause Jesus to say even for a second, "No the pain of their disobedience will be too much. If I can't have them absolutely perfect I will not go through with this birth."
No good mother would ever think such a thing, neither did Jesus.
One thing our heavenly mother Christ had which earthly mothers lack was the full knowledge of how we would look when we were all "grown up." Jesus saw our perfected state as well but He knew we could not be perfected unless we remained in Him. So our birth would have to be different than natural birth. We would have to remain intimately united to Him and utterly dependant on Him. How could this happen? What miracle would bring about this wonderous expression of His heart?
We will find out as we continue our meditation.
Jesus is my stretcher!
