Introduction

Since shops are already putting up Christmas lights and radio stations are playing Christmas music, I thought it would be appropriate to consider this morning one of the prophetic birth passages of Isaiah.

(Read Isa. 66:7-13)

Oh, were you expecting something about a Virgin and Immanuel? Actually, birth imagery is all throughout Isaiah. Before we get too far in, I want to recognize for a moment that while pregnancy and childbirth and breastfeeding are joyous and celebratory, they also have the potential to be trauma inducing and painful for women to talk about or engage with.

We live in a fallen and broken world and this experience of bringing forth life has been inexorably tied together with discouragement, dysfunction, and death. Statistically speaking, the likelihood is that someone in this room has been personally or closely affected by infertility struggles or pregnancy loss of some sort. That loss, while it isn’t always shared with others, or mourned publicly, is a real loss.

When I was pregnant with both of my kids, I was obsessed with birth stories. With my son I listened to podcast episodes every time I was in the car. With my daughter I binged a Canadian reality show/docu series that followed different women in their labors and deliveries. I wanted to know everything I possibly could about this event that was going to take place. I think I felt like if I saw and heard every possible situation, I would be more able to predict what would happen to myself. I would have some sort of control. Of course, that’s not how anything ever happens.

With my first pregnancy I had all sorts of confidence. I had done a 12-week childbirth class, we toured the hospital, I read books and listened to podcast episodes ...