Rebellious Midwives and A New Creation: A Mother's Day Reflection
Reading: Exodus 1
“So, do you have any kids?”
I get this question a lot.
I don’t know if it’s my age, my gender, or the dark circles under my eyes, but people seem to think I could be a Mom. I don’t mind the question, really. It’s usually parents asking, and I get the sense that it’s more a question of solidary ala, "Are you in the trenches too? Have you fought in the toddler wars?” But, as of now, the answer for us is still “no.”
That being said, it seems like everyone we know is having babies. Adulthood, I’ve learned, unfolds in a series of waves.
First the marriages, then the jobs, then the babies…
Now that close friends are having kids, I am forced to hear the nitty gritty details of what it’s like to be pregnant and give birth. No offense Moms, but it’s the stuff of nightmares. I'm convinced that the greatest thing our Mom’s do for us is pretending that having us was no big deal; pleasant even. They should give out academy award for those theatrics.
But now, now, I know the truth! Labor is painful and scary and long and sorta gross... And some women choose to do this not once, but multiple times! Amazing.
Of course, there are other people involved in this whole giving birth thing. People like dads, doctors, and nurses, and there are countless books and videos with all the information you could ever want to know about having a baby. But before there were hospitals, OBGYNs, and exponential volumes of “What to EExpect When You're Expecting,” there were midwives.
A midwife is a person (typically a woman) who is trained to assist women in childbirth. They can help you make a birth plan, give informed medical advice, teach you ways to deal with the pain, and support you emotionally through the whole process. But most importantly, midwives know it can be done. They have helped hundreds - maybe even thousands- of women give birth before and because of this they know you can do it too.
Many people today still rely on the wisdom and skill of midwives. And I have to admit, maybe it’s the Bible nerd in me, but whenever a pregnant friend of ours hires a midwife I think about the story Shiphrah and Puah in Exodus chapter one. It’s easy to miss these two characters in the sweeping narrative of Exodus, but without them the story of the Israelites would have ended in tragedy.
As the story goes, after the death of Joseph (as in the technicolor dreamcoat) the Israelites find themselves enslaved to the Egyptian Pharaoh. They are without land and without power except that their population is growing rapidly! Soon there will be more Israelites than Egyptians, and in turn, more slaves than slave masters. Pharaoh, perceiving this impending threat to his power, orders the countries midwives to kill every baby boy born to Israelite families.
Imagine a country where rapidly changing demographics scare the powerful enough to enact such inhumane policies. Thank God these are just stories, right?
Shiphrah and Puah are faced with the precarious choice between rebelling against the pharaoh and allowing new life to enter the world.
So how do they decide?
Well, the text tells us; verse 17 says: “The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do…”
I recently heard a preacher say that when it comes to faith, it’s important to align the right verbs with right nouns. In other words, the midwives feared who? Pharaoh? No. The Midwives feared God. And the word here we translate as “fear” really means something like “to stand in awe,” “to revere.” The midwives stood in awe of God and did not do what the King of Egypt commanded. Which just goes to show, sometimes bringing something new into the world requires a little bit of rebellion.
Interestingly, the images of birth and midwifery echo throughout the rest of scripture. The apostle Paul is particularly drawn to these images when describing the work of discipleship and the in-breaking of God’s kingdom on earth.
In his letter to the Galatian church he writes, “Oh my dear children, I feel as if I am going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives” (4:19). And in his letter to the Roman church, Paul says “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
But before Paul even gets on the seen, John’s Gospel (chapter 3) recounts a conversations between Jesus and a pharisee named Nicodemus, whom Jesus tells “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again they cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Respectul of the countless ways men and fathers reveal the character of God, I think mothers and midwives have something unique to teach us about who God is and what God has in store for each of us.
Our world is PREGNANT with possibilities for God’s redeeming love to come in a change lives, and all you need do is look at the news to realize that the labor pains have already begun.
We groan in expectation of the new thing that God is doing. A kingdom that is present and yet still to come. This labor can be painful and it can be long, but we are the midwives of God’s kingdom. We come alongside the hurting, those in desperate need of new birth and we say “breathe… breathe... You can do it… I am right here with you…”
Those of us who have loved back to life by this Jesus know that the work can be done. It’s come to fruition in our own lives, so we know you can do it too. And like the Israelites, there is no stopping us! The powers will conspire and try to incite fear, but God’s people will continue to multiply and multiply.
In recognition of Mothers everywhere, I challenge you to consider what new thing God is trying to birth in you? What is holding you back and might it be that these are simply labor pains, signs that something new is on the way?
Or are you a Shiphrah or a Puah, holy conspirators called to walk alongside vulnerable people? For if it was not for these God-fearing women there might never have been a Moses, or a David, a Ruth or an Esther, a Jeremiah or a Mary, or perhaps even a Jesus.
So let’s celebrate Moms and all those people who stand alongside laboring people for they remind us, in the words of Psalm 30, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”
“So, do you have any kids?”
I get this question a lot.
I don’t know if it’s my age, my gender, or the dark circles under my eyes, but people seem to think I could be a Mom. I don’t mind the question, really. It’s usually parents asking, and I get the sense that it’s more a question of solidary ala, "Are you in the trenches too? Have you fought in the toddler wars?” But, as of now, the answer for us is still “no.”
That being said, it seems like everyone we know is having babies. Adulthood, I’ve learned, unfolds in a series of waves.
First the marriages, then the jobs, then the babies…
Now that close friends are having kids, I am forced to hear the nitty gritty details of what it’s like to be pregnant and give birth. No offense Moms, but it’s the stuff of nightmares. I'm convinced that the greatest thing our Mom’s do for us is pretending that having us was no big deal; pleasant even. They should give out academy award for those theatrics.
But now, now, I know the truth! Labor is painful and scary and long and sorta gross... And some women choose to do this not once, but multiple times! Amazing.
Of course, there are other people involved in this whole giving birth thing. People like dads, doctors, and nurses, and there are countless books and videos with all the information you could ever want to know about having a baby. But before there were hospitals, OBGYNs, and exponential volumes of “What to EExpect When You're Expecting,” there were midwives.
A midwife is a person (typically a woman) who is trained to assist women in childbirth. They can help you make a birth plan, give informed medical advice, teach you ways to deal with the pain, and support you emotionally through the whole process. But most importantly, midwives know it can be done. They have helped hundreds - maybe even thousands- of women give birth before and because of this they know you can do it too.
Many people today still rely on the wisdom and skill of midwives. And I have to admit, maybe it’s the Bible nerd in me, but whenever a pregnant friend of ours hires a midwife I think about the story Shiphrah and Puah in Exodus chapter one. It’s easy to miss these two characters in the sweeping narrative of Exodus, but without them the story of the Israelites would have ended in tragedy.
As the story goes, after the death of Joseph (as in the technicolor dreamcoat) the Israelites find themselves enslaved to the Egyptian Pharaoh. They are without land and without power except that their population is growing rapidly! Soon there will be more Israelites than Egyptians, and in turn, more slaves than slave masters. Pharaoh, perceiving this impending threat to his power, orders the countries midwives to kill every baby boy born to Israelite families.
Imagine a country where rapidly changing demographics scare the powerful enough to enact such inhumane policies. Thank God these are just stories, right?
Shiphrah and Puah are faced with the precarious choice between rebelling against the pharaoh and allowing new life to enter the world.
So how do they decide?
Well, the text tells us; verse 17 says: “The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do…”
I recently heard a preacher say that when it comes to faith, it’s important to align the right verbs with right nouns. In other words, the midwives feared who? Pharaoh? No. The Midwives feared God. And the word here we translate as “fear” really means something like “to stand in awe,” “to revere.” The midwives stood in awe of God and did not do what the King of Egypt commanded. Which just goes to show, sometimes bringing something new into the world requires a little bit of rebellion.
Interestingly, the images of birth and midwifery echo throughout the rest of scripture. The apostle Paul is particularly drawn to these images when describing the work of discipleship and the in-breaking of God’s kingdom on earth.
In his letter to the Galatian church he writes, “Oh my dear children, I feel as if I am going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives” (4:19). And in his letter to the Roman church, Paul says “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
But before Paul even gets on the seen, John’s Gospel (chapter 3) recounts a conversations between Jesus and a pharisee named Nicodemus, whom Jesus tells “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again they cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Respectul of the countless ways men and fathers reveal the character of God, I think mothers and midwives have something unique to teach us about who God is and what God has in store for each of us.
Our world is PREGNANT with possibilities for God’s redeeming love to come in a change lives, and all you need do is look at the news to realize that the labor pains have already begun.
We groan in expectation of the new thing that God is doing. A kingdom that is present and yet still to come. This labor can be painful and it can be long, but we are the midwives of God’s kingdom. We come alongside the hurting, those in desperate need of new birth and we say “breathe… breathe... You can do it… I am right here with you…”
Those of us who have loved back to life by this Jesus know that the work can be done. It’s come to fruition in our own lives, so we know you can do it too. And like the Israelites, there is no stopping us! The powers will conspire and try to incite fear, but God’s people will continue to multiply and multiply.
In recognition of Mothers everywhere, I challenge you to consider what new thing God is trying to birth in you? What is holding you back and might it be that these are simply labor pains, signs that something new is on the way?
Or are you a Shiphrah or a Puah, holy conspirators called to walk alongside vulnerable people? For if it was not for these God-fearing women there might never have been a Moses, or a David, a Ruth or an Esther, a Jeremiah or a Mary, or perhaps even a Jesus.
So let’s celebrate Moms and all those people who stand alongside laboring people for they remind us, in the words of Psalm 30, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”
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