Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. Isaiah 12:4

Does it ever occur to you—even in a moment of intense revelation—that women usually come out on the short end of the stick? From the day when Adam pointed an accusing finger at Eve and cried, “She took of the fruit and I did eat of it” to the present, women get blamed for many if not most of the things that men do. Growing up I used to hear my dad say, “Ruby, what did you do with those car keys!” when Dad had left them in the pants he had thrown in the wash or mislaid them.

If you question the premise I just suggested, notice how many men walk through the door, having finished an eight-hour shift at work, and plop down in a comfortable chair, while the wives, who have put in the same number of hours including packing lunches and fixing breakfast, immediately do duty in the kitchen and do it fast lest they hear a growl asking, “When is dinner going to be ready?”

No wonder most women, having done the Christmas shopping, the cookies, and having fixed the angel wings on a kid’s costume for the Christmas play, sigh, “Thank God, it’s over!”

Yet—and are you ready for this to turn the corner?—a young woman’s body became an incubator-chapel as the greatest miracle of all times was enacted. The very son of God, the one who had participated in the creation of the world, the one whose existence was described as “from everlasting to everlasting,” was nurtured for nine months in the womb of God’s choice—a woman known as Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Yes, I know that the focus of Christmas is on the baby that was born at Bethlehem and placed in a manger—probably a stone trough where cattle were fed—at His birth. Yet, I have been thinking of Christmas from the mother’s frame of reference. Three times I stood by the side of my wife as she endured labor, and the word “endure” doesn’t do justice to the 22 hours of pain as our first born came into the world. Today epidurals and spinal blocks along with medication make childbirth easier; however, for Mary, the wife of Joseph, there was no hospital, no midwife, nothing to make the birth of her first-born any easier.

Pain was part of that birthing experience, and pain is part of both the beginning and ending of life. It is also part of the experience of salvation. Through pain, life is born and life brings hope and joy. I think Paul was pondering this very issue when he wrote to Timothy and said, “Women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety” (1 Timothy 2:15). Yet, actually Paul did not write “women” in the plural, but “a woman,” and I believe that woman was Mary, who brought forth the Son of God.

Every baby is a gift from God. It’s His way of saying, “Life must go on!” and the coming of this marvelous gift of life brought salvation and healing to mankind. He’s the one who understands heartache and touches the hearts and lives of those who suffer.

I also believe that Jesus Christ understood and empathized with the plight of women who are abused, rejected, and used—something that outside of Christianity is almost universal. You see this in the conversations Jesus had with women, their prominence in His ministry, and in His break with culture and tradition in recognizing them as equals in marriage, and partners in ministry! There would have been no Bethlehem experience had God not chosen a woman through whom His Son could become flesh and dwell among us.

Resource reading: Matthew 1:18-25.