(4.) Women and Children First: God’s Son Had a Human Mother

(4.) Women and Children First: God’s Son Had a Human Mother. 

“You formed my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside and my intricate outside, and wove them all together in my mother’s womb. I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex! Everything you do is marvelously breathtaking. It simply amazes me to think about it! How thoroughly you know me, Lord. You even formed every bone in my body when you created me in the secret place… carefully, skillfully, shaping me from nothing to something. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance. You saw who you created me to be before I became an embryo! (Psalm 139:13-16, a psalm of David; TPT). 

Every Womb is Sacred. The mother’s womb isn’t that difficult to define. The womb is the physical organ of the woman that is constructed of muscles and ligaments and blood vessels that encircle the fetus, making a safe place for the unborn baby to grow and develop within the pregnant mother; a protected shelter that completely surrounds the growing child in the womb; a quiet and peaceful refuge, a nourishing sanctuary, and a life-giving haven for the developing unborn baby; the protective barrier that guards the growing fetus from outside danger.

Safe Space. Creator God designed a safe place within each woman’s body to offer safe harbor to a growing baby when the woman is pregnant. This womb is of course necessary for a fetus to bond with its mother, to develop in peace, to be enveloped in loving nourishment, to grow in the security and trust needed to develop in a healthy way. This secure shelter within the pregnant woman prepares the baby to grow to the point where it will survive outside the womb. In the womb, the unborn baby is literally surrounded by a divinely designed system to protect and feed and cherish the child within her. The woman’s womb is the sanctuary in which the strongest human bond of love is established, the bond between mother and child.

Mercy-Womb. Womb is one of the root words for mercy in the Hebrew Bible. The word “rachem” is translated in Scripture as mercy, compassion, and womb. In the Hebrew mind, the womb is much more than the sacred place in a woman that enables the unborn baby to safely develop till birth. Womb also became a metaphor for mercy because of its linguistic roots. The Hebrew word rachem is intended to mean mercy-womb. God formed each of us with rachem when we were mere unborns, and we were conceived and nourished within His rachem, the mother’s mercy-womb. The baby within the woman is the ideal time to extend God’s compassion to that human being inside of her. The developing baby utterly depends on a mercy-womb. And God wants Himself to be experienced as our womb-sanctuary, our safe place in Him, our refuge and shelter. God Himself yearns to be experienced as a womb of mercy for each of us, a refuge and shelter and safe haven. The purpose of our lives is to live in God’s rachem, God’s womb of love.

The Unique Conception. “And the angel Gabriel said to Mary, ‘Rejoice, highly favored one, full of grace! The Lord is with you; blessed are you among women. Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And Behold! You will conceive in your womb and give birth to a baby boy, a Son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High.” (Luke 1:28-32).

Gabriel’s Message :: Good Shepherd Band (youtube.com)

Mary’s Womb. In the fullness of time, Isaiah’s prophecy became true: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14). The angel Gabriel was sent from God’s presence to an unmarried girl, most likely a teenager, who was a virgin. This young lady was named Mary, which means “exalted one.” Mary lived in Nazareth, a little village in the Galilee district of Israel. Mary was betrothed to a man named Joseph. Both of them were descendants of King David. In Jewish marriage, a couple becomes betrothed as they commit themselves to a future marriage. Betrothal was a very formal contract and not a mere engagement period that could be easily called off at any moment. Betrothal was a binding commitment to a covenant relationship. Most betrothals lasted one year, and unfaithfulness on the part of the bride during betrothal brought drastic consequences, even death. A pregnancy during betrothal would have been horribly scandalous and deeply shameful. Unless the baby’s father agreed to marry the woman, she would likely remain unmarried for her entire life. And if her father rejected her, she would be removed from her home and she would have to beg or prostitute herself to make a living.

Pregnant with Jesus. True to the announcement of the angel, Mary indeed was made pregnant by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Holy God. The Spirit fell upon Mary and spread His shadow of power over her, hovering over her like a pure white dove. And this was the deep mystery that resulted in a momentous conception within Mary. Jesus had no human father, but He had a heavenly Father, and so Jesus has been called the Son of God ever since. And Jesus will reign as King of Israel forever, and “of His kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:33). Jesus Christ, fully divine from God, fully human from Mary His mother. The whole of Christianity comes down to this intimate moment of conception between Mary and the Holy Spirit.

The Thin Place of Mary’s Womb. “The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t know that). Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.  While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God’s angel spoke in the dream: ‘Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to get married. Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God’s Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus – ‘God saves’ – because he will save his people from their sins.’ Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God’s angel commanded in the dream. He married Mary. But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus.”  (Matthew 1:18-25, Message; also notice a description of the conception process in Luke 1:35: “The Holy Spirit will fall upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you with the bright cloud of His presence.”

More Spacious Than the Heavens! There is an ancient Eastern Orthodox prayer that celebrates “this paradoxical mystery in which our God, who created the universe, whom the cosmos cannot contain, was contained within the Virgin’s womb as He became Man in His incarnation.” … ‘O sanctified Temple and Rational Paradise! O Glory of Virgins! From you, God was incarnate and became a child, our God before the ages. He made your body into a throne, and your womb He made more spacious than the heavens. All of creation rejoices in you, O Full of Grace!”  What a majestic and (literally) awesome thought!

Mary, the first literal “Christian,” Christ literally within her, the first human tabernacle containing the Holy of Holies, the womanly Ark of the Covenant harboring the Word made flesh, the human branch bearing a heavenly Fruit, the Holy Gate that welcomed the Spirit of Yahweh to enter into her most intimate place and begin an unprecedented, unrepeatable new Life within her. Mary, who responsibly, carefully, and lovingly nurtured the unborn Savior inside of her, right on through to the bloody birth pangs when she introduced the physical, human God to the world:

• At conception, when Jesus was a one-cell zygote, a fertilized egg, when His genetic framework was established, his gender is set, and is now programmed to develop into a unique individual with trillions of cells; when God “empties Himself” into the human experience; Julian of Norwich called His conception “God in a point.” All this in a fraction of a second, when a spiritual seed united with a human egg. It is here we begin to see the weak and helpless God, vulnerable, and completely dependent on a human mother;
• Week 1 = The embryo of Jesus becomes attached to Mary’s uterine wall;
• Week 2 = Christ’s early brain begins to appear, as well as His heart;
• Week 3 = The blood vessels of Jesus begin to appear, and His heart begins to beat;
• Weeks 4/5 = The embryo of Jesus has His eyes and lungs appear, His kidneys form, and the cerebral hemispheres of His brain develop; Mary’s umbilical cord starts developing, and is fully formed by week 7, the life-line between them that provides the unborn Jesus with oxygen-rich blood and nutrients, and carrying away his waste products;
• Weeks 6/7 = The brain waves of the Lord in the womb begin to pulsate, the heart has developed its four chambers, and His hands and feet and legs begin to move;
• Weeks 8/9 = In modern terms, Jesus is now officially a fetus, and He can now open His mouth, suck His thumb, and move His head around;
• Weeks 10-12 = Jesus can now make facial expressions, and a heavenly eyewitness could now see His fully formed nose, lips, and gender anatomy;
• Weeks 13-14 = The unborn body of Christ is now sensitive to touch;
• Weeks 15-20 = His brain’s hemispheres are now completely connected, He has stem cells in His bone marrow, and has a stress response to anything invasive;
• Weeks 21-24 = Jesus now has a blink/startle response to sudden loud noises;
• Weeks 25-30 = Jesus can now produce tears, react to light, and practice breathing movements for the near future;
• Weeks 31-40 = Jesus now shows preference for Mother Mary’s voice, is aware of new songs sung to Him, has evidence of memory function, and has the capacity for learning.

Is it possible to be Super-Sanctified? In Mary‘s sanctified womb that was literally full of the eternal Holy Spirit, Jesus grew and sanctified every stage of human development. In Jesus, all human stages of unborn life are now worthy of God Himself, His personal Presence, and somehow even His unborn life is involved in the mystery of redemption. Church Fathers maintained that Christ could only redeem that which He had personally experienced Himself. We can reasonably include the unborn life of Christ in that aspect of redemption. Whatever Jesus has experienced in His human life, from conception onward, has been elevated and made even more special in God’s eyes. If the mother’s womb was literally good enough for God, then it must be honored and held in reverence. Since the incarnate Jesus, all physical life has been raised to a new level, even within the womb. Anywhere and everywhere Jesus blessed the earth with His presence has been elevated to a new level of holiness, including the mother’s womb, the unborn child, and childhood itself.