“We are all meant to be mothers of God,

 for God is always needing to be born." 

(Meister Eckhart)

This quote from Meister Eckhart challenges me. Mary was called to give birth to Jesus. But I, too, am called to give birth to Christ in my reality. We are not just celebrating a past reality but are being invited to participate now in something unbelievably awe-inspiring. 

What God desires to birth in and through me is in the reality of this time and place. Living in South Africa at the end of 2022, I am placed in a complex and messy fact of corruption, load-shedding, an extreme gap between rich and poor and a struggling economy. I am in a situation where many people feel trapped, overwhelmed and lacking in hope. 

Mary gave birth to Jesus in a time of great political instability, where people were oppressed under Roman occupation. Circumstances were not ideal for giving birth. She was away from home and the support of her mother; there was no room at the inn, so they had to make do. Threatened by Herod, not long after the birth, she will have to flee with the young child to safety in Egypt. 

There is nothing ideal or easy about this giving birth. And yet it is Christ who is our hope. So how do I give birth to Christ? How do I give birth to love, peace and hope in the days and weeks ahead? 

First, perhaps by attending to what God has planted within me, nurturing the deep desires and longings God has placed there. By giving gestational time and protection for the new life growing within. 

Also, by allowing myself to be filled with Christ's love and taking time to soak in the experience of God looking at me with compassionate love. And then to ask that this love may spill over into my encounters with others in the messy, broken reality in which I find myself. That, in moments of presence to family, friends, colleagues and strangers, I may birth something of Christ’s joy and peace, even and especially in the chaos and confusion. As Eckhart says: "We recognise that when our actions flow from the centre of our being, a maternal quality of fruitfulness arises from within. Birthing becomes a metaphor for the reality of God that is already in us to come to life."

I invite you, especially as we draw near to Christmas in these final days, to bask in God's compassionate gaze and be filled with Christ's gift of love. 

Loving God,

May my pregnancy with the life of Christ,

bring to birth anew your Christ-life in the messiness of my reality. 

Amen