“When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.”
When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a new being into the world — the analogy of childbirth captures the paradox of the cross: it is painful labor that brings forth new life. The woman's labor pains are real and intense, yet they are not mere suffering but creative pain, pain with purpose. Once the child is born, the pain is not erased from memory but is recontextualized; it becomes the price of joy rather than an isolated trauma. So too the disciples' suffering during the crucifixion becomes the gateway to resurrection joy.
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John 16:21
“When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.”
When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a new being into the world — the analogy of childbirth captures the paradox of the cross: it is painful labor that brings forth new life. The woman's labor pains are real and intense, yet they are not mere suffering but creative pain, pain with purpose. Once the child is born, the pain is not erased from memory but is recontextualized; it becomes the price of joy rather than an isolated trauma. So too the disciples' suffering during the crucifixion becomes the gateway to resurrection joy.
When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a new being into the world — the analogy of childbirth captures the paradox of the cross: it is painful labor that brings forth new life. The woman's labor pains are real and intense, yet they are not mere suffering but creative pain, pain with purpose. Once the child is born, the pain is not erased from memory but is recontextualized; it becomes the price of joy rather than an isolated trauma. So too the disciples' suffering during the crucifixion becomes the gateway to resurrection joy.