A Labor of Love

To the woman he said, "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.  Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."  To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat from it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.  Genesis 3:16-17

My job requires me to do pre-employment  physical examinations for local employers (pre-placement exams if you know about the Americans with Disabilities Act).  A few days ago, I was looking over an applicant's exam form when my eye caught his occupation – "laborer".  It caused me to pause and think - you know, truth be known, we are all laborers.  Whether we clean septic tanks, oversee multibillion dollar organizations, or chase protons around the Hadron Collider in Switzerland, "through painful toil, we eat food from the ground."

Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, was a laborer.  He made furniture for the people of Nazareth.  For at least 15 years Jesus labored as a furniture maker himself, before setting out as an itinerant rabbi.  Jesus' first disciples were also laborers.  Most of them were fisherman, drawing their livelihoods, not from the cursed ground, but from the Sea of Galilee.

Because of Eve, childbirth also generally follows a course of painful labor.  The process of natural human childbirth is hard work, and not without its share of discomfort.  Most moms, however, quickly forget the pain and hard work (at least within a few years).

Even dying can require labor.  I've had the opportunity to be present at the deaths of several patients and family members.  The final hours of the natural dying process with the changes in respiration and circulation often represent the final labor of the dying person.  This is no more evident than in the crucifixion death of Jesus, where His body labored to end the pain.

So, labor is always with us – at birth, during life, and often at death.  We are indeed all laborers.  Advent, however, is when we celebrate the labor of a teenage girl in a stable in Bethlehem 2000 years ago.  We thank you Mary for your labor of love.

May the peace of that Baby in a manger, the fruit of Mary's labor, be with you this Christmas.  Rest from your own labor.  Celebrate Emmanuel!
RBL