To be properly po-mo, I really need to go here with my minor character spin-offs. So today’s minor characters are, The Wombs.

No, I’m not kidding.

So anyway, the wombs. There’s a fair bit of action going on in them. Let’s pick it up at the end of Mary’s conversation with the angel, who has just told her that she will give birth to “The Son of the Most High.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea,where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

Look at all that action in the wombs of these two women! The Holy Spirit, making the baby, Jesus in Mary’s womb. John the Baptist in the womb, presumably filled with The Holy Spirit, jumping around in response to the arrival of Jesus in the womb.

It’s phenomenal!

Wombs actually get talked about a fair bit in The Bible and not in a sexist manner, in my opinion. They’re dealt with in a very natural and normal way, as though a normal part of a woman’s life – because they are.

They are also spoken about in such a manner that it is evident that God himself is active within them. This is made clear in a psalm:

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

God is active in the womb, for every baby.

We see that clearly in these passages of The Bible. And yes, I know what you’re thinking: Is Christmas really the time to bring out your anti-abortion stance?

I’m not bringing it out. It’s there in the pages of The Bible. See these wombs; they’re so life giving. The Holy Spirit is there active within them, bringing life also.

I’m not here to stuff a message down your throat. I just want to encourage you to read those passages again and ask God to show you what he thinks about the womb.

They aren’t really that minor a character. After all, we each started out in one.

Yours fearfully and wonderfully made,

Alison