Darkness of the Womb

Darkness of the Womb

by Katrina Ross Zezza 

December 10, 2023, Freedom Plains United Presbyterian Church LeGrangeville NY

Reading: Mark 1:1-8 

The best art makes us feel something. Have you ever cried while watching a movie or hearing a song or reading a story and wondered why am I crying all of a sudden? Why did this strike such a chord in me? Maybe it makes you cry every single time you watch it. That’s how I feel about the end of Shrek when Fiona stays as her true form which is an ogre instead of a human. It’s a good example because it’s so silly, but I seriously can’t stop myself from crying during that scene. I asked a friend if she could remember a movie that makes her cry and she talked about the end scene of Dances with Wolves. Kevin Costner’s character, John Dunbar has to leave the tribe at the end (sorry for the spoiler, but you’ve had time) and as he rides away, a fellow tribe member named Wind in His Hair shouts from the cliff in his language- “Can you see that you will always be my friend?” The two men had been enemies, but by the end they were soul friends, people who unequivocally had each others backs and want what’s best for one another. I asked why my friend cries at this and she said it gave her the feeling that maybe this kind of love does exist. 

I think maybe the reason we cry in moments like this, is because it reminds us of something very important that we thought we had lost. Something specifically significant to us that we feel we had to give up on. With the story, the piece of art, we get a glimmer that maybe that hope we’d given up on, has been there all along. I also always cry when I watch the original animated version of Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch stole Christmas from 1966, when the narrator says, “And what happened then, well in Whoville they say that the Grinch’s small heart grew 3 sizes that day, and then the true meaning of Christmas came through and the Grinch found the strength of ten Grinches plus two” because he realizes that Christmas came anyway. That the love of the community of the whos down in Whoville doesn’t depend on material things, there is something shining at the core of them that is more precious than anything material, and seeing that changes him. And then he rides the giant sleigh down the mountain piled high with stuff and looking so happy. My kids and I watch it almost every year, and it always gets me- especially when the star starts rising up out of the center of their singing. Maybe that kind of love does exist.

We are in darkest days of the year right now, and coming up on the longest night of the year, which is the closest to darkness that we get, and it is a universal time for introspection and stillness, and of finding light together. It’s a time that’s also associated with growth, because darkness is the place from which life emerges. Where dreams happen. Where imagination lives. Each of us grew in the dark until we were ready to be born, and there are seeds deep in the earth right now, preparing to become the fullness of who they will be. It’s in the dark that we conjure visions for the world we need to create. And the earth teaches that no matter how dark it gets, the light will always return, because after the longest night, comes the dawn of a longer day. 

Another piece of art that makes me cry is a speech that went viral back in 2016, by Valarie Kaur who is a film maker, lawyer, and sikh faith leader. In the speech, she acknowledges that we are living through dark times as a nation and as a world. But then she says, “The mother in me wonders, what if… what if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb but the darkness of the womb? What if this is our world’s great transition? When we are giving birth, the midwife tells us to push and breath. What if this is not the end, but the beginning of something beautiful and better than anything we could ever imagine? What if the world we need to create is growing now in this darkness? 

One of my favorite things about Christianity is that we have this wonderful holy day that’s centered in a story which is all about a baby. A baby who saves the world. What’s better than that in terms of storytelling? Looking back, there was a moment that really brought that to my attention. I was sitting in the 5th pew during advent and looking at the cover of the bulletin. Someone had chosen a simple image of these large hands holding a small newborn child. And it was the touch that really reached me. Where the hands of the one person held the body and head of the other person. It was like a light came on and I saw who Christ was. And I knew I wanted to be a part of telling that story. 

When Mary was pregnant with baby Jesus, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was also pregnant, and the story goes that the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaped for joy and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. In the waters of creation, inside the mother of God, which is in a way the most primordial place of potential life, before even coming into the world, Jesus was recognized by another preparing to be born. And that leaping baby grew up to be a very important figure in the gospels and the subject of this week’s scripture reading- John the Baptist.

The way a story begins is very significant, and the gospel writers knew this. Only two of the 4 gospel accounts begin with the story of Jesus’ birth, and Mark is not one of them. Our scripture reading today is the first 8 lines of the gospel according to Mark, and it starts out by saying, “This is the beginning of the good news.”  The author goes on to describe a fully grown John the Baptist in the wilderness, with garments made of camel hair and subsisting on bugs and honey. If you’ve read the Harry Potter books, I sort of think of him as Hagrid. A big wild looking character who gets along well with monsters. Bible scholars say his description echoes the description of the prophet Elijah, described in 2 Kings as being “a hairy man with a leather belt around his waist”. John has learned to live with wild beasts, and he is at home in the wilderness. 

In the Ancient Near Eastern imagination, the Wilderness was a place of transformation, soul searching, and even doubt. It appears in many other stories, also translated as desert. It’s a place where intense things happen- such as when Moses has lost his direction in life and he encounters God in a burning bush. It can also symbolize isolation and a certain amount of deprivation or need for food and water, such as when the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years after being liberated from slavery. There is a longing for God and a searching that’s implied. 

And according to Mark, this is where the good news starts? Really? In the wilderness, the place of isolation and doubt, fear and uncertainty? With dangerous animals all around and a voice crying out? Right after Jesus is baptized, he is also immediately sent into the wilderness by the Spirit, where he is tested. This is essentially how he begins his ministry. Ultimately, his time in the wilderness fortifies him for the beautiful things he would accomplish later, but I’m sure those forty days were difficult- with Satan tempting him and surrounded by wild beasts. 

I saw a quote recently, that said “Everything you’re going through is preparing you for what you asked for”. I’m not someone who would tell you that suffering is salvific, the reason for suffering is beyond my understanding. But the idea that we are being made into something by God, that God has a plan for us and that what God has in mind is better than anything we could imagine for ourselves, is something I’ve come to believe in deeply. If you’re feeling like you’re in the wilderness now, just remember what started there. Because God might be preparing you for something. Maybe as a people and as a world we are being prepared too. And maybe our journey through this wilderness is just the beginning of something beautiful.