In U2’s song “Yahweh”, Bono sings this beautiful refrain:
“Yahweh, Yahweh,
Always pain before a child is born”

If you’ve spent any time in a Church, or read certain translations of the Bible then you’ll be aware that Yahweh is the personal ‘name’ God gives to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:13-15). It’s often written as The LORD in most English Bibles.

Yahweh is the self-revelation of a God who is wholly personal.
This is a god who transcends names, identities, forms and all the other natural constraints, limitations and definitions which we need to function in life.
And yet this indescribable, indefinable God has revealed Himself in a way we can come to terms with; with a name we can call Him by; in a personal way.

Throughout human history Yahweh has revealed Himself in different shapes and forms (known as a theophany). The medium of each theophany is inseparable from the content of the message which follows. In other words, the medium is the message.

In Jesus, God has given us His most important message through His best possible medium. He has come as Himself in the form of one of us to show us how He loves us and that He has come to live for us, die for us and resurrect for us that we might share the same.
In Jesus we see the God who is so personal that He doesn’t just know everything about us as our creator, but He also knows everything about being like us as a fellow human being.

As followers of Jesus we look to his life to discover and learn the message for our own lives. If the medium is the message then the labour pains which preceded Jesus’ birth are also part of the message. Labour pain is one of the most severe kinds of pain and suffering a woman can experience, yet women continue to give birth and many experience it several times by having several children. This is a mystery. Having witnessed three births the first one was by far the most difficult with the most enduring suffering.
I have experienced something of this mystery by observing that the excruciating, enduring, uncontrolled pain is quickly forgotten when the child is born.
The intensity of labour pains are more than matched by the intensity of joy when the child is born. The suffering is endured but it ultimately gives way to life and joy.
Those who have studied birth as a scientific study say that our own birth is one of the most traumatic experiences of our lives. The act of being born is said to be very traumatic and yet none of us really remembers being born, even though we experienced it.
The trauma and suffering is endured but it ultimately gives way to life and joy.

This is the message God has given us.
He has endured suffering for our sake and shown us that suffering always gives way to life and joy. Choosing this way meant that Mary too had to endure suffering for our sake and that her suffering also gave way to life and joy. Mary’s story is our story too.

In Bono’s lyrics he captures for us this amazing reality. God has revealed Himself personally and has endured suffering so that He might share with us in our suffering.
The rest of the song’s lyrics are a prayer inviting God to take the small, limited things we have and to use them and transform them into something beautiful.
The song brings each one of us to the inevitable truth that for something meaningful and world-changing to be born into this world through us, there is “always pain before a child is born”.
Bono does not make light the reality of suffering but brings it into the light of truth that there is always a purpose in it and if we ask Yahweh to use it then it will change the world.
Read the whole song lyrics here.

God has changed, is changing and will change the world BOTH through His own suffering and through our suffering.
As we endure suffering for the sake of the world, that’s the pain part.
As we show through our own life stories that suffering always gives way to life and joy, that’s the birth part.

This advent may you know that God chose the path of suffering even as he was born into this world in Jesus.
May you know that as you suffer it is always for a purpose and never in vain: there is “always pain before a child is born”.
May you know that as Mary birthed the Kingdom of God into this world in Jesus, so God is continually birthing His Kingdom into this world through your suffering.