Luke 1:30-31 — And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.

I’ve been reading a great (but difficult) book about Easter Saturday. Jesus in the tomb. So perhaps it’s not surprising that, in this time of Advent, my mind should turn to Jesus in the womb.
My mind also turned to the 1990’s evangelical catchphrase — WWJD: “What would Jesus do?”. This time, however, it was “What was Jesus doing?” What was happening from when the Son of God was planted as a sesame seed sized embryo in Mary’s womb until He was born in that stable in Jerusalem?
Wow! Let’s stop and think about that one for a moment. The Son of God — God Himself — as a sesame seed sized embryo. I never thought about that before. I’m awestruck again.
O.K. I’m back! Meditating on that leaves me feeling that what was going on is a mystery I don’t need to penetrate. The mystery of Jesus’s birth shares something with the mystery of His death. Jesus lived every element of the human experience. I like the Message Bible version’s loose translation of 1 Peter 4:1-2, “Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.” Jesus went through everything we go through. Birth to death, hunger, fear, cold, pain, discouragement, desertion by friends, betrayal … It’s what He signed up for:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

That’s another of those passages of scripture that has so many lessons for us. This one is “life might be tough … But Jesus hasn’t just been through everything you’re going through … In fact He planned to do it, so He’d be perfectly ready to go through it with you”.
Sesame seed in the womb, to body in the tomb, to resurrected child of God. Jesus is ahead of us, every step of the way. That’s what He was doing in the womb. Praise Him forever!