There came a point in my second pregnancy where I was gripped by such a white hot fear I wanted to jump out of body. I was lying in bed somewhere around month 8 trying to settle myself and this little melon of perpetual motion that had taken over my body so at least one of us could sleep. It was during that increasingly uncomfortable part of pregnancy where the awe of the miracle is starting to wear off and you’re looking more and more forward to being delivered from this discomfort. But you’re not quite fully ready. Because of what’s needed for that to happen is so intensely painful.
My first pregnancy I was blissfully unaware of what was going to happen. I knew it would hurt. I’ve suffered excruciating cramps since puberty. Where the pain is so intense it causes you to throw up (all over the second floor of the high school hallway as you’re trying to make it to bathroom…). My mother, ever the champion of soothing, always told me labor was much, much, much worse. I was scared, but I really had no idea what was going to happen.
By my second pregnancy I was FULLY aware of what was going to happen! The memory was still fresh in my mind especially since it had been less than a year at that point since the first experience. That night as the panic set in I could remember every contraction. I could remember the loss of control over my body. The waves and waves of intensifying pain. I swear that night lying in bed remembering the pain required to bring forth a human, I could literally feel my cesarean scar burn as painfully as it did when it was fresh.
I could remember the cold dread as they prepped me for the C-section. Fear I didn’t know existed. Someone who couldn’t sit through a blood draw, who had to put her head between her knees for a flu shot, who got a bandage and applied pressure on a paper cut was going to be sliced open in order to get this human inside out. I puked as soon as they told me I had no choice. ”You’re going to do what?!?!?!”
But I also remember the biggest fuel for my panic was the emergency that caused this. My baby’s heart rate was dropping with every contraction. The baby was stuck. I had been sitting at 2 cm for hours and the heartbeat was no longer rebounding after the contractions were over. Fetal distress was the term. As scared as I was to have to undergo surgery, I was ready to do anything to save my child.
Is that how Jesus felt when he faced the cross?
In the prologue of Matthew Kelly’s book, Rediscover Catholicism he describes in human terms what God must have been put through sacrificing his only son to save the world. Kelly describes a disease spreading through the world and killing entire populations. Scientists discover that the cure lies in the blood of a pure person and after testing everyone in the world they find that your child is the one who possesses this cure. But the child is so young and so small and all of his blood will be required to make this cure for the world. The story continues that you go through with it, sacrifice your only child, and the world forgets about it.
I always stop at the request to take my child. No. Fuck that and fuck you. I’m taking my baby and we’re going to go hide out in a cave somewhere. No. You can’t have my child!
But now what if it were my blood that would save my child? Open ‘er up! Do you want me to drain it myself? We don’t need to use needles, needles are too slow. Give me a knife! Let’s do this! No question. No hesitation. Whatever you need, whatever it takes. Anything to save my child.
I love the window in my church depicting the Agony in the Garden. When I’m going through shit, I sit so I can look at it throughout Mass without having to be too obvious. It reminds me of the turmoil Jesus himself faced.
By the Gospel accounts, Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane for three hours and asked God multiple times that this cup be passed from him (Matthew 26: 36-46; Mark 14: 32-42; Luke 22: 39-46). We don’t know what else happened in the conversation, but I can only imagine it was a doozy.
Like my lived experience of contractions and a C-section that I was so petrified of the second time around, as fully divine, Jesus knew what awaited him. He knew the torture he would endure. The levels of pain that we can only imagine, he knew exactly. He knew how this body that his father designed would rip. How it would bleed. How the nerve endings would scream. How these muscles he developed would strain and tear. How these lungs full of life would be crushed. He knew better than anyone who has or would ever be crucified just how much this would hurt. But he also knew the ultimate outcome.
What will this gain? What will this save? A day of unbearable torture. An eternity opened up. Anything to save my child.
By all Gospel accounts, Jesus was stoic after he was done in the garden and remained so until his death. During his interrogations and sentencing, every depiction of what Jesus said was that of quiet calm. Few words. No arguments. No struggle.
I always wonder if he was actually excited for the culmination of events. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Would he have run that cross up to Calvary had it not been for that weak and wounded body? Just as he could perfectly know his torture, he perfectly knew the salvation that would be opened by his death.
We spend Good Friday in mourning of the crucifixion and death and our joy bursts forth on Easter and the resurrection. But that joy can also be found in his death. God chose this path and this method for our salvation. Love. Pure and total unconditional love of his children laid out and laid bare for all the world to see. Ripped open and splayed on a cross. Love. Pouring out in his blood and gushing from his side. Anything to save my child.