The Birth of Strength

A new meaning of labor -- weakness begets strength -- Israel is born

Rabbi Daniel Lapin (www.youneedarabbi.com) depicts natural birth as a process of suffering that strengthens the newborn infant, noting that those born by Caesarian section tend to be weaker in some ways than those that go through the natural, painful birth process.  It can be a metaphor, he says, that pictures how the trials in our lives can help to strengthen us spiritually.  He goes on to articulate how, metaphorically, the nation of Israel was strengthened, for survival, in its process of being born out of Egypt.  We remember how Jacob’s family of 70, who went down to Egypt, emerged some four hundred years later as a nation of millions headed through the Red Sea toward the Promised Land.  Rabbi Lapin points out in his ‘Thought Tools’ article ‘Three Cheers for Fears’ that the word Egypt itself, or Mitzrayim in Hebrew, means a ‘narrow and constricted pathway just like a birth canal.’  So Israel was born as a nation as they left the birth canal of Egypt.  Fascinating!

 

As I pondered this birthing process, I began to see that the metaphor could be continued.  That is, just before the child is delivered in natural childbirth, the mother’s ‘water breaks.’  During this process, the amniotic fluid from the womb flows out of the birth canal.  Here, we can see a picture of the Red Sea parting.  The water flowed outward, forming a wall on either side of the sons and daughters of Israel as they passed through the sea on dry land.  The ‘Red’ in Red Sea symbolizes the blood that is always involved in birth.  Therefore, we have the emerging nation of Israel passing right through the water and the blood, led by Moses.  (It is interesting that the name Moses itself means ‘drawn out’ of water, in that he, himself, was drawn out of the Nile {delivered/saved} by Pharaoh’s daughter 3 months after his birth.)  So here is the picture  of the exodus �" Moses, the one drawn out, lifts his staff (symbolizing his faith in God). The womb-like blood and water break open.  Then Israel, a new nation being born and strengthened by the pains of birth, proceeds through the birth canal of Mitzrayim, onward toward the Land of milk and honey!

 

Looking a little deeper, the wooden staff of Moses can also remind us of the wooden execution stake [cross] where Yeshua (Jesus) was crucified.  It is here, on the cross, that we can again envision something being born; namely, the Body of Messiah!  Again, the water and the blood are involved.  As a type of death certificate, a spear was thrust into Yeshua’s side after he had died on the cross where He proclaimed that His work (labor) was finished.  At that time, blood and water from around his heart poured out �" a symbol of His death.  But, to those who believe on Him, a symbol of his death becomes a symbol of the new birth!  Rav Sha’ul (Paul) said, ‘I have been crucified with Christ nevertheless I live.’  To believe in his death and resurrection is to be in Him.  And anyone in Him has become part of His Body.  So, the Body of Messiah is born, strengthened by the pain of his labor �" the most severe, devastating and deadly ever.  Messiah, Jesus the Son of God, reproduces His own divine bloodline by pouring out His red blood (for forgiveness of sin) and water (His Word which promises resurrection and new, eternal life) upon all those who lift up that wooden execution stake (have faith in Him).  All those who are born in this way become His Body!

 

One final thought.  The trials of our lives are used to strengthen us over and over again by this process of death and birth.  That is, trials and temptations have the capacity to bring us to the end of our natural selves, to the end of our natural lives in which we live by natural human sight and natural human understanding.  They bring us to the place where we must die and be re-birthed into the spiritual strength of Messiah literally living within us.  We end up ‘dying daily’ as the Scripture says but are continually ‘reborn’ as a new creation in the Messiah.  The scarlet blood of Yeshua and the water of His words, energized through faith in the work represented by the execution stake (cross), wash over us.  They enable us to be re-established in Messiah so we can walk, alive unto God, in the new man.  These daily ‘mini-rebirths’ can serve as a continual re-minder of that once-and- forever experience of being born again, born from above. Just as we are ‘perfected forever’ and ‘seated in heavenly places’ at one point in time, forever, through the new birth, so must our feet be washed daily as Yeshua indicated. Yes, we must be cleansed daily - born again daily �" strengthened in Him!    

 

Hazak, hazak, v’nit’chazek! (Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened!)

 

 

Gus Wheeler

01/05/09