The Tomb Became a Womb

Yesterday I got to go to my first My Life Matters club. It was great. One of my favorite parts was a large-group story time. Brett talked with the students about the first Christmas story. Then he talked about the Wise Men, who came to worship Jesus and to bring him gifts some time after he had been born. We all know the gifts---gold, frankincense, myrrh. I've even heard what the different gifts represented before---gold for a king, frankincense for a priest (or, as Brett said, because Jesus is to be praised!), and myrrh...hm...I had forgotten what that one represented.

The room took on a strange tone when Brett explained that myrrh was meant for dead bodies. "Ewwwwwww!!!!!!!!!" they cried. He held up a small "wooden" (cardboard) box and told them that giving Jesus myrrh would be like someone giving this small wooden box---a coffin---to someone at their baby shower. Wow. He explained that Jesus was given myrrh because Jesus was born to die. We humans all die at some point because of the curse of sin, but perfect Jesus actually came to earth to die on purpose. For us. Is that not amazing?

Now, before club yesterday, God had Psalm 139 on my mind---particularly v. 16: "...All the days ordained for m were written in your book before one of them came to be." But, as I backed up and  read the entire psalm, I noticed something in the note on my Bible for v. 15. Here's v. 15: "My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth." Okay, now here's my Bible's note on "secret place...depths of the earth": "Reference is to the womb: called 'the secret place' because it normally conceals (see 2 Sa 12:12), and it shares with 'the depths of the earth' (see note on 30:1) associations with darkness, dampness, and separation from the visible realm of life. Moreover, both phrases refer to the place of the dead...with which on one level the womb appears to have been associated..."

I think that wording is interesting---that the womb was associated with "separation from the visible realm of life...the place of the dead..." Now, this morning, I was thinking on club and this psalm from yesterday, and something beautiful I'd read in college came to mind. It's a quote from a poem in small little book called "The Gospel Primer", which I highly recommend for rehearsing the gospel to yourself. Here's a portion of beauty from that book (bold and italics mine):

"Now after Christ died

He was placed in a tomb,

Which first was a grave,

but then served as a womb,

Travailing and quaking

the day He was raised

And brought forth by God

to be handled and praised.

The Firstborn from death 

on that day emerged He

With power to save

to the utmost degree."

Is that not beautiful to you? Could it be that the reason the grave and the womb had an association all along was that one day Jesus would come to earth and be born as a baby, live a perfectly righteous life, die a criminal's death, be buried in a tomb, and then burst forth, reborn as the Firstborn from the dead?! That is beautiful to me this morning. Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of  God.