Born of a VIRGIN?! Really?
First Congregational Church – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Fourth Sunday in Advent – December 23, 2007
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[Texts: Isaiah 7:10-16/Matthew 1:18-25]

When we have the children’s Christmas pageant every year I am reminded just how difficult the teachings, the doctrines, concerning the Lord’s nativity are; especially the Virgin birth. The little Mary and Joseph come down the aisle, kneel by an empty box manger up here and after the narrator says something like, “during the night something wonderful happened,” voila – a baby-doll Jesus appears…miraculously! Something wonderful did happen, but that doesn’t take away the difficulty that Mary experienced; that Joseph experienced, or that we experience. How did the voila part happen…how did Jesus get here?

Classic creedal statements – like the Apostle’s or Nicene – say of Jesus that he “came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and made man” or “He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.” Born of a virgin? Really? Then why is Joseph there? What’s the point in all of this? Well, let’s see.

First, let’s look at the text from Matthew we read today. There are a couple of things that we need to understand from the outset. One is that this material was written after Jesus’ death and after his resurrection. This is the church “filling-in-the-blanks’ and doing a bit of theological reflection along the way. Second, only Matthew and Luke present narratives on the conception, the birth and the infancy of Jesus. Mark starts immediately – and that is his favorite word, ‘immediately’ – with the ministry of Jesus. And John goes all the way back before creation to talk about the preexistence of ‘the Word,’ which is the other title given to Jesus. The “Christmas Story” we’re used to hearing is a combining of their stories, along with some extra-Biblical material. We also need to realize that Matthew is working from sources that had been around for awhile, this material did not originate with him.

Not quite thirty years ago an ecumenical team of Biblical scholars produced an important book: Mary in the New Testament. In this work scholars point out that the most frequently cited of the pre-Matthew sources include the following:

--A narrative centered around the three angelic dream appearances to Joseph in 1:20-21, 24-25; 2:13-15a; 2:19-21. In this narrative, through a flight to Egypt and return, God protected the child savior from the wicked King Herod who slaughtered male children in seeking to destroy him. It is generally proposed that this story echoed the OT narratives of Joseph (“the master dreamer” in Gen. 37:19) who went down to Egypt, of the infant Moses who escaped the wicked Pharaoh, and of Moses who returned after the Pharaoh’s death (Exod 4:19) to lead Israel out of Egypt.

What we see here is the use of what is referred to in Scripture and Theology as ‘typology;’

we’re seeing that Jesus is being shown as a type of Moses, a type of Joseph and at the same

time going backward and they’re being shown as types of him. In other words there is

foreshadowing of what Jesus is going to do.

--A narrative (woven into 2:1-12) of the magi from the East who, having come when they saw the star of the Messiah, foiled the wicked King Herod, and then returned. Some have seen here an echo of the story of Balaam, whom Phil calls a magos, who, having come “from the East” (Num 23:7, LXX) envisioned the future greatness of Israel in terms of a star which would rise from Jacob (Num 24:17, LXX), much to the displeasure of the wicked King Balak, and then returned home.

--An angelic annunciation of the birth of the Messiah woven together with the dream vision of Joseph in 1:18-25.

--A theme of the begetting of God’s Son through the Holy Spirit (1:20-21).

--A theme of Mary’s virginal conception of Jesus. [p. 87]

While the ‘types’ or images pointing to Jesus as liberator, like a Joseph or a Moses are important to Christian theology, these last two are more pertinent to our quest this morning.

Well before they lived together, “she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” Obviously, nothing had gone on between them, because Joseph is trying to find a way out and not have to charge her with adultery in the process (which, by the way, was a punishable by death by stoning). What this is meant to do is to first let us know that Joseph is an upright and righteous man. Second, and probably more importantly, it’s designed to counter a heresy that emerged early-on in the early Church – a false opinion or opposition teaching – that Jesus became or was adopted as God’s Son. Matthew sides with the early tradition that Jesus is God’s Son from the moment of his conception. The Holy Spirit of God is seen as in and upon Jesus in a unique way from his conception all the way through his life, all the way through to his resurrection.

Joseph has a dream – like his namesake – and an angel, a messenger, tells him what is going on; that God is doing something new and different to bring about the salvation of God’s people. Joseph is a righteous man who finds himself in what appears to be a compromising situation. But, as scholars tell us, “This irregularity and hint of scandal gives Mary’s marital situation something in common with Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba (all people who are very much engaged in the salvation history of Israel – SP). Furthermore, God used these women’s situations to accomplish His messianic purpose and now in a more startling way than in any of the preceding instances, by means of the Holy Spirit.” [Mary in the New Testament, p. 85-6] Joseph is thus made aware that his beloved isn’t an adulteress, but rather the bearer of Emmanuel – “God is with us” – the Messiah.

To bear such a special child takes a special woman and later, non-Biblical sources, would elaborate on Mary and her situation. The question of her virginity, of course, has long been a matter of discussion, if not outright argument. Again, the virginal conception and birth is to point us to the wonder of what God is doing in the birth of this child. We could go off in pursuit of various theories of how the virginal conception became important to the Christian faith, but we’ll let it suffice to say that it doesn’t begin with Matthew or with Luke for that matter. The belief is there early on (it’s in the earliest creedal statements and gets declared, along with Mary being Theotokos – God-Bearer – by the Council of Ephesus in 431). As to factual historicity of the teaching, it can neither be proved, nor can it be disproved. There can be little question, especially as we look at the text from Paul’s letter to the Romans, that there were belief statements reflecting aspects of this through around for some time.

Now, what difference does it make, beyond showing us what scholars have done with this material? Well, let’s go back to Paul when he says of the Christ, “that he was declared to be the Son of God with power. . .” The concern here is what God is doing through the person and the work of Jesus. God is doing a new thing, calling us, as Paul says, “to the obedience of faith.” In Luke’s Gospel we see that obedience – that deep listening with the ear of the heart – in Mary’s response to the angel’s message. She says, “Behold, the handmaid – the servant – of the Lord; be it done unto me according to your word.” And we see the same response in Joseph as well – I hear and I am obedient to your call. There, the early teachers of the church tell us, is the moment of conception; when Mary’s will is conformed to God’s will. Augustine would say of her that she conceived the Lord in her heart long before she conceived him in her womb. It is precisely that opportunity to conceive and bear God in our hearts and then in our lives that is at the core of God’s new thing, God’s new action through Jesus Christ. That’s the difference that it makes.

Storyteller-theologian John Shea offers an important insight into Emmanuel’s being born of a virgin. He writes, and says it about the best I’ve ever seen:

The “God with us” at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel is matched at the end of the gospel by the mountaintop Jesus saying, “I am with you always to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). The deepest truth about Jesus is the he is the presence of God that does not depart even when he is no longer physically present. That is why Jesus is portrayed in the story as not having a biological father. The truth about his that must be recognized and acknowledged is his spiritual parentage. Any reduction of who he is – and what he is about – to physical and social causes will miss the essence of the revelation. This is the truth on which Jesus will insist. In a different context he will exhort both the crowds and his disciples: “call no one your father on earth, for you have one father – the one in heaven.” (Matthew 23:9). [On Earth As It Is In Heaven, p. 46]

God is the Father and as the fourteenth century German mystic Meister Eckhart says, “We are all meant to be mothers of God.” Every time we sing, “Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today” that is what we’re asking – to become “mothers,” “bearers” of God into the world.

The virgin birth is far more than just an exercise in doctrine or in fantasy. It is a reminder that God comes, that God is here, that God is with us, and that God works in ways we don’t expect or understand. God even works through situations that appear scandalous to us – remembering that ‘scandal’ comes from the Greek word for “tripping stone.” God trips us up, pushes all of our boundaries and our buttons to get us to focus on what is really important – our relationship with God and with God’s creation – including one another. I so appreciate what Meister Eckhart said, “What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the Son of God fourteen hundred years ago and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture?” What good, indeed? Francis of Assisi, the man who gave us the crèche – the nativity scene, gives us a hint on how we’re to do this birthing when he says, “We are the mother of Christ when we carry him in our heart and body by love and a pure and sincere conscience. And we give birth to him through our holy works which ought to shine on others by our example.”

Today is the 23rd of December. It is just two days until Christmas. We’re coming into the final flurry of preparation and activity. I heard on the news that there are stores that will remain open continuously until seven o’clock on Christmas Eve. It’s two days away and I’m telling you, again, that none of what the media, or the consumerist culture tells us makes for a “happy holiday,” or the various expectations that we inevitably place upon ourselves as a result of them matter. It doesn’t matter. (It seems to have become the mantra around here!) One thing matters – that we join Mary in being theotokos – God-bearer. One thing matters, that people experience love, welcome and deep peace through encountering us. That’s what matters. One thing matters – that the Lord be born in our hearts and evidenced in our actions, shown in the way that we live. That, and that alone, really matters.

The narrator of the Christmas pageant is correct in saying that “something wonderful happened” to Mary and Joseph on that long-ago night. That same something wonderful can happen to you and to me not just on that night, but on every day – we can bear God in our hearts; we can bear God in our lives. Born of a virgin? Really? Yes, really. Yes; born in us, too. May it ever be so.