The First Sunday after Christmas Day, 2002
Matthew 1:18-25

Many Greek legends go back before the Trojan War. It is told that the King of Argos put his daughter Diana in prison. High walls surrounded the captive princess, but the king left the roof off in order that she could enjoy the sun and stars. Zeus looked down and had compassion on Diana. He rained upon her a shower of gold. The rain filled her chamber and caused her to conceive. Nine months later she bore a son named Perseus. Later on Zeus came upon another mortal woman named Alcmena. Their offspring was Hercules who displayed god-like courage and strength.

Then there is the tale of Alexander the Great. Plutarch describes what happened to Alexander's mother, Olympus. Before her marriage with Philip was consummated, a clap of thunder shook her. At the same time a lightening bolt struck her womb causing a fire. When the fire was extinguished she bore Alexander the Great.

Gautama Buddha also had an unusual beginning. A white elephant entered into the womb of Buddha's mother through her side. The white elephant caused her to conceive. During the gestation period the elephant sat visibly as in a sort of transparent receptacle. Eventually the little pacyderm turned into Buddha and emerged with great fanfare.

In 1835 a German theologian named Friedrich Strauss wrote a book called, "Life of Jesus." In it Strauss set forth the theory that the Gospel account of the birth of Jesus was historically false. According to Strauss, the Early Church borrowed the virgin birth fable from the surrounding cultures and made it their own. The German theologian's notion caught on in many seminaries and spread throughout the liberal theological establishment.

Today, the theory is still very much with us. PBS's Bill Moyers did an in-depth interview with Joseph Campbell around 1987. The book and video series was called The Power of Myth and became wildly successful. Campbell and Moyers concluded that the Virgin Birth and Resurrection portrayals were actually myths derived from paganism. There is nothing factual about them. Joseph Campbell passed away not long after the series was taped, but his ideas still exert enormous influence in some circles.

Both St. Matthew and St. Luke tell about Jesus' conception by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary. We will now run through Matthew's chronicle, answer the myth allegations, and size up the value of the virgin birth doctrine. Reading now Matthew 1:18.

"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit." How do we understand Mary's marriage, or betrothal to Joseph? Though Mary and Joseph had tied the knot in a religious ceremony, and were regarded husband and wife by society, they hadn't yet lived with each other. Their marriage had not yet been consummated. Don't try to find this custom in the Old Testament. It isn't there. It is one of those traditions that evolved among the Jews of 1st century Judea. There was a stage of time between the betrothal and the bringing home of the bride to her husband's house. It was during this interval when the marriage had been ceremonially sealed but before the sexual consummation that Joseph discovers that Mary is pregnant. Joseph naturally suspects the worst. Unbeknownst to him, the Holy Spirit had conceived the child in her womb.

(v. 19) "Then Joseph her husband being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly." With a heavy heart and burning jealousy, Joseph decides to give her a letter of divorce. Apparently, the divorce laws were so lax that no fault or cause was needed on the legal letter. This is how he would "put her away secretly."

It was at this point that God intervened. (v. 20) "behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit." Could this not be the same angel Gabriel who announced to Mary that she would bear the Lord? Possibly yes. In order to persuade Joseph that Mary was a pregnant virgin, the angel's appearance in Joseph's dream needed to be electrifying.

Mary's child would be special: (v. 21) "And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." Did Joseph comprehend the full scope of Gabriel's message? This baby would grow and become central to God's plan of salvation. Jesus would be the Messiah who would free His people from their sins. He would redeem creation.

Why did the Heavenly Father choose to use Mary, a young virgin, to bring about the birth of the Son of God? St. Matthew explains, "So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the LORD through the prophet, saying: Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is translated, 'God with us'" (vv. 22-23). The great prophet Isaiah, 700 years earlier, had foretold it (Isaiah 7:14). This was God's program all along. A virgin would conceive and bear a son who would be God incarnate. From beginning to end Jesus' life fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament.

After the dream Joseph did not waste time. (vv. 24-25) "Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus." Joseph obeyed the angel's order by bringing his wife to his home. Normally this would include sexual relations, but the Angel had told him that the Messiah should be born of a virgin. Once Jesus was born he did "know her." The verb "to know," in this context, means virtually always sexual intimacy. To take this passage and flip it around to mean that Joseph never knew his wife Mary sexually demands an acrobatic interpretation. Therefore, we are given to understand that the couple abstained from sexual intercourse until after the birth of the child. Then, normal relations did follow, and we see later references to the brothers and sisters of Jesus as the blessed fruit of the union between Joseph and Mary (Matthew 13:55-56; Mark 6:3; Hebrews 13:4).

The narration of the nativity of Jesus displays a startling beauty and originality that gives rise to our joyful, hope-filled Christmas season. Notwithstanding, controversy surrounds the details concerning the arrival of baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

How can we counter the argument that the virginal conception is just one more pagan myth? Is Jesus, the Son of God nothing more than the Christian version of Perseus the son of Zeus? Was the virgin birth merely a fairy tale borrowed from mythology?

No. The pagan myth crowd ignores the radical separation of the Early Church from the heathen world. Anyone who has read Church history knows that the Early Church utterly detested and rejected whatever resembled paganism, especially during the first 325 years. Are we to suppose that the authors of the narratives in Matthew and Luke, with their monotheism and Hebrew worldview, actually gave a place to an idea derived from the most degrading parts of pagan mythology? The emphasis of the Greek mythology is entirely different from that of Christianity. The Hebrew worldview of the Bible maintains the Creator/creature distinction. In the Greek system man becomes god. But he becomes god not by ascending into Heaven with sinless virtue, rather by the gods falling to earth through their failures and weaknesses to join flawed men. Sexual lust and unchastity between immortal gods and mortal women was a key component in the descent of the gods to the level of sinful man. In Christianity God remains high and holy, righteous and transcendent.

J.R.R. Tolkien throws light on the subject of mythology. He acknowledges that many of the ancient myths are charming and even uplifting. Tolkien especially loved Norse mythology. Few would deny that Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are magnificent epics. The reason that readers feel such surge of greatness in these poems has to do with their resemblance to the one true Myth. The true Myth is a grand story. Man falls into sin, and wicked men scour the earth. The evil one strives to rule everywhere. The Bride and her people face many dangers. A King comes on the scene inauspiciously. He first must die and rise again. The risen King gathers His people and by faith and courage they crush the enemy. Edenic conditions spring forth across the land. A royal marriage banquet is hosted to celebrate the victory. The myths of other times and peoples gain their appeal to the extent that they reflect this great Myth. Tolkien believed that Christian authors may become sub-creators who produce their own myths, secondary worlds like Middle Earth, that mirror in fantasy form the primary world of God's redemptive activity.

Returning to our subject at hand, the virgin birth. Is this teaching that important? If it is a stumbling block to people, couldn't we discard it? No. The virgin birth is important for the question of the authority of the Bible. The Holy Scriptures describe in very clear detail how Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. One female minister recently made this claim: "The virgin birth is a metaphor for the purity of children and the love of parents, and the sense of awe at the creation of life." In her view, the virgin birth is not at all historical fact. Yet, she can with perfectly good conscience recite the creeds that state that the Lord Jesus was "incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary." For her, the virgin birth is a beautiful metaphor and nothing more. What a foolish view. She is confusing the Great Myth with lesser myths.

St. Matthew and St. Luke wrote history. To that history you can either say it is true or false. If you say it is false then you will eventually lose confidence that God's Word is true in other matters as well. You are on a slippery slope. An integral part of the Gospel was the fact that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. If that fact is rejected, then the witness of Matthew and Luke and hence the witness of the entire Bible loses its authority, and you are lost. The Gospel is based on the conviction that there is an awful gulf between man and God which none but God can bridge. The Bible tells how that gulf was bridged; it was bridged by the incarnation of God himself in the Person of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to take your place and through the shedding of His blood redeem you from your sins.

Moreover, the virgin birth provides critical answers and fills important gaps. Without it, menacing questions would arise. How did the eternal Son of God enter into the world? Did the Son of God unite with the man Jesus at His baptism as the Gnostics and Modalists suppose? Did the Jesus evolve into union with the divine Son of God as an adult? Without the fact of the virgin birth these questions would be left hanging, and heresies would be much more difficult to halt.

The virginal conception is important because it is a check upon our natural human tendency towards pride. The way God came upon Mary and the way she submitted sets a pattern for all of us. It is God who takes the initiative and it is God who gives salvation. It is man who submits to God, and it is man who freely receives salvation. While the Blessed Virgin Mary was the one who gave birth to the Savior, she would never have been able to do so, even with the aid of Joseph, if the Holy Spirit had not been present and at work. The virgin birth is a picture of the Holy Spirit's gracious activity. St. Paul wrote in another connection, in 2 Corinthians 4:7, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God, and not to us." The virgin birth is a reminder that our salvation, though it came through humanity, is totally of God.

The Gospel is an organic whole. It is a quilt, not a bowl of cherries of which you are allowed to throw away the bad ones. You can't pick and choose the Gospel. To begin to remove the virgin birth is to pull the string that causes the whole fabric to unravel. During this Christmas season let us take to heart the doctrine of the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus by the Holy Ghost. Our redemption hinges on this stupendous miracle.

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