Following on from the Insight – The Value and Challenge of Routine we have recognised the importance of routines that are remembered in the Christian Calendar such as The Feast of Ascension, The Day of Pentecost and in the last Insight remembering The Rite of Baptism. Another important event that believers join in is the Celebration of Christmas and the Virgin Birth.
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We all love a good story or tale that is told to us and we happily share it with others around Creation, Romance, Murder Mystery, Adventures and the wonderful birth of a new born Child. In the world of Hollywood and Bollywood and documentaries, stories will range from the non-fiction category that are true and factual stories, to those that are pure fiction with each one having a value for our entertainment, intellect, religious devotion and understanding.
Christmas is a time when we have the reality or fantasy of Father Christmas and for millions of people the reality or fantasy of the virgin birth of Jesus that encompasses his divinity and humanity? The story of the birth of Jesus is central to Christmas and for the Christian it ushers in a life that ultimately gives itself up as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
The Spirit of Christmas is one that all peoples and nations seem to embrace in one form or another that imbues love, joy, peace and a thanksgiving to God for all his creation. It is the beginning of a story whereby we may be re-joined and recreated in a spiritual sense after the disobedience of Adam and Eve, as told in the Genesis creation story. So briefly I want to trace and outline how the story of the virgin birth was predicted, happened and is celebrated in the Christian calendar.
The Birth of Jesus
In the light of what I just explored above, one question may stand out as how can we believe that the story of the virgin birth is true? As we will note shortly the account of Jesus’s birth is told principally by Matthew and Luke in the New Testament. If we believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God then all that we read and often cannot quite understand or comprehend has to be true in a spiritual sense, not necessarily in a scientific or philosophical sense.
In Isaiah 9: 6 – 7 we read of his forthcoming ‘for unto us a child is born and a son is given and the government will be upon his shoulders. He will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace’.
In John 18: 28 – 40 we have a very interesting account of Pilate questioning Jesus as to why he is being accused and put up for trial and how can he claim to be a King. He then asked that all important question ‘what is truth’? Jesus’s answer is contained in verses 36 – 37 “my kingdom is not of this world but from another place. I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me”.
We all choose what we consider to be truth and that will be in the context of what others may think as falsehood. So the story of the virgin birth is from the Bible that is God’s word and true. Even with other influences around virgin births, the birth of Jesus is unique in itself and has to be believed yet can be rejected
The first account of the birth of Jesus was written by Matthew for his Jewish readers in Matthew 1: 18 – 25 and makes reference to Isaiah 7: 14, a prophecy about a virgin birth, “Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son and she will call His name Immanuel.”
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A second account written by Luke for his Gentile readers is found in Luke 1: 26 – 38. It outlines the confusion that Mary must have felt at being told she was to give birth to a son via the Holy Spirit without having had any sexual liaisons with Joseph. Both accounts confirm a belief that Jesus in his divinity became a son of God to dwell on earth and then in time returned to his heavenly realm.
It can be said that the two accounts of Jesus’s virgin birth were formed from stories that had been shared around ten years before the gospels were written. Within the Christian church some traditions place the conception of Jesus on the 25th March nine months before his birth on the 25th of December but it is not known exactly when Jesus was actually conceived and born!
Other Virgin Birth stories!
From early humanity and during the Greco-Roman world there has existed stories of human women who have given birth to a child as a result of some form of angelic/spiritual intervention. It is interesting that Matthew shared a linage of Jesus’s family that stretched back to King David and his description of a virgin birth would not have been shocking as other related stories existed such as the miraculous birth of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah in their old age. The exact origin of the virgin birth of Jesus is without equal in either Jewish or Pagan literature.
There is a case that with the visit of the wise men at the birth of Jesus there may have been some connection to the teachings of Zoroastrianism but it has not been fully validated. So questions may be asked as to where Matthew and Luke based their accounts of Jesus’s birth as both would not have been eye witnesses but that in itself does not undermined any authenticity it may have from an oral tradition passed down..
How it affected Mary and Joseph?
Carole Crossley who has written the devotions on our website Explore to Inspire has completed three articles that relate to Joseph, Gabriel and Mary and each one gives an insight into how they would have felt and responded to the miraculous conception of Jesus.
Mary – To be told by the Angel Gabriel that she was to become the mother of the Messiah would have been overwhelming and she might have felt over powered and out of any personal control of her body
Mary would have felt a sense of shame, confusion and possible rejection from Joseph, his family and her local community who actively stoned women having a child out of wedlock. However, Mary in the context of her Jewish faith, felt honoured to be, as prophesied, the mother of Jesus the promised Messiah and said yes to Gabriel as expressed in the words of the Magnificat in Luke 1: 46 – 55.
Joseph – would have felt rejected when Mary shared with him that she was with child and seeking to honour her made plans to divorce her quietly. Joseph had three visits from an angel with the first one in a dream confirming to him that Mary was to give birth to a son and he was to be called Jesus who would save people from their sins.
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Just as Mary was reassured by Gabriel about her future so Joseph was reassured that he should not divorce Mary but for them to marry and care for their son Jesus. The second visit by an angel was to tell Joseph that they should travel to Egypt for their own safety. The third visit was to tell Joseph that it was safe to return to Israel with Mary and Jesus.
Theological Teaching
If we regard Jesus as the son of God in human form then it means that Jesus would have had to completely depend on God throughout all his human experiences. The Christian church accepts the doctrine of a virgin birth of Jesus as both human and divine as formulated in both the Nicene and the Apostles Creed.
Such a theological belief has constantly been challenged from the Age of Enlightenment and those within the Liberal wing of the church. However, such a belief is upheld by more conservative aspects of the church yet such challenges to the doctrine still exist today in our modern world.
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If the belief in a virgin birth is moved to a place of myth then it undermines the whole basis of the Christian gospel that upholds that such a birth is central to the atoning work of Christ. It represents God’s own son walking alongside humanity and ultimately dying a shameful death so that we may experience a new life brought to together by the Holy Spirit of God.
We may conclude that the Christian faith is founded on the truth of the incarnation that ‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1: 14 KJV).
How do other faiths respond to Jesus’s incarnation and role as the Son of God?
Many world faiths include some aspect of their god’s to be miraculously formed and have an important role in daily religious devotion and practise and will be sympathetic to the teaching of Jesus’s incarnation. Within the Muslim faith Jesus is accepted as being born to a Virgin Mary yet only as a prophet of God and not divine or part of the Godhead.
Take Away
In the mysteries of the Christian faith and world religions we may agree or not agree with the Creation Account or a Virgin Birth as shared in the Bible but the world and the universe has been created and is maintained by some form of spiritual or metaphysical power and has an end journey.
In the Christian faith we can have a living relationship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirt that was foretold in the Old Testament and in Jesus fulfilled in the New Testament for everyone today and subsequent generations to experience and enjoy. Have a happy and blessed Christmas
Selah: (Pause to think calmly on what has just been read) and check out A Time to Worship
Graham
Explore to Inspire 
