Matthew 1:18-25
Much of the Christmas season is embroidered with poetry, mythology, fantasy and piety. This is reflected in much of our Christmas decorations, songs and carols and all the trappings of the holiday. And I really have no desire to join in the popular mood of "debunking", but in an effort to face our faith with our eyes wide open. We have an obligation to be honest to God and to one another. And in this spirit, we are perfectly free to recognize the fact that piety and tradition have often embellished the Biblical record.
This has never really bothered me, I come from a family of "embellishers." If you can find a grain of truth in any story told by a member of my extended family - and if you can get two people to agree on even the tiniest detail then it is probably true. For most of its history, my family was so poor, on both my mother and father’s side, and life so uninteresting that they just made things up. For instance my father had a scar on his stomach, for years he told us he got it jumping off the Ventura pier to save a young girl from a shark, turns out it was just an appendix scar. My Uncle Charles used to tell us that his brother Harry had money hidden in coffee cans on the hill behind his house, when we were kids we actually believed it and spent some hours digging in that dirt. I heard from several relatives that my Grandpa Wolfe was a bootlegger and drove whiskey over state lines during prohibition. I am sure that one is true, that he never got caught may have been an embellishment though – because he was known for leaving his wife and five children in a town somewhere and taking off for months at a time.
The Biblical account of the story of the birth of Jesus, scholars note came rather late into the writing of the canon. I have found it interesting in my studies to learn that across history there have been many accounts of virgin births, of kings, gods, and conquerors. Some scholars say these are all stories that lack much basis in reality. Others say the Christmas narrative contained in the Bible at least has a strong factual foundation.
Whether fiction or not, scholars say, accounts of miraculous births are plentiful throughout history. Their purpose is to link the divine to the human in a dramatic way, for instance, there is the story of Krishna, the Hindu god who was born to the virgin Devaki. The Hopi Indians believe that Spider Woman -- who was created by the first man, Sokukanang -- formed twins out her own saliva and the earth. The twins were then sent into the world to keep it in order. Pagan heroes like Alexander the Great and Caesar Augustus and mythological figures such as Hercules and Prometheus are depicted in various texts as being born from a virgin, Wanner said. Similar stories exist in Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Persian texts.
In China, legend has it that the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu was also born of a virgin. So, there are virgin births all over the place. Miraculous births are also reported in the Old Testament: the aged Sarah bearing Isaac and the barren wife of Manoah giving birth to Samson.
And then there is the story that we will celebrate in six days on Christmas Eve -- that of Jesus Christ, whom many believe and I am one of them, was God incarnate. Why are virgin Births so prevalent in religious and even secular accounts. The main reason, according to Dr. Kevin J. Wanner of the Department of Comparative Religions of Western Michigan University, is that a miraculous birth underscores the otherworldliness of the person born.
"If you locate a god (or important personage) in a particular time, it helps to have a concrete connection to something higher -- not just a human source of wisdom," Wanner says.
A Newsweek magazine poll, released this week, reports 79 percent of Americans believe that, exactly as the Bible says, Jesus Christ was born of Mary, a virgin, and did not have a human father. And I wonder why shouldn’t most people believe that because it is what the church has taught for thousands of years.
It is exactly what was taught in the history of the church, but it was not there at the beginning, at the beginning it was the story of the story it was the resurrection that was most important. Many Bible readers and I am one, believe the virgin birth is not meant to be historical narrative as much as it is there to say, "In this child will come a miracle, all the world will be redeemed, and that is the truth."
The second reason for the birth story is to emphasize that in Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. God has kept the Promise. When the texts that became the Bible were written, there were no punctuation marks in them. They didn’t have punctuation - so if you wanted to make a point - you bracketed the story with what was important, that is you repeated it. If we look at Matthew 1:23, Matthew says his name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us, and then at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 28:20 we find he ends on the same theme: lo I am with you, always, even to the close of the age. It is easy to see what is most important to the story, is not that a virgin bore a child. What is most important is that God is indeed with us. This, is the harder thing for most of us to believe.
I encounter people all the time, who cannot believe in God because they believe in scientific truth. They are too sophisticated for faith. This is certainly a problem with young people and so I am beginning to think that if we were more honest in our depictions of the faith, if we took it out of the ivory tower and spread it out over the pews, there would be less chance that people would reject it the first time they come up against some scientific facts which seem to contradict it. In the words of St. Paul we are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, to be truthful new, is the task before us.
Scientific truth is very helpful, but science/ in this case human biology is not the only approach to truth. I think it was Matthew Arnold who said that science, while wonderful, unfortunately only answers relatively important questions. Don’t get me wrong. We are all grateful for scientific discoveries which have enabled us to live longer and better. But science cannot answer the questions like "Why should I live at all? What goals should I live for? Where is love and meaning?
That is why we need to be reminded at least once a year at Christmas time that there is more meaning and mystery to life than we usually perceive on the surface.
New Testament scholar Sarah Dylan Bruer writes this story: I was in seminary at St. Andrews University in Scotland, and one morning while we were all having coffee in the common room, someone told us that the Berlin Wall was coming down. That wall was more than a wall -- it was a world. The world of the Cold War was coming down, and people were dancing on it as it was crumbling. Students left St. Andrews in droves and hitchhiked to ports, bought tickets on ferries, did whatever they had to do to get there and dance with the dancers. They brought back chips of the wall, that thing that was built before we were born and told us how we thought the world would die.
One of the few regrets I have in my life so far is that I didn't go.
I had things to do -- classes to attend, papers to write. I had a job waiting on tables. I was afraid to lose it, afraid the little money I had wouldn't get me to Berlin or wouldn't get me back. I was so busy with the life I was living in the world that was ending that I didn't read the signs: that world was ending, and I had the chance to dance with those who were welcoming a new world, one that wasn't doomed to end in massive fireballs or nuclear winter.
This is the last Sunday of Advent. We have spent the last few weeks waiting, listening, watching - as people in darkness - who yearn for a sign of the light. The Light of the World is on the horizon now: his name is Jesus, the one who will save people from their sins.
The whole world of sin is ending. It's ending now. It's bigger than the end of communism, the end of terrorism; it's the end of ending and the beginning of beginning.
Bruer continues: I was a fool to miss the fall of the Berlin Wall because I was afraid of missing a few classes on the theology of John's gospel. I don't want to make that mistake again. So now, I look to Jesus' Advent, to Jesus' birth. I see that the world of sin is falling, and when I'm really in touch with that, there's nothing I wouldn't drop to dance on the ruins as they fall.
Christ entering the world is a world-changing event that makes the fall of the Berlin Wall look like trivia is on its way. It's not a pie in the sky; it's a tree growing from an undying root planted when Mary said "here I am" to God's call, and nurtured by Joseph's doing the right thing by refusing to do what the Law required. It's the end of every damn thing that damns us. Who wouldn't skip class, risk hitching a ride, do what it takes to get to where God's people are dancing there?
There are six days of Advent left to receive this gift – I suggest that we all figure out what's holding us back and stop it. This holiday is not about going home, to a world where the walls are still standing. It is about breaking down the walls - and going to where the stars will reveal the Christ - and we will all be dancing. Amen.