Hilton Head Island, SC – November 28, 2021
The Chapel Without Walls
Isaiah 7:10-17; Matthew 1:18-25
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Texts – Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. – Isaiah 7:14; Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (which means God with us). – Matthew 1:23 (RSV)
Most contemporary biblical scholars are agreed that the disciple Matthew did not write the Gospel of Matthew. Whoever did write it was someone very familiar with the Hebrew scriptures, because he frequently quoted passages from the Old Testament prophets to validate whatever it was he was writing about.
There are only two narratives about the birth of Jesus: one in Matthew, and one in Luke. Both writers stated that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus, but Matthew did so by quoting Isaiah 7:14, and Luke merely wrote that Mary was a virgin when the angel Gabriel appeared before her and announced that she would give birth to a child who “will be called holy, the Son of God” (1:35). Neither Mark nor John said anything at all about Jesus’ birth.
The Greek word “dogma” means “that which must be believed.” No one can verify precisely when the Roman Catholic Church decided that the virgin birth of Mary became a dogma, but certainly by the late second or early third centuries it had become a dogmatic teaching among Catholics, and remains so to this day. In addition, the virgin birth became the orthodox teaching in the various Eastern Orthodox Churches, as well as in virtually all Protestant denominations until the late nineteenth century. Probably a majority of Christians of all types still believe that the mother of Jesus was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. Official Roman Catholic dogma holds that she was always a virgin until her dying day, and that she and Joseph had no other children, even though the Gospels unmistakably say that Jesus did have brothers and sisters.
Why is there such an obvious division between those who subscribe to the virgin birth of Jesus and those who don’t? Why do two Gospels insist on the virgin birth of Jesus via the one often identified as “the virgin Mary,” and two Gospels do not even mention the birth, let alone this idea? Why are so many Catholics and Protestant fundamentalists so insistent regarding this doctrine?
To begin to search for an answer to those questions, we might first note that the notion of a virgin birth was not original with Christianity. Other older Middle Eastern, East Asian, and European religions also proclaimed the same theme, although not on a frequent basis. The essence of the concept in every instance was that a “divine human” had to be produced by a unique obstetrical method in order to be divine. If anyone born of a woman did not have a human father, he or she must therefore, by deduction, be divine. Thus various religious figures before and after the time of Jesus were considered divine by virtue of claiming that they were born of virgin women. However, none of those religions gained worldwide acceptance.
Today is the first Sunday of Advent. The period from the fourth Sunday before Christmas until Christmas Day is always the ecclesiastical season of Advent. This Advent we will be examining four sections of the earliest chapters in the Gospel of Matthew to see how he, and therefore countless numbers of Christians afterward, understood the circumstances surrounding the birth and early life of Jesus.
Let us now return to the particularly strong emphasis in Roman Catholicism on the virgin birth. It would be both incorrect and unfair to say that Catholicism is anti-sex, because it isn’t. On the other hand, because both priests and nuns affirm celibacy as one of the conditions of their vows, it might be fair to say that for many Catholics, celibacy is a higher form of life than that of married people. Furthermore, traditionally the Church has encouraged large families, and up until the last two or three generations, many Catholic families did have many children.
Curiously (or not so curiously, depending on your point of view), many evangelical Protestants also have large families, although celibacy is not especially valued among them. And celibacy is not emphasized at all among Protestants as Protestants.
Among Jews, either before or after the time of Jesus, having babies was always considered both a preferred and a natural course of events for married people. Marriage was that to which everyone was expected to aspire. In Fiddler on the Roof, the older three of Tevye’s and Golda’s five daughters implored Yenta the Matchmaker to arrange perfect matches for all of them, until one of them realized “that I could get stuck for good!” Then their ardor for some man who might involuntarily yoked to them cooled considerably.
When Gabriel told Joseph that Mary was going to have a baby, Joseph was naturally upset, knowing that they had not engaged in sex. Gabriel assured him that this was a child of the Holy Spirit. Although the term “Holy Spirit,” capital “H” and capital “S,” had never before been used in holy writ, we are told that Joseph apparently accepted what Gabriel said without questioning what it might mean. But therein we find a linguistic problem.
In the King James Version of the Bible, Isaiah 7:14 says, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a shall conceive and bear a son.” The Revised Standard Version for that verse says, “Behold, “a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” The linguistic problem is this: In Hebrew there is only one word for both concepts, a young woman and a virgin. It is the word almah, from which is derived the female English name Alma. So what was Isaiah intending to say, that a young woman would conceive, or that a virgin would conceive?
The conundrum is deepened when, in Isaiah, at least according to the RSV, it says “young woman”, but when Matthew quotes that verse in his first chapter, he deliberately and definitely said “virgin.” Why? It may be because Isaiah was saying that sometime soon a young woman would become the mother of a royal figure who would become king, and that he would promote a new chapter in the life of 8th century BCE Israel. But Matthew, when he quoted that same verse, clearly wanted to imply that Isaiah was prophesying that Jesus was born to a virgin, and that because he considered that to be an historical reality, Jesus would bring a whole new world to the whole world. To Isaiah, the soon-to-be born baby to the unnamed and unidentified young woman was a symbol of hope, and to Matthew the baby born to Mary, the virgin, was a symbol of massive transformation to everyone on earth, one of the primary reasons being that Jesus’ mother was a virgin.
To Matthew, Jesus had to be born to a virgin, because Matthew believed that Jesus was the Son of God, and the virgin birth was a proof of that fact. But is Jesus the Son of God because he was born of a virgin, which is claimed to be a fact, or is he the Son of God because we believe that in some unique and powerful way he is God’s unique Son, and he is that because we believe he is, because we trust that he is?
Or let us think about this matter in a different way. Does the virgin birth establish Jesus as God’s Messiah and Son, or does our trust that Jesus is God’s messianic Son establish him, for us, as God’s Son? In other words, do biblical messianic prophecies prove what we believe --- or are supposed to believe --- about Jesus, or did we eventually come to trust that Jesus was the one prophesied, and therefore, for us, he is God’s Son and the Messiah?
When we were very young children, most of us developed a deep trust in both of our parents. When we were at a swimming pool, our father said he would catch us when we jumped off into the deep water. We knew we couldn’t swim, but we trusted him, so we jumped off, and he did catch us. When we were a little older, and we got sick in school, the school nurse phoned our mother, and she said she would come to get us. We trusted that she would do it, and she did. We couldn’t know that our parents would do what they said they would do until after they did it, but we trusted they would do it. After all, they were our parents, and they loved us, and we loved them, and of course we trusted they would do what they said they would do.
I am blessed by being able to remember poetic lines from a few hundred hymns. I might not remember names I should be able to recall at every moment, but lines from great hymns I remember. I don’t know why. I also am cursed by being able to remember lines from hymns whose tunes and theology nearly drive me round the bend, especially when they are hymns I have heard only once or twice.
One such of the latter type of hymns is called Trust and Obey. I don’t think I have ever heard this more than three or four times in my life. I am pleased to say it was not included in any Presbyterian hymnal ever used in any of the churches I attended as a child and youth, or served as a minister, although it might have been in the youth hymnal we used in Fort Scott, Kansas when I was in the third through fifth grades.
I Googled to see if by chance Mr. Google included the text for this insidiously insipid but curiously catchy Gospel ditty. He did. Why he does that I also don’t know, but as time goes on almost everything now seems to be viewable on Google, including, perhaps, the full text of War and Peace or Atlas Shrugged.
Anyway, here is the refrain for Trust and Obey, which follows every stanza. “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way/ To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” The opening stanza isn’t bad, exactly, but the second one says this: “Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies,/ But His smile quickly drives it away;/ Not a doubt or a fear, not a sigh or a tear,/ Can abide while we trust and obey.” That is followed by “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way/ To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” Oh, if life were only that simple and easy and obvious!
If you grew up in a Mainline Protestant congregation, you probably never sang that Gospel song. But if you were raised in an evangelical or fundamentalist church, it may be one of your favorites. If so, God bless you. But if, in heaven, Trust and obey is one of the regulars they sing in the celestial choir, which I hope to join, I shall reconsider that long-held desire, and I might even reconsider wanting to go to heaven.
Nonetheless, there is a kernel of truth encased in those – you should pardon the expression – corny words. It is the single word “trust.” We can have faith in God and Jesus, we can believe in God and Jesus, but if we do not trust in them, our faith and belief is all for naught.
And how, you may ask, does this detour into evangelical hymnody bear on the virgin birth? I am so pleased that you asked.
For Matthew, the prophetic verses he quotes throughout his version of the Gospel prove the divine nature of Jesus, they validate it, they verify it. That also has been true for countless numbers of Christians down through the centuries. They believe that Jesus as Messiah is authenticated by what the prophets wrote. But for other Christians, proofs are not necessary. For them, trust will suffice.
God sent Jesus into the world to establish the kingdom of God in the world. I suspect that God doesn’t care which method leads us to affirm that conclusion; He just wants us to affirm it. When we do, life changes for us; it improves; it provides new hope; it gives us courage to face an uncertain future unafraid.
It is acceptable to think that Jesus was born of a virgin. It also is acceptable to deny that. Jesus is authenticated as the Messiah for some people on the basis of claims made regarding the singular obstetrical circumstances of his birth. For others, apparently including Mark, John, Paul, and every other writer in the New Testament, a virgin birth was not perceived to be a necessity for trusting in Jesus as the Messiah who was promised by God. He becomes the Messiah for us when we trust that what he presumably said and did, as it is recorded in the four Gospels, is essentially authentic, even though some details may be in historical error.
Do you think that too few Christians ever ponder these matters? If so, let me ask you: Do you ponder these matters? Please think about it.