Conceived By The Holy Spirit Series

That doesn’t mean, however, that I disagree with the statement that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. To some of you that may seem like a no-brainer, while to others it may just sound like I’m adopting a quaint doctrine to avoid a call from the Bishop, but think about it for a bit.

If you buy into at least the first line of the Creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” you’ve set yourself up to the possibility for all sorts of crazy things. If God is those things...is intimate and personal like a good father, is more powerful than anything human beings can imagine, and is capable of creating everything on earth and in the heavens, then it’s hard to say that any particular incident couldn’t have happened. God made the human prototypes, God can certainly manage a zygote in a real woman’s womb. There are some species that require no cross-fertilization at all–ever. If you agree that God made the heavens and the earth, a virgin birth is not going to be difficult to pull off.

The narrative in Luke is clear that Mary has done nothing to make ordinary conception possible, and in the realm of things that God can do, it is completely possible for that scenario to be correct. Just because our human scientists don’t see how it could happen doesn’t mean that God can’t do it. Being able to transcend human knowledge and experience is part of God’s job description.

But I think we can get all tangled up in trying to prove or disprove an event and miss the main message. Whether or not Mary actually was a virgin is not a question we’re going to be able to settle to everyone’s satisfaction. We do know, however, that the writers of the Gospels and the God who ensured that those writings survived wanted the story taught that way; and I believe they wanted the story taught that way because of the truth it shows us about the nature of God. As I look at the story, I see the writers trying to convey two things about who God is; and those two things are represented in the two Scripture readings for this morning.

In the first reading, where the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will have a child, it means that if God shows up in my life, I had better hold onto my hat. If the Virgin Birth is true, then God should not be expected to stay within conventional boundaries. Just because that’s the way babies are always born does not mean that this is the way God’s baby will be born. “We’ve never done it that way before” doesn’t cut it with God.

In this case, neither does, “But it could be dangerous.” Just being found pregnant before marriage could mean a literal death sentence for Mary, but that does not stop God from asking her to do it anyway. Good grief, I complain when God asks me to do something even slightly embarrassing. This is way beyond embarrassing. This is scandal of the first order, which, under the Jewish law of the time, was punishable by stoning. If the Virgin Birth is true, life with God is not a cakewalk, and it is certainly not boring.