Scandals of Christmas: Part 1—The Scandal of the Virgin Birth
Introduction
In some ways it is an interesting time to begin this new series. It was this weekend, one year ago, that news of a potential scandal involving golfer Tiger Woods began playing out in the media. As always seems to be the case, the public’s appetite for such a story was voracious and grew more so with each tawdry detail that came to light.
As days and weeks passed by, it became increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction as Tiger and his family steadfastly refused to speak to the media. Their circle the wagons approach fanned the flames of controversy higher and higher. When the dust finally settled, we found that indeed a scandal had taken place.
What exactly do I mean with the word scandal? Scandal means “a disgraceful or discreditable action or circumstance; an offense caused by a fault or misdeed; damage to reputation; public disgrace.”
Sadly, all of these things apply to the story of Tiger’s fall. They also apply to his former wife Elin and their children Sam and Charlie. All of their lives have been indelibly marked by scandal.
Today, and for the next two weeks, I want to use the word scandal as we think about Christmas. That’s right! I want to talk about the scandal of Christmas.
Transition
Christmas in the United States may not be scandalous but we do have our annual controversies—namely, can nativities legally be displayed in public places and should retailers say, “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas”?
Such trivialities were not the case over 2000 years ago.
The nine months leading up to the birth of our savior were steeped in scandal from the very beginning.
Text
Luke 1:26-38 (NIV 1984)
26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[a] the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. 37 For nothing is impossible with God.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.
Matthew 1:18-25 (NIV 1984)
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[a] because he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[b]—which means, “God with us.”
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
The Scandal of the Virgin Birth
Do you see the scandal brewing? A couple is pledged to be married. (Such a pledge was so serious that it could only be broken through divorce. In fact, if one was to die before the wedding the survivor would be called a widow or widower.)
A couple is pledged to be married and she’s pregnant! There are only two possibilities—it’s his or it’s not his! Either way there’s a scandal in that society. If it’s his, they’ve transgressed God’s law and had sex before marriage. If it’s not his, she’s transgressed God’s law and had sex with some else who wasn’t her fiancé. Which headline do you choose: “Local girl is unwed mother-to-be!” or “Local mother-to-be is an unwed adulteress?” It’s a no-win situation.
To make matters worse, they have an explanation. There is a third possibility no one has considered…a possibility that will quell the brewing scandal and send everyone back to their normal lives. It’s not his and it’s not someone else’s. The truth is that God caused her to be pregnant and she’s still a virgin. No laws have been broken. No sin has been committed. All is right with the world. There’s no story to report and certainly no scandal.
Do you really expect anyone to believe that story? Moms and dads, if your daughter and her fiancé come home to announce her pregnancy yet defend their purity by explaining it was God, how likely would you be to believe them? Middle and high school girls, if you come home with your boyfriend to announce your pregnancy to your mom and dad, how do you think they’d respond? What if you assured them it was okay because you’re still a virgin and God made you pregnant? How do you think that would go over?
Forget the pregnancy news for a moment, the fact that you’d conjure up a story blaming God for your actions may be a scandal in and of itself.
And yet that’s exactly where Mary and Joseph found themselves. It was scandalous for both of them. It was disgraceful and damaging to their reputations…and the reputations of their families.
As I consider this story, I must ask the question “why?” Why did God choose to work in such a scandalous fashion? Why not choose a married couple (or at least wait until after Mary and Joseph’s wedding)? Why sully the reputations of two good people and even Jesus himself? (When the Pharisees argued with Jesus in John 8, they actually made the statement, “We are not illegitimate children…” It was an attack on his reputation and the morality of his parents.) Why do things this way?
Let’s consider a three-part answer:
1. The answer we find in the text is from Matthew 1:22-23, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
This shows us that Jesus’ conception and birth fulfilled prophecy spoken through Isaiah about 800 years prior to the event. However, it does not answer the question "why" on the level we really want it to.
2. The second answer is theological in nature. Jesus was both “Son of God” (24x in NT) and “Son of Man” (83x in NT). Without the virgin birth, we cannot establish Jesus as being “God with us.” If Joseph or anyone had been the father, Jesus would have been just another man.1
These are important truths but they don’t tell us why, on a level we want to understand, God would work in such a scandalous fashion.
3. For that, perhaps we should consider one of God’s attributes (or characteristics). Almost 300 times the Bible describes God as being sovereign. Sovereign means that God is the “supreme and independent power and authority.” Simply put, there is no one and nothing like him, above him, or beyond him. Such a position means that God can do what he wants, when he wants, where he wants, how he wants, and why he wants—all within certain self-imposed limitations. God does not have to seek our permission and he does not have to explain himself. (We have a hard time with that.)
I think we can easily understand the first two reasons: God did it this way to fulfill prophecy and to show us that Jesus is God. However, we may still struggle with the third—if God can do anything, why choose a scandal?
Honestly, I don’t know. I imagine it would be harder for people to accept the idea of Jesus as God if Mary and Joseph had already been married. I mean, if it’s hard for an unmarried couple to claim pregnancy and virginity, how much harder is it for a married couple to make the same claim?
I think we struggle with this idea because we like explanations. We like explanations we can wrap our minds around and make sense out of. We like explanations that cause the light bulb to light up and give us an “Aha, I get it” moment.
We struggle with the fact that God is under no compulsion to offer such explanations and I’d argue that such a struggle is the very reason we need to look somewhere else in this story. We don’t need to spend all of our time asking “Why would God do such a thing?” Rather, we need to look more closely at Mary and Joseph.
For Mary, saying yes to God involved sacrifice. She endured the doubts of her fiancé and the scorn of neighbors who saw her pregnant before marriage. She gave birth to her child in a cave used as a stable. She fled to Egypt to protect Jesus from Herod’s death decree for baby boys. She raised a child she did not understand and watched him die on the cross.2
For Joseph also, saying yes to God involved sacrifice. Three times he received angelic messages telling him what to do. First, instead of having his fiancée executed or divorcing her, he was told to marry her even though she was carrying a child he hadn’t fathered. Second, he was told to move his family to Egypt to escape Herod’s decree. Third, he was told to move back home where people probably remembered that Mary had been pregnant before their marriage.3
As we consider Mary and Joseph, we see that they understood that there was a cost to following God’s plan. Though neither knew at the time they’d be moving to Egypt and then back home, they knew that a scandal was in the making—a scandal that would damage their reputations and cast aspersions on their family for decades to come. They knew there would be a cost and they were willing to pay it.
That both makes a statement to us and issues a challenge for us. The statement is that there is a cost to following God’s plans. The challenge is whether or not we are willing to pay the cost…whatever it is.
Transition
Hear these words from Luke 14:25-35 (NIV)
25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
34 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Mary and Joseph had ears to hear. They were interested in what God had to say. They were serious about serving him—no matter what it meant for them. Are you interested? Are you serious…no matter what it means?
Closing & Response
If you are interested and if you are serious, I want you to bow your head and tell God these things:
1. I am yours
2. I commit to your will…no matter the cost
a. I’ll go wherever you want me to go
b. I’ll do whatever you want me to do
c. I’ll say whatever you want me to say
d. I’ll give whatever you want me to give
3. I’m not perfect, you know that, but you can have all of me.
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1 “Yes, there are essential Christian Doctrines,” by Matt Slick. http://carm.org/essential-christian-doctrines (accessed November 27, 2010).
2 “Mary, Mother of Jesus” by Philip Yancey in The NIV Student Bible, Revised Edition, p. 1083.
3 “Joseph”, by Philip Yancey in, The NIV Student Bible Revised Edition, p. 1006.
