"Jesus Is the One Who Is Born of a Virgin" Matthew 1: 18-25; Isaiah 7: 13-1

A little late and limited, but here are a few thoughts for Sunday's sermon.

1. Karl Barth notes that the importance of Jesus being born of Mary means that we do not have to seek God.  God came to us.

2. We note that Jesus is called "Immanuel," which means God with us.

3.  Karl Barth argues that when God chooses to be born of a virgin, God chooses to work through the powerless.

4.  Jesus being born of a virgin counters the early church heresy of  Docetism, that argued that Jesus was not fully human.

5. I find it curious that neither Mark or John mention the virgin birth, although Mark's beginning fits with his action oriented gospel and John's clear use of Gnostic (a popular philosophical school at that time) themes might preclude his speaking of Christ's birth.  Of course, it is hard to imagine why Paul would not have mentioned Christ's virgin birth, so I wonder what the absence of that topic in Paul's writings means?

6.  I ran across this story about a statue of Jesus erected in Poland in November, 2010.  "one of the largest statues of Jesus ever erected, measuring 108 feet from head to toe, was raised in a Polish field near the small town of Zwiebodzin.  The video on Youtube is fascinating to watch as a crane raises first the outstretched arms and then the head is placed on the body.  The statue rivals the vast Christ the Redeemer statue that watches over Rio de Jenaro...the New York Times interviewed the Catholic Priest who organized the project, who said “I hope this statue will become a remedy for this secularization,” said the Rev. Sylwester Zawadzki, “I hope it will have a religious mission and not just bring tourists.”   The article goes on to say that in Poland, where 90 percent of the people say they are Roman Catholic, actual church attendance has dropped to 40 percent in rural areas and 20 percent in the metro areas.  When the non-church goers are interviewed about why they don’t attend, they say that the church is not relevant to modern times, being more focused on issues like contraception.  They see the church as hypocritical because of sex scandals and too involved in supporting the political party that just lost power in government.  As I read about these issues, I thought, it doesn’t matter how big that statue is, these folks are not coming back to mass.  It may be a reassuring and inspiring symbol to those who are engaged in the church, but the symbol doesn’t overcome the disassociation many Polish people feel."  Todd Weir on his blog bloomingcactus at http://bloomingcactus.typepad.com/bloomingcactus/2010/12/isaiah-710-16-god-with-us.html

7. An interesting insight from N.T.Wright:  "No one can prove, historically, that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived. No one can prove, historically, that she wasn't. Science studies the repeatable; history bumps its nose against the unrepeatable. If the first two chapters of Matthew and the first two of Luke had never existed, I do not suppose that my own Christian faith, or that of the church to which I belong, would have been very different. But since they do, and since for quite other reasons I have come to believe that the God of Israel, the world's creator, was personally and fully revealed in and as Jesus of Nazareth, I hold open my historical judgment and say: If that's what God deemed appropriate, who am I to object?" God's Way of Acting, Christian Century, December 16, 1998, pp. 1215-17; http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=17

Question for you bloggers?  Does it matter to you that Jesus was born of a virgin?