Reflections on "Jesus Is the One Born of a Virgin" Matthew 1: 18-25; Isaiah 7: 13-17

When I picked the Isaiah passage to pair with the Matthew passage, I did so because it was the prophecy that Matthew was quoting.  As I studied the Isaiah text, it turned out that it fit very well into the sermon, particularly in describing how God pursues us.

I was having coughing/congestion issues, which caused me to be speak softer and perhaps less change in modulation than normal.  It had a different feel to me, but I'm not sure how that difference was heard in the congregation.

I was reminded how Karl Barth has always been an important theologian in my thinking, and now N.T. Wright has become an important voice for me as well.

The problem/challenge with this theme is that it is a well-worn Christmas theme, so we were not very far from it in our year.  I did use hymns about Jesus' birth that were not the traditional Christmas carols to keep from having it seem like just another Christmastime sermon.  But, I could not imagine preaching a series about the basics of who Jesus is without including his virgin birth.

“Jesus Is the One Who Is Born of a Virgin” Matthew 1: 18-25; Isaiah 7: 13-17 FPC, Troy; February 10, 2013; Jesus Is the One Who... series

Introduction: Lots of stuff in different traditions and in theological circles surfaces when we say that Jesus is the one who is born of a virgin.

For example, the Presbyterian church I served in KY was on the same block as the Catholic church. The two churches did quite a bit together. For instance, we were the two cornerstones of the local Habitat for Humanity. I always thought it was a wonderful witness to the community about our unity in Christ.

As I have shared with some of you before, some summer we did VBS together. One year the plan did not put a teacher from each church together, but instead had Catholic volunteers teach certain ages and the Presbyterian volunteers teach the other ages. This led to my surprise when my daughter said her prayer before going to bed one night, she had a a prayer for the Virgin Mary. Guess who'd had the Catholic volunteers that week!

There is a whole world of Mary theology that is part of the Catholic experience that we do no have in the Presbyterian church.

Scholars also love to argue about the virgin birth. We know with certainty that Matthew mistranslated the passage from Isaiah when he quoted Isaiah 7 and used the word, “virgin,” instead of “young maiden.”

Or, lots of time and energy has been spent questioning why Mark and John don't write about the circumstances of Jesus' birth. Here's a helpful hint: if anyone ever challenges you on what you believe about the virgin birth, tell them you totally agree with Paul on the subject. You'll be long gone before they figure out that Paul never mentions the subject.

Or, of course the opposite argument might be why would Matthew and Luke make up the virgin birth.

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

What does it mean to us that Jesus is the one who is born of a virgin, with an emphasis on born, which I think is the most critical part of that sentence.

Move 1: Jesus is one of us.

a. One of the heresies of the early church was Docetism, the belief that Jesus was really a God wearing the mask of humanity. That Jesus was not fully human.

1. IN some ways that makes sense.
2. Why would God, the creator, stoop to the level of the created humans?
3. Can you conceive of any rational reason that a powerful God would give that up to become human.

3. Part of the mystery of Jesus being human is why God would choose to become human.
   
   b. But the Gospels announce and we proclaim the birth of Christ, God in flesh.
   1. Imagine that, God fully human.

1. Why?
2. The name Immanuel, which means God with us, gives us a clue.

In Mt.. Sterling, KY, where my family and I lived before Troy, there was a blind man named Tom who was a familiar sight downtown. He had grown up in town and everyone knew him. He actually lived in a house that I passed everyday coming and going to church from my house. I would pass Tom's house several times a day. It took me awhile to notice something odd, or maybe I never did until someone pointed it out to me. There would be lights on in the house from morning until night. Think about that. Why6 would a blind man need lights on to see around his house. IN fact, the act of turning on the lights would be an added chore.
It turns out that Tom's mother lived down the street and drove by his house often to check on him. If he turned on his lights, she would not worry about him.
A blind man, taking on the habits of a person with sight, so that he could communicate better and comfort her.

3. In the birth of Christ, we find God totally aligning God's self with us.
4. God choosing to take on our humanity in order to connect with us, to comfort us, to save us.

Jesus is born to be one of us.

Move 2: Jesus is the perfect one of us.

a. Jesus models what it means to live out our humanity as God intended it.

1. Think about when you are learning a new job how helpful it is to have someone who serves as you mentor, whom you can observe work to learn what it means to apply the book knowledge about the job to the reality of actually doing the job.
2. When we contemplate what it means to live out our humanity, we have the example of Christ, who lived as a human among us.
3. Jesus did not deal with Facebook, nor did have the ability to travel the world or communicate like we do. He lived in a different time in history.
4. But Jesus confronted many issues that we encounter.
5. He had close friends, even close friends who did not always support him like he deserved or needed.
6. Jesus was in a relationship with God, and it even challenged him to do thinks he might not have done otherwise.
7. Jesus dealt with change and other people's resistance to change.
8. Jesus knew what it was like to have people depend on him, or to have people have high expectations, or to have people ask him for help.

b. OF course, the perfection in which Christ lives judges us.

1. In Christ's perfection, we see our imperfection more clearly.
2. I suspect the problem is not that we do not have a clue about how Jesus would respond to a certain issue or situation;
2. no, the problem is that when we look at how Christ acted, it often does not fit with how we choose to act.

Jesus is born to show us what human perfection is.

Move 2: God comes after us.

a. the Isaiah passage we read this morning is the one Matthew references in his story of the birth of Christ.

1. It takes us back to a time when Israel was dealing with enemies who wanted to conquer her and her own unfaithfulness to God.
2. King Ahaz is worried about Jerusalem's destruction at the hands of their enemies.
3. The prophet Isaiah comes to Isaiah with a word of promise and hope – God will take care of you.
4. In fact, God tells Isaiah to have Ahaz ask for a sign. Then, God will give the sign and prove God's faithfulness.
5. But Ahaz, under the guise of not wanting to put God to a test, but perhaps more out of arrogance, or lack of faith, or fear, refuses to ask God for a sign.
6. To which the prophet Isaiah declares, “God is going to give you a sign anyway.” and the sign will be the birth of Immanuel, which means “God with us” to a young maiden.
7. God pursuing the Israelites with the sign that Matthew recognizes in the birth of Jesus Christ.

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

1. God came to us.
2. That means our hope is not in our ability to go and find God, but our hope is in the God who has come and found us.
3. Like a parent looking for a lost child; like a shepherd looking for a lost sheep; God has chosen to come for us.

Conclusion: A few years ago, the small town of Zwiebodzin, Poland erected what would be "one of the largest statues of Jesus ever erected, measuring 108 feet from head to toe. There used to be Youtube video of of the crane putting the outstretched arms and then head on Jesus. Some of the townspeople thought it would be great for the local economy. All the tourists who came to see the statue would spend money and revive their failing economy.. .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.”    Todd Weir on his blog bloomingcactus at http://bloomingcactus.typepad.com/bloomingcactus/2010/12/isaiah-710-16-god-with-us.html

Personally, I don't think the world needs a 108 foot statue of Jesus; what we need is the Jesus who was born of a virgin.

We need Jesus, the one who is born of a virgin. And he is already here in our midst.