Virgin Born
Isaiah 7:10-17 10Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, 11"Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights." 12But Ahaz said, "I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test." 13Then Isaiah said, "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. 15He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. 16But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. 17The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria."
Luke 1:26-38 26In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." 29Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32He 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, 33and 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?" 35The 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 the Son of God. 36Even 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. 37For 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.
The Jesus who was born in Bethlehem was meant to be born in each of us. Because of His birth in Bethlehem Jesus is and can be born in us today. That birth in Bethlehem began not with an act of human will, but with an announcement from an angelic visitor. “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.” The Virgin Birth says, “If you are going to be saved, it will not be by your own effort. You are helpless.” The Virgin Birth is hard to believe because it confronts us with a truth about ourselves that is hard to accept. It is the truth about the limits of our control, about a basic helplessness that only God can do something about. We need to recognize the dark side of all our doing and our activity. It keeps up the façade of our control. It can feed our ego and it can shut us off from the truth that in many respects we are really helpless. Is there any feeling we hate worse than feeling we are helpless? Are there any words we dread to hear more than “There is nothing you can do about it.” We are a nation and a people who are spinning with the intoxication of being in charge and in control. No other people have ever known the level of control that we have over the forces of nature and over the affairs of our daily lives.
God’s creative work can happen at any time and any place. Certainly it can topple us from our pinnacles of pride. But God’s creative work seems to come most often into the darkness of our helplessness. “And the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” The Virgin Birth is about a power that can reach us, and touch us and create new life within us. The Virgin Birth says that no self-centeredness is so strong that God cannot penetrate it with His life giving power. No façade of control and confidence is so impregnable that it can keep God out. No life can be so far gone into self-destruction that God cannot draw it back. No separation is so wide that God cannot connect with us and plant the seed of life.
This is the grand and glorious truth that the Virgin Birth beckons us to believe. And the season of Christmas will reach out to us to help us experience this truth in a real way. The stories stir in us a sense of life that seems to have been lost. The carols touch our spirits with a spark of life. It is to the helpless that the angel speaks, “For nothing is impossible with God.” When we face the truth of our helplessness our hearts are fertile for hope to happen. In situations of hopelessness, frustrations, and aggravations hear the angel’s announcement: “For with God nothing will be impossible.”
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope
copyright Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell
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