I just wanted to wish all good tidings on this Christmas day. This year has been a tough one, there have been so many things to be anxious about. Shutdowns. Staying home. Masks. Tests. Keeping my distance. These are days of lamentation. Life immersed in tears.
“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk. 1:38). Words spoken by the virgin Mary when Gabriel that she would give birth to the Christ (i.e., Messiah). She really knows something epic is happening, God is in control, and that she is willing to be used by God in a magnificent way. She says,
My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever
(Lk. 1:46-55).1
If faith is something that comes to us on God’s terms alone, then the mother of the Lord is somebody who did just that.
I doubt Mary ever doubted anything, but I am certain her days after the annunciation of the Christ were anything but easy-peasy. While yet betrothed to Joseph the Carpenter, Mary conceived but the father was unknown. Who would believe her report of an angelic visitation and that the conception was of the Holy Spirit? The faithless might have thought, “Well, the carpenter may not be the father but the poor gal must be lying or severely deluded and conception through the Holy Spirit is a bit much.”
Even in a world immersed in paganism wherein gods like Zeus sired many offspring, gods and demigods, with multiple consorts both divine and human, there were still skeptics who criticized the Christian gospel. For example, the pagan Celsus asserted that Mary was impregnate by a Roman soldier named Pantera. Nevertheless, New Testament scholar Craig Evans indicates that “the allegation that Jesus’ real father was a man named Pantera (or Panthera) exploits Christians’ claim that Jesus was born of a ‘virgin’ (Greek, parthenos). It was nothing more than a play on words. Pantera was the closest sound-alike name, and was a name of soldiers, so Jesus’ conception was suggested to be not that of a virgin, a parthenos, but that of a soldier, a man named Panthera. We have here nothing more than slander and rebuttal. We have no actual archeological evidence that can with any probability be linked to Jesus.”2
I too need to shake off the presumption of living in a closed material universe wherein everything can be identified, categorized, and explained as the effect of a natural causation. Nothing on the outside of the material universe enters does things inside the universe. With this sort of broken logic, if Joseph could be excluded from being the contributor to the conception, then I am only left with the option to choose another human male contributor. If I binge too much on the X-Files and Ancient Aliens, I might come off thinking Jesus was an alien-human hybrid produced by extraterrestrial scientist. This too is another materialistic explanation based upon a closed universe.(The extraterrestrials are only more advanced because their evolution started prior to our evolution.) But there is nothing to preclude the supernatural. There is nary a good reason for an a-priori exclusion of the miraculous. Of all the stories about supernatural births, what if Mary is the real deal? Holy Spirit conception is far from impossible.3
Mary dealt with more than criticisms from skeptics. A faithful man named Simeon tells her: “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed,” and that “a sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Lk. 2:34-35). There were difficult days to come. She along with her child and husband had to flee to Egypt from a paranoid megalomaniacal king who decreed the deaths of male infants under two years old in Bethlehem (Matt. 2:1-23). When Jesus began ministering, Mary was present when the Lord’s sanity was being questioned — “They were saying, ‘He is out of his mind’” (Mk. 3:21; cf. 3:31). She even witnessed her own child being crucified. Death was certain. Recalling the crucifixion, John the son of Zebedee tells us, “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (Jn. 19:26-27). This was the least that could be done for the dear woman, but what is that to the pain of her own child being put to death in what is arguably the most shameful way to die. I wonder if the word of Simeon about the sword piercing her own soul kept replaying in her mind though all of this?
Yet, Mary never renounces God. She remains faithful to God’s promises. After Jesus resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven, Mary is found fellowshipping with the disciples in the upper room at Jerusalem (Acts 1:13-14). She keeps the faith even when the sword of tumultuous circumstances pieced her own soul. She is resilient. It is through living life with the Son that Mary gets to witness the fulness of God’s plan and purpose unfold. I suspect she was the primary source for the information about birth accounts we read about in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
Faith needs to move beyond emotionalism. Even when the sword pierces the soul, we are well to remain faithful to God. This is what we find in Mary.
Stuck inside a bubble of instant gratification, whenever trouble strikes, I just want all the pain to go away immediately, but there is always a bit of suffering in the refining of the soul. James tells us: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (Jas. 1:2-4). Paul echoes the same idea: “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:3-5).
God takes me out of the kingdom of darkness and brings me into the kingdom of light. There is sorrow and grief in the world that I am passing through, but I know God is present and preparing me for glory. Virtues never really come easy. It is not simple easy like getting calcium and vitamins from drinking a rich thick cup of chocolate milk. Building virtues in people is far from simple easy. Acquiring virtues like patience and endurance really calls for time in the cauldron of adversity. Still, God is with us throughout the process.
God uses Mary in a spectacular way. It is never the case that her life was one of ease and prosperity. It is never the case that she never had times of sorrow. There is suffering but God is doing something magnanimous. What is significant is that she becomes the humble vessel used by God to bring about the incarnation of the Son. The Son of Mary is called Immanuel, which means God is with us. He saves us from our sin. Is this not the end of Christmas? It is God who becomes a man so that man can have union with God.
Merry Christmas!
— WGN
- All Scripture cited from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), unless noted.
- Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Downers Grove, Inter-Varsity Press, 2006), 219.
- For further related reading, see Hank Hanegraaff, “Is the Virgin Birth Miracle or Myth?” Christian Research Journal, 27, 4 [2004]: https://www.equip.org/article/is-the-virgin-birth-miracle-or-myth/; Hendrik van der Breggen, “The Seeds of Their Own Destruction,” Christian Research Journal, 30, 1 [2007]: https://www.equip.org/articles/seeds-destruction/
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