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"A Likely Story" by Rev. Charles Hoffman

Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 23, 2001
Psalm 24 Matthew 1:18-25

The Gospel lesson for this fourth Sunday of Advent begins with these words: "Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way." And with that we are introduced to what many people would refer to facetiously as a likely story.

A man and a woman are engaged to be married. The woman is a virgin. But before the wedding she goes to her fiancé and tells him that she is pregnant. He decides that the best thing to do is to quietly break the engagement, but in a dream he is told by an angel of the Lord that all of this is of God and that he should go ahead with the marriage. So the man does as he is instructed and in due time his wife gives birth to a son whom they name Jesus.

No, it's not a likely story; it's an unlikely story. But that's what we have to deal with all through the Bible. In fact, just about all of the church's important holy days are hinged upon accounts that are incredible to our modern ears. They sound more like legend than history.

And it's not limited to Christmas. Surely Easter is the best example. Every year we come face to face with an impossible story, the account of a dead man being restored to life. But Easter is a wonderful story. It has everything: intrigue, suspense, passion, surprise, and in the end good wins out over evil. So everything needed for a fine narrative is there.

Still, it's hard to take at face value. And the reason is that in our view of life only rational things are acceptable. As one person put it, we love logic more than we love God so we are uncomfortable with stories such as Easter.

Of course, this isn't Easter, although it will be in only three months. Easter falls on March 31 this year. This is Advent. The season called Christmas which is only twelve days long, is two days away. And once more the Bible strains our rational minds.

You know, it would be much easier if we overlooked Matthew and Luke and just went to Mark or John. Matthew and Luke are the only ones who talk about a virgin birth. Mark and John, the other two gospels, don't say anything about the birth of Jesus. Mark begins with the baptism of Jesus.

"In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan." That's how Mark introduces Jesus. There's not a word about Bethlehem or Joseph or even Mary. In fact, in the Gospel of Mark Joseph isn't mentioned throughout the whole book.

The Fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John, begins with something that sounds more like philosophy than history: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

There's not even a hint from John about how this happened, how the Word became flesh. Maybe he assumes that his readers already know how it happened. Maybe he is of the opinion that it doesn't matter how it happened; it just did.

So I'm afraid that if it had been left to Mark and John we wouldn't have had Christmas at all. These two are the Ebenezer Scrooges of the gospels. There's nothing in Mark and John about a star and wise men and an angel and shepherds and cattle lowing and a babe lying in a manger. Nothing. Can you imagine trying to build Christmas traditions around Mark and John? It wouldn't work.

So we're left with Matthew and Luke, and each of them talks about this unusual birth. Not only do they talk about it, they make it a central feature of the story.

On this day, the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we focus on the Gospel of Matthew. As with all the gospel writers and in fact with all storytellers, Matthew has points he wants to emphasize. He wants us to know about the royal lineage of Jesus. So he includes a detailed genealogy in which he traces Jesus' ancestry from Abraham and Isaac on down to King David and finally to "Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ" (Matthew 1:16). And in the process of detailing the birth Matthew includes the bit about the Virgin Mary being with child of the Holy Spirit.

Now I'm of the opinion that there are preachers who preach around these stories of resurrection at Easter and of miraculous birth at Christmas. And I think I know why some choose to do that. After all, preachers are also part of the modern world and they naturally want to be respected for their commitment to reason and logic. But Christmas birth narratives present real problems. But personally, I don't see it that way. I'm sure that my audience, if I may refer to you as such, knows how to handle these marvelous stories. You know what they mean and, after all, that's the main thing.

I read a book a couple years ago under the title The Meaning of Jesus. The book has two authors, Marcus J. Borg and N.T. Wright. Both men did doctoral studies in New Testament at Oxford University in England. Both studied under the same major professor. Both men are active in their churches, Borg in the Episcopal Church here in America and Wright in the Church of England. But each approaches topics such as the Resurrection and the Virgin Birth in different ways. Borg is a leading and popular liberal voice on the meaning of Jesus; Wright is perhaps the outstanding traditional voice on the meaning of Jesus.

This is not the time and place to go into all the intricacies of their respective positions. Suffice it to say that N.T. Wright believes in the historical accuracy of what Matthew reports as a Virgin Birth while Marcus Borg believes that what we have here is what he calls metaphorical narrative.

Metaphorical narrative: by this Borg means that the account of the Virgin Birth doesn't need to be factual in order to be true. That is, it points beyond itself to truths that lie at the heart of the Christian faith. Now I'm aware that this sort of thinking creates its own problems and, as I said, this isn't the time to explore all of that. Especially so inasmuch as we're just two days from Christmas, most of us are feeling a little tired, some of us are preoccupied with all the preparations, and none of us wants the preacher to start tinkering with main story.

So I won't do that. Just like you, I want the story to be true in every detail. I want a few things in life that just blow my mind. I tell you, I look forward to the day when the Lord sits me down and lets me know how much I don't know about the ways of God with humanity. (When that happens I'm sure I will protest and say that had I known more I could have been a lot better preacher). I welcome the time when God expands the horizons of my thinking and pushes out the boundaries of what I once thought were the limits of possibility.

And I want you to know something else on this Sunday morning two days before the festival of Christmas: I cherish the story of this impossible birth, more so now than I did even as a child. Because, you see, I think I do understand what it means. Not completely, but with the assistance of Bible scholars and Christmas carols and poets and playwrights and novelists and musicians and artists I have reflected on this part of Christmas that always lurks at the edges of our celebrations.

Monica Furlong is a book reviewer from England. Writing about the gospels she notes that even in what is called a post- Christian world there are still some of us who are touched by the gospels. She says that, even though we are aware of all the new light being shed on this literature by biblical scholarship, "we sense that something uniquely precious is being said [in stories such as the Virgin Birth of Jesus]. . . Christians," she writes, "are. . . 'in love' with the gospel texts, much as one might be in love with a person. They arouse a hunger and hope, a sense of meaning, a possibility of healing and completeness" (quoted by Martin E. Marty in Context, 8/15/97, p. 5).

A hunger, a hope, a sense of meaning, a possibility for wholeness: that's what this troublesome birth detail is about. So we'd better pay attention.

It means that the God who is always present in the creation is sometimes surprisingly active. And when you think you've got it all figured out may just be the time when God upsets your neat little applecart as if to say, "Don't get complacent. Don't get too set in your ways." As Professor Wright says in the book I referred to earlier, "There are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in post-Enlightenment metaphysics. The 'closed continuum' of cause and effect is a modernist myth" (Marcus J. Borg and N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus, Harper San Francisco, 1998, pp. 172f.).

It reminds me of something the late journalist Harry Reasoner once said about Christmas. He said that what happens at Christmas "comes beyond logic" and might be thought of as "a kind of divine insanity" (quoted by Cal Thomas).

Now what other meanings are to be learned from this likely story?

Well, a number of things: for one, God is seen here continuing to write humanity's story. God is seen moving creation to a new level. A new creation is birthed out of the womb of the old creation. Charles Wesley says as much in his carol: "Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth. Hark the herald angels sing, 'Glory to the newborn King!'"

Professor Borg sees another significance in what Matthew gives us as the Virgin Birth. He says that "the story of Jesus being conceived by the Spirit affirms that what happened in Jesus was 'of God'. . . What happened in Jesus was not 'of the flesh' but 'of the Spirit.'" (ibid. p. 185). Here we have something that is uniquely new.

Therefore, it follows that we pay attention to this one of whom it is later said, "This is my beloved son; listen to him."

The important question that confronts us in these hours before Christmas is this: Is God the author of what is happening here? Is Jesus the child of promise? Is he the true Lord? Those are the important questions.

If you say yes to those questions it will change your life. And you will awaken to the realization that God is being born, not so much as a babe in a manger, but as the Lord of your life.

Now let me share an encouraging little slice of life. It's a little Christmas card that you can take with you. It's a group of young people singing Christmas carols. They are Princeton University students. They sing outside a simple two-story frame house, the home of one of the school's most famous citizens, Albert Einstein.

After one or two carols the great physicist steps outside and begins to accompany the carolers with his violin.

It's a wonderful picture: the greatest mind of the day joining in telling the simple story of an impossible birth. Think about it. Wise men and women still seek him. Amen.