Born of Mary
Apostles’ Creed 2-4
December 13, 2009
I know it is only two weeks since the Grey Cup, but I wish to orient you to the current season. A Hail Mary is a prayer, particular to the Roman Catholic Church, not a desperation pass at the end of a football game.
“Hail Mary, full of grace. Our Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”
There are few of us here who know or recite this prayer for a variety of reasons, but it’s not that we don’t like Mary. No creche scene can survive without Mary, though Joseph can be ignored and forgotten. Joseph often is confused with the shepherds. Everybody knows Mary.
Mary has not really caught on in Protestant circles, for along the way she has become a symbol of Catholicism. Yet, catch off guard any fundamentalist Christian and try to declare that there was no virgin birth for Mary and you are in for a fight. No doubt about it, the virgin birth is one of the fundamental tests of basic Christianity.
The Apostles’ Creed declares it the most succinctly about Jesus Christ - “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.” The Nicene Creed takes a few more lines to get around to it. Jesus, “For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.” The New Creed of the United Church of Canada predictably does not mention Mary at all, for “We believe in God ... who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh.” Nobody argues about God, some denominations argue about the Holy Spirit, and some have doubts about who Jesus is, and they are centered about Mary.
Sure, that concept of a virgin birth is made out to be a big deal and is one of the main targets of the bold new atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, to prove that Christianity is false. What their imaginations cannot fathom is that far more amazing than any virgin birth is the reality of Emmanuel, God with us. It is so beyond our words to describe that our language necessarily has to express itself in a manner beyond our ability to comprehend. Virgin birth just came rolling off the evangelists’ tongues. Scientific thinking has its definite limits.
The real issue about Mary can be explained in a roundabout way by a familiar wish and prayer, “Would that every day of the year be like Christmas!” Haven’t you said or dreamed that someday, everyday, all God’s children will feel the harmony and peace and good will towards all people that we luxuriate in each late December? That’s a wonderfully ideal feeling that does happen unexpectedly at other times of the year and we rejoice greatly in those moments. But it has nothing to do with Christmas. That wonderful feeling of Christmas every day diminishes the power of Christmas, because Christmas is not a general good warm feeling, it is incredibly specific, and I emphasize the adverb ‘incredibly.’
It’s that specificity that we declare each time we rehearse the Apostles’ Creed. “I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” This was not the eternal event of a god coming down to humanity, but entering the human condition at the exact point of a young woman named Mary, and not just any Mary, but one engaged to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. In the same breath as the Nativity comes the Passion, for this person Jesus suffered not under the principalities and powers, a terrible collection of “them,” but under Pontius Pilate who was not the best or worst of Roman governors of Judea, but simply the man who occupied the post between 26 and 36 A.D. according to the Roman records. Jesus came at a specific time and it was the right time.
Some have treated this like any other date in history, printed it in a book and then it’s over and done - it’s history, the dead past. Instead, we declare that this happened not once upon a time or that it could have happened any time, but that God became One of us at this time. Jesus did not become human in any human being, but in one called Mary; he did not run aground of the powers-that-be, but of the Roman Empire under the authority of an historical figure, Pontius Pilate, who probably forgot all about the incident.
Christmas is not a general warm feeling, but an intrusive event when we least expect it, when we have no chance of controlling the circumstances. “Born of Mary” means that Jesus could interrupt our lives not “any time now,” but right now. Children know it is right now as they replay the events. The events of an undistinguished couple, non-professionals, in a country occupied by a foreign superpower, ruthless in its use of military force; pregnant before it was lawful, a forgotten father who was not the father; forced by government edict to travel for no good reason at all, they were given no room in the hotel and were forced to experience their blessed event amidst the animals and the straw and dirt. Nobody believed he was Emmanuel because none of this made sense, none of it was proper and fitting, no one was prepared.
Christmas is dangerously specific. God does not wait until we believe we are ready. Advent is our invention. Our God has a habit of interrupting us to make it uncomfortably clear that God’s agenda is the one that matters right now, even when we don’t believe that God’s messengers are worthy or that we are worthy enough to receive the message. It doesn’t matter - Jesus was born of Mary.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan