A Thought About Christ’s Virgin Birth (December 24, 2006)

Did Mary bear for decades the secret of the virgin birth?

A speculative line of thought occurred to me the other day - mere speculation, that's all - but if true, it might explain a few things.

Pregnant Mary and Joseph took off from the town of Nazareth, traveled to Bethlehem where Jesus was born, then went to Egypt and stayed for maybe a year or so before returning to Nazareth with their toddler. By the time they got back to Nazareth, it is possible (if not likely) that one of Jesus' brothers or sisters had already been born or was on the way. Soon they would grow to a family of at least nine (Mary, Joseph, Jesus, his sisters and four brothers mentioned in Matthew 13:55-56).

When they first left for Bethlehem, only one Nazarene, Joseph, knew - along with Mary - that her pregnancy had occurred without sex. (And he only believed that because an angel visited him - Matthew 1:20). The rest of the townspeople certainly assumed that either Mary and Joseph had "jumped the gun" or that Mary had been unfaithful to him and somehow he had made his peace with that.

I used to think that "No one believed poor Mary's story" - but lately it occurred to me, "Did she even tell them anything about it?" She told her relative Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah (Luke 1:39ff), who had had their own miracle with a late-in-life conception of John the Baptist. But why would Mary bother telling anyone in Nazareth about the visitation of Gabriel, or the report from shepherds in Bethlehem about angels in the sky, or the visit some time later of Eastern wise men? Who would have believed it, any of it? Her neighbors thought she was a fornicator. If she were to start telling them these stories they would also have thought she was nuts.

I bet she kept it to herself. Did she tell Jesus' brothers and sisters about his extraordinary birth? Did she tell Jesus himself? Scripture speaks of Mary "treasuring these things in her heart" (Luke 1:19,51). Perhaps that is the only place she treasured them.The heart quietly guards what the mouth cannot speak.

In time her husband died (Joseph is never mentioned after Jesus turned 12), aging Zechariah and Elizabeth also died, shepherds in Bethlehem and wise men in Iraq passed on or were not heard from, and this young widowed mother of at least seven had to figure out some way to make a life for herself and her kids in run-down Nazareth.

I can easily imagine the story of Jesus' remarkable birth lying dormant in this one widow's heart until there emerged a group of people who would believe it - the apostles of Jesus, who had witnessed his resurrection. They, unlike the Nazarene mockers, would be equipped to accept her story as Elizabeth did more than 30 years earlier. Like (if you will excuse the reference) Lara Flynn Boyle in Men in Black, who believed Will Smith's report of an alien because she had just done an alien autopsy herself, or like Professor Kirk in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, who believed Lucy because he himself had been to Narnia, so the apostles - who had seen Jesus walk on water and rise from the dead - would alone have been able to receive with reverent credibility the account from Mary about the birth of her Son.

Skeptics today make much of the fact that no account of the virgin birth occurs in the gospels of Mark or John, and that Paul never mentions it in any of his 13 epistles. I have never found any significance whatsoever in these supposed "omissions." But if an explanation is needed for them, might it be that the full story of Jesus' birth was not generally known until Luke and Matthew sat down with septuagenarian Mary around A.D. 60 and recorded her recollections? Luke's account transparently gives the events from Mary's perspective. I think he interviewed her. I don't know how much the other disciples knew, or when they found out. Jesus' death and resurrection mattered a lot more to them than his birth did. Who knows how long Mary kept quiet, and, when she spoke up, to whom? She may have been like Rose of the film Titanic, who waited 70 years to tell the story of Jack Dawson.

I may be wrong about this - as I said, it's all speculation - but if I am right, then I owe this insight to some very painful personal circumstances. I am a divorced man. Just writing those words, and continuing now, requires summoning more emotional energy than normally lies at my disposal, and stifling something like nausea and an urge to - what? - scream, cry, sleep, run away? It is like I want to do something but not this.

Old friends of mine, fellow missionaries and pastor colleagues still don't know that I'm divorced because I haven't told them. It hurts too much to talk about it. Not because I am ashamed or guilty - the fact is, I was a good and faithful husband to a wife who renounced Christ, coldly told me she was divorcing me and there was nothing I could do about it, and left me to pursue a godless lifestyle. But except for those close to me now, who know both me and her, I always think, "Who else is going to believe me when I tell them how it happened?" The first minister who was contacted about my "case" advised the church I was pastoring to discipline me, because obviously I must have done something wrong. My sister said that when she told friends that her preacher brother was getting divorced, they would respond, "Oh no! What did he DO??" She would set them straight ("He didn't do anything! It's his wife!"), but my heart still crumbles because I fear that their knee-jerk response is the one I'll hear the rest of my life. I hate it, I don't want to hear it, and I know that when the issue comes up I'll defend myself, which will just provoke the reaction, "Why is Paul being so defensive?"

So I do what I guess Mary did, and just keep my big fat mouth shut. The day will come when I tell old friends and they will ask "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" and I'll shrug and say, "It hurt too much. You have no idea. I am innocent, but I don't know how to get anyone to believe that."

God knows our secrets, the pain of keeping them, the perhaps greater pain of making them known. Among the thousand sorrows of the Blessed Mother of Jesus, I think she knew that pain too.

Disappearing Into A Big Church (December 17, 2006)

From time to time I run into an acquaintance who was active in a small church years ago until he left it for a big church where he does nothing but attend Sunday services.

I've encouraged him to get involved at the place he goes to now, and I hope that the next time I see him I can confirm that he has begun contributing to that church something more than a warm body in the pew and a check in the offering plate. He does not know that he represents to me a practice that I find infuriating: that of gifted believers withholding their service from churches that could use them by disappearing into megachurches where their presence is redundant.

Just once, when someone talks about leaving a church to begin attending another, I would like to hear an unselfish, service-related reason for it. I would like to hear a rationale based not on how it would benefit the mover but on how it would benefit the church he is moving to. For example:

"I'd love to teach a Sunday School class to teenagers, but my church already has several outstanding teachers and there is no opportunity for me to help in that way."

"As an accountant, I feel a duty to find a church that can use my services as treasurer."

"My current church has so many skilled musicians that they don't need me as a worship leader - I should probably find a congregation that could use my musical ability."

"Having raised my children and loved my husband I feel that I am in a position to mentor young married women - but my church has no such women for me to work with."

"I qualify as an elder according to 1 Timothy 3." (Rare commodity!)"My current church does not need the spiritual leadership that God has equipped me to provide - perhaps some other church does." (Yes! It does!)

And so on.

Few people attend the same church their entire lives - most Christians, at some point, will make a move to a new fellowship. When it is your turn to do so, please let thoughts of service govern at least part of the decision about where you end up. Even when church-shopping, you must obey Philippians 2:4: "Each of you should
look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."

Long Engagements And Expensive Weddings (December 10, 2006)

Next year I'm scheduled to officiate at a wedding whose price tag is reaching upwards of $40,000.

It's no skin off my nose. In fact, I'm part of the price tag. They're flying me out and paying my expenses. That is fine by me - I'm happy to be of service.

At the same time, it gives me opportunity to collect and communicate some thoughts about why I find expensive weddings spiritually dangerous. As a minister I am obligated to warn fellow believers about the perils. Here are two:

First there is sexual danger. Christians must preserve their virginity until marriage lest they violate Hebrews 13:4: Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. I know human nature. Delaying sexual gratification can be difficult for two people who have the hots for each other. And if they have already decided to get married, and can practice birth control to avoid the shame of pregnancy at the altar, and if their premarital union would not be condemned by parents or friends or society - then what on earth, other than the fear of God, is there to stop them?

All engaged Christians must choose between postponing sexual pleasure and rebelling against God's command. What an expensive wedding does is either prolong postponement to the point of weariness or provoke defiance of God through fornication. That is because such weddings cannot happen next month. They take many months (or years!) to plan. A friend of mine who photographs weddings tells me that his services are booked far, far in advance. The same goes for the reception halls.

Would I be revealing too much about the passionate strength of my own desires to say that if, 21 years ago, someone offered me a $40,000 wedding for the price of postponing sex with my bride-to-be for 12 months, I would have laughed in his face and said, "No WAY!!! What kind of deal is that? Are you crazy?"

It may be that engaged Christian couples who put off their weddings for years until they can get the right reception hall simply have superb righteous self-control. Or maybe they have very weak sex drives. I have no problem with that. But there is a problem if they choose fornication over submission to God simply because two years is "too long to wait." If that is your temptation, then go get a license and give me a call and we'll do a shotgun wedding next week. Of course that will stun your friends and relatives, but it is better to shock them than to anger God!

A second danger of expensive weddings is simply financial. Can you afford it?

By "afford it" I mean "while maintaining your other financial obligations, including tithing 10 percent of your income to the local church." If you go into debt to finance a big wedding, then you are merely a fool. But if you pay for a big wedding while holding back your tithe, you are a villain, for you have robbed God to throw a party for yourself. Such financial sin must be unthinkable to all Christians. Weddings - despite cultural insistence that they be lavish spectacles - are not exempt from the rules of modesty and prudence that govern all Christian expenditure. The Bible insists that we give charitably and support the work of gospel proclamation. If we fail to do that, but find funds for expensive weddings (or other costly things the flesh delights in), then we dishonor God.

The Apostle Paul wrote, "Be angry, but do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26). A paraphrase of that verse captures my attitude toward $40,000 weddings: "Have an expensive wedding, but do not sin." If the price of your wedding spectacle is sexual sin or financial irresponsibility, then you must repent, and scale back to a wedding that is quicker and more affordable.

The Pride Of Those Who Think They Can Fix Anything (December 3, 2006)

In September of 1939, Senator William Borah reacted to the news that Hitler had invaded Poland by saying, "Lord, if I could only have talked with Hitler, all this might have been avoided."

Do you know any Borahs? They are the ones who could have fixed the problem, any problem, if only the bumbling fools who always make a mess of things had just cleared out and let them handle it. When tragedy strikes, they immediately help by saying, "Here's what I would have done." They are confident of their ability to persuade bad people to see reason. A few words from their golden lips would have set
everything right - all that was needed was the opportunity that circumstances or incompetent powers denied them.

Senator Borahs materialize like vultures on carrion every time there is a disaster. The 9-11 tragedy produced thousands of them; locally, several tend to appear at the site of every failed marriage, every divided church, every hospital sickbed. "I could have solved this. It never would have happened to me. They should have done such and such. Too bad I wasn't here."

The Bible's prototypical Borahs are the friends of Job. One of them, Eliphaz, lectured his stricken friend, "But if it were I, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him." (Job 5:8). Eliphaz thought he would be vindicated in a trial before the Lord - unlike Job, who obviously had failed terribly (how could he not have failed, given how badly things turned out?). It does the heart good to see
Eliphaz get his comeuppance at the end of the book.

Desperate people sometimes long for a Borah who actually has the power he claims. They say, "I know I can't handle this, but YOU can. Please talk to Hitler. You can stop him." But if Hitler hasn't yet listened to anyone reasonable, he certainly won't listen to Borah. When the rich man in hell begged for Lazarus' ghost to be sent to save his brothers, he was told, "If they do not listen to Moses and the
Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." (Luke 16:31). Lazarus will not succeed where Moses has failed. Nor will Jesus.

Some evil is eternally recalcitrant. It is not coldly pessimistic to note that - it is just true. Maturity demands acknowledgment of the fact that, where we cannot win evil over, we must simply oppose it. It will certainly end in tragedy, but - second-guessing Borahs notwithstanding - it can end no other way.