“Back to the basics: Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary”
Luke 1:34
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Every superhero, it seems, has a backstory, a story about how he or she went from being a normal, everyday human being to being able to “leap tall buildings in a single bound.”
Take Batman, for example. He wasn’t always Batman, you know. Instead, born to two very wealthy and charitable Gotham City socialites, Dr. Thomas and Martha Wayne, Bruce Wayne lived a very happy and privileged life. Until one night, on their way home from a movie theater, a small-time criminal named Joe Chill shot his parents and killed them. And from that moment on, Bruce swore to spend the rest of life fighting crime.
He said, “Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black and terrible.” And just as he said those words, a bat flew in through the window, inspiring him to become “the Batman.”
Even fellow superhero Superman said, “His parents died when he was so young. Shot. Killed right in front of him. He was raised alone. A kid in a huge mansion. With his memories of his mother and father. He had love, and they took it from him. He should be a killer. He should want to tear the world apart for what it did. And yet he took that pain. That shock of death. And he turned it into hope.”
And speaking of Superman, he’s got quite a backstory too! Knowing that their planet Krypton was about to be destroyed, his parents, Jor-El and Lara, quickly built a spacecraft to send their son, Kal-El, to planet Earth. And after crash-landing on a farm just outside of Smallville, Kansas, a couple named Jonathan and Martha Kent found him and raised him as their son. And just as soon as they discovered his superhuman powers, they taught him how to help others and to fight crime. And even though he seemed like anyone else on the outside, with glasses, frumpy hair and clothes, (just your normal, average, everyday Clark Kent), on the inside, he was Superman!
Even Jesus has quite a backstory too! Announced by angels, proclaimed by a star, worshiped by shepherds and adored by wise men, there’s never been, nor will there ever be, anyone like Him!
I’ll read the words of Luke chapter 1: “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be” (Luke 1:26-29).
So far in our study of “Back to the basics,” we’ve looked at the Ten Commandments and the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed.
And it’s good that we do that for, as Luther wrote in the words of his Large Catechism: “The entire Gospel which we preach is based on this, that we properly understand this article as that upon which our salvation and all our happiness rest, and which is so rich and comprehensive that we never can learn it fully.” And he wrote, “He who has brought us from Satan to God, from death to life, from sin to righteousness, preserves us in the same.”
It is a little strange, if you think about it. When those early Christian men wrote these words, they could have said quite a lot of things. They could have spent quite a lot of time talking about His miracles and His teaching.
But they didn’t choose to mention any of those things. Instead, when they wanted to talk about Jesus, they said this: “Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary.”
And when they said that, they meant to tell us that Christ’s virgin birth was not just some random miracle. Instead, it’s the foundation of our belief that He is both fully God and fully Man.
As one author put it: “The fact that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit means that He was not simply a human like the rest of us, for if He were just a man, then He would share our sinful nature and thus share our need for redemption. And if He was only God, He’d have no point of contact with us.”
In other words, for Jesus to be our Redeemer, He had to be both fully Man and fully God. And the truth of it hangs on the virgin birth.
Television personality Larry King was once asked if there was only one person, in all of history, that he could interview, who would it be? He answered, “Jesus Christ.”
And when asked, “If you could ask Him only one question, what would it be?” he said, “Were You really born of a virgin?”
Then when asked, “Why would you ask that question?” he answered, “Because that would define history for me.”
It’s been said that Jesus’ virgin birth lies on one of the great fault lines of the Christian faith. It’s the “great divide” that separates those who believe the Bible is the Word of God from those who don’t.
For if you believe He was born of a mother and father just like anyone else, a Child of Mary and Joseph, then He was nothing more than a good man, a moral teacher, a revolutionary and maybe a prophet. And His death on the cross was the most tragic mistake in all of history.
But if you truly believe He was born of a virgin, then you must believe He is who He said He was--God in human flesh, sent to save us from our sin.
Not quite twenty-five years ago, back in 1998, in a poll of more than seven thousand American pastors, researchers found that 19% of Lutherans, 34% of Baptists, 49% of Presbyterians and 60% of Methodists did not believe in the virgin birth!
Is it any surprise? It shouldn’t be. From the very beginning, people doubted that He really was born of a virgin.
In the book of John chapter 6, Jewish leaders scoffed at His claim that He came from heaven. They said, “How can You claim that You came from heaven when we know Your mother and father?” In John chapter 7, some people of Jerusalem refused to believe in Him because, they said, “When Messiah comes, no one will know where He came from. But we know where You came from.” And in John chapter 8, they said, “We were not born of sexual immorality.”
Or think of those even closer to home. Not only did Thomas Jefferson create his own version of the New Testament, literally cutting out all of Jesus’ miracles and His resurrection, he refused to believe in the virgin birth. He said, “The day will come when the mystical conception of Jesus by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” In other words, he said, the virgin birth is just a joke.
Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, wrote in the early 1900s, “Of course I do not believe in the virgin birth. I do not know of any intelligent minister who does.”
In 1983, Professor W. Barnes Tatum of Greensboro College in North Carolina called the virgin birth, “theological fiction.”
Robert Funk, founder of the Jesus Seminar and author of Honest to Jesus, wrote, “The virgin birth of Jesus is an insult to modern intelligence and should be abandoned. It’s a pernicious doctrine that denigrates women.” And he said, “It is possible that Jesus was illegitimate.”
And John Shelby Spong, former Episcopal bishop of Newark, New Jersey, said, “In time, the virgin birth account will join Adam and Eve…as clearly recognized mythological elements in our faith tradition.” In other words, the virgin birth is nothing more than a fairytale dreamed up by ignorant and simple-minded people.
Or think of a professor at Harvard Divinity School who was ridiculed by some of his students for believing in the virgin birth.
One student challenged him, saying, “So if some young woman came into the hospital and said that she was going to have a baby, that she was a virgin, and that an angel had appeared to her, you would believe her?”
The old professor hesitated for a moment, then answered, “No, I probably wouldn’t believe her. But I’ll tell you this--if that baby grew to manhood and his teachings changed the course of history, if he died on a cross and rose from the dead, and if two thousand years later one-third of the world’s population called him Savior and Lord--if that happened, I’d give that girl’s story a second hearing!”
So what does the Bible say? Seven hundred years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah wrote: “The virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and will call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
And think of our hymns. Each Christmas, we sing, “Christ by highest heaven adored. Christ the everlasting Lord. Late in time, behold Him come. Offspring of the virgin’s womb.”
We sing, “Fear not then, said the Angel let nothing you affright, this day is born a Savior of a pure virgin bright.”
And we sing, “Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright. Round yon virgin Mother and Child, holy Infant so tender and mild. Sleep in heavenly peace.”
So what does it mean that Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary”?
Let me put it like this--imagine a man who’s wearing a crisp, clean white shirt, and over it he puts on a dark, brown suitcoat. Can you see his white shirt? Of course, you can. It’s as plain as day. But you can’t see it very well, because it’s hidden beneath his dark, brown suitcoat.
And in the very same way, Christ’s humanity covered over His deity. That’s why so many didn’t know who He was--His humanity obscured His deity. For when they saw only the “coat” of His humanity and not the “white shirt” of His divinity, they assumed that’s all there was.
But that’s not all there was, for when He was in the manger, He was the Son of God. When He walked on the Sea of Galilee, He was the Son of God. When He died on the cross, He was the Son of God. When He rose from the dead, He was the Son of God. When He ascended into heaven, He was the Son of God. And when He comes again, it will be as the Son of God.
And all this is why we, even today, believe, teach and confess the words of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.”
So why was He conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary?
To dwell with the sick and heal them; with the demon-possessed, to free them; with the poor in spirit, to bless them; with the burdened, to bear their load; with the lepers, to cleanse them; with the diseased, to make them whole again; with the hungry, to feed them; with the crippled, to restore them; and with the lost, to find them and bring them home.
Immanuel, God with us, though He was infinitely rich, became poor, then entered our sin-sick world, bore our griefs, carried our sorrows, was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, then ascended into heaven to prepare a place for us. And now He sends His Spirit to dwell within us and will someday come back so that we may live with Him forever.
As Paul once wrote to the Corinthians: “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (II Corinthians 8:9).
We thank You, dear Father, for the miracle of the incarnation of Your Son, our Savior Jesus. Grant that we may always believe in Him who, as Your Word says, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. This we ask in His name. Amen