I believe in the Virgin Mary. That may sound like a strange sermon title for a Protestant, but actually it is quite important. It is important to believe that there was such a person in history, that she was the mother of Christ, and that she was a virgin at the time of his birth. In fact, this truth is vital to our understanding of the nature of God, and the person of Jesus Christ. As Protestants we may not think of Mary in the same way our Christian friends who are of the Roman Catholic faith, but she is an important part of the Christian story. Perhaps we have so over-reacted to Roman Catholic teaching that we have not held her in as high regard as we should. We believe she was a normal young woman in every way, but we cannot forget that she was chosen by God to be the mother of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.
There are those who believe that she is a person that we pray to, or through, to reach Christ as a sort of mediator. Some teach that since she is the mother of Jesus she has special influence over Him, and can move him to do things he would not otherwise do. But Jesus Christ is full of compassion and needs no one to move his great heart. We need no one to reach him for us. We can go directly to the throne of grace for ourselves, and we are to pray to no one but God. The Bible says: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). The writer of Hebrews says, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
There are also those who believe that Mary is essential for our salvation; that she is a sort of co-redeemer with Christ. Those are not the things we are saying when we say we believe in the virgin Mary. Our Roman Catholic friends (And, by the way, we can be friends and still agree to disagree on some things) do have some doctrines concerning Mary that we do not include in our statement of faith, and it is sometimes important to know what we do not believe as well as what we do. One of those is the doctrine of the “Immaculate Conception.” They believe that Mary was immaculately conceived, that is, that she had natural parents, but that she was born without original sin—that tendency within each of us to do what is wrong rather than what is right; the condition within us that makes it hard to be good and easy to be bad. They believe that she was sinless from the time of her birth to the time of her death. We would not go that far. We would say that she was like every other human being who ever lived, but that she had a love for God, and a quality of faith and life that must have been there in order for God to select her for this special purpose.
Our Roman Catholic friends also hold to the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary. That is, that even though she went on to marry Joseph, they did not consummate their marriage, or ever have a normal sexual relationship. At one time, traditional Roman Catholic theology even said that Mary did not give birth to Jesus in the natural way, but that he passed through her body (in partu), almost as a beam of light. These are not biblical doctrines, but ideas which spring from tradition that has developed over long years of time.
But we do believe that Mary was a virgin at the time of Christ’s birth. Why do we believe that? Is it because there is something wrong with the sexual relationship, or because she would have been less “pure” if she were not a virgin, even as a married woman? Certainly not. God has blessed marriage, and the Bible talks frankly about the place of sex within marriage as God’s design (See 1 Corinthians 7). The importance of the virgin birth is not the “purity” of Mary, but the parentage of Jesus. If Mary was not a virgin, then God was not his Father — Joseph was. And it is important for us to understand that Jesus possessed a divine nature as well as a human one, and that was only possible if God was his actual Father. The reason I believe Mary was a virgin is because I believe that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle’s Creed declares. The virgin birth is what sets Jesus apart from the rest of the human race, as the only Son of God in that special sense.
As Protestants, we believe that Mary was special in that she was chosen by God for this great purpose, but we believe she was not any different from any other young Jewish girl who loved God and was faithful to Him. She may have been the one best suited, but the fact that she was chosen was still a matter of grace, undeserved favor, rather than a position she deserved or had earned. She was normal enough to need a Savior as much as you and I, for she was not free from sin any more than we are. Only one Person could make that claim. We also believe that she and Joseph enjoyed a normal marriage relationship after the birth of Christ. The Bible clearly tells us that Jesus had brothers and sisters. (Most people do not realize that two of the books of the Bible were authored by the brothers of Jesus: James and Jude.) In the thirteenth chapter of Matthew we read about the time Jesus came to preach in his home town. The people there knew his family and said, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” (Matthew 13:55,56). This was the very reason for Jesus’ rejection at his home town of Nazareth—the large family he came from seemed too common and ordinary.
So Mary was normal in every sense of the word, except one: She conceived and gave birth to her first child by supernatural means, and the Father of her child was God. She was also normal enough not to be able to understand how this could happen to her. When it was explained by God’s special messenger what would take place, she said, “‘How will this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.’” (Luke 1:34,35). Later on, this same explanation was given to her fiancé, Joseph, who would have his own questions about the pregnancy. We read in the book of Matthew: “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.’” (Matthew 1:20).
Why did God choose to bring Christ into the world in this way? Why is it important to believe in the virgin birth? It is important because it has to do with the very identity of Christ. If he were born like you and I, he would be just another man. But since he was born in the way he was, we can truly say he was the Son of God in a way that no one else is the Son of God. He did not have an earthly father, he was conceived by the Holy Spirit so that God was his Father. His humanity came from his mother Mary, but his nature, his divinity, came from his Father, God. When we say, “I believe in the virgin Mary,” we are actually saying: “I believe in the divinity of Christ. I believe that God was his Father.” Mary provided the body for God to dwell in while he was with us for a short time on earth, but the person dwelling in that body was the Son of God. The Bible says, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9). His name Immanuel means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23).
There are other accounts of supernatural births in the Bible like Samuel, Isaac, and John the Baptist. In each of these cases women who could not conceive became fertile, and bore a child for a special purpose. But each of these men were born with natural, biological parents, and none of them claimed to be God, as Jesus clearly did. None of them said they were the Son of God, or claimed to have God’s very nature and substance. The Bible says, “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:18). Jesus made astounding claims. He said, “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him” (John 5:23). He said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). In John 8:19 he said, “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” Here is the whole reason behind the crucifixion. Here is why he was so offensive to the Jewish religious leaders. In John 5:18 it says, “For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” They did not crucify Jesus because they misunderstood Him, they killed him because they understood exactly what he was saying. This is the same reason why so many still take offense at him today.
At Jesus’ baptism a voice came from heaven saying: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5). The people around him heard the voice and reported it to others. God himself bore witness to his own Son. The centurion at the cross seeing him only in the moment of death said: “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39). Thomas, seeing him after the resurrection and feeling his wounds, said, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the raging sea, and watched him calm the storm and the sea, they worshiped him saying, “Truly you are the Son of God” (Matthew 14:33). I believe in the virgin Mary, because there is no other explanation for the Christ of history. We cannot understand him except to understand the fact that God was his father.
Jesus, in coming to earth, was fully human, thanks to Mary, but he was also fully divine — fully God and fully man. The Bible says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). He felt the desires and temptations of human flesh just as you and I do. He is close enough to me that I know he understands me, and I can think of him as a man. But he is enough different from me that I cannot comprehend Him, unless I understand that he is God. When Peter said to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:16,17). Jesus acknowledged the truth of Peter’s statement and accepted his worship. I believe in the virgin Mary, because I believe that Jesus was not the son of Joseph, but the Son of the Living God. And because Mary gave birth to him, he was also very much a man.
If you do not understand that the Bible writers see Jesus as God you will not comprehend much of what they have to say. It is the message and theme of the New Testament. Jesus was not just a man who lived and died two thousand years ago; he is alive today, more than that, he was alive long before the world ever received its form. In Colossians we read: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible... all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together... For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” (Colossians 1:15-19). The Bible says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
But why would God give up his eternal glory to become human? Why would he want to become like me? Think of it! Why would he who was eternal decide to step into, and be bound by time? Why would God, unlimited by space, decide to be confined to a womb and be restricted to the body of an infant? He who was the beginning of all things would experience birth and the beginning of human existence. Why would the Timeless One want to have birthdays? Why would he who holds the destiny of us all, put his destiny in our hands? Why would he who cannot be destroyed allow himself to be pierced with nails, till the body he wore died a cruel and painful death? How could the Giver of life now be about to die?
I’ll tell you why. His love for you was so strong that it drove him to the place where he could do nothing else but come to earth for you. Love would not allow him to stay in the ivory palaces of Heaven. It sent him to the squalor of earth to seek you out. He did it all because you were helpless to come to God. God had to come to you, and he did that through a young virgin named Mary. Otherwise, the span would have been too great, the gulf too wide, the difference too vast. So God stepped out of his eternity and willingly entered a virgin’s womb, emptying himself of his glory and limiting himself to time and space. And, with a love beyond understanding, he submitted himself to shame and humiliation, pain and death, in order to come and be among us. The Bible says, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8). We can never talk about how we came to God, only how he came to us, and drew us by his love to his eternal Spirit.
We are not reaching out to God. We cannot even understand that we need God. God is reaching out to the human race, longing to save his creation from destruction because of their willful disobedience. We could not find the way on our own. We could not build a way to God, though many have tried, but God in his mercy condescended to provide a way that he might come to us and save us from certain death. The Bible says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death... For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:14-18).
Listen again to that well known verse that we often do not hear, because we hear it so often. Notice that it was not the world which loved God, and listen for what God’s purpose was in coming to the world: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16,17). The Bible says, “Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:5).
Rodney J. Buchanan
May 13, 2012
Amity United Methodist Church
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
