Christmas meditation

From Mark D. Roberts' blog series on the birth of Jesus:

As far as we know, the Apostle Paul, the great evangelist of the first century, didn’t have much to say about the virgin birth. And we know for sure that he didn’t make belief in the virgin birth a prerequisite to faith in Christ (see Romans 10:9-10; 1 Corinthians 15:3-8). Even the gospels of Matthew and Luke, the only sources we have for the birth of Jesus, don’t suggest that Christian witness to Jesus meant convincing folks of his virgin birth.

Now I’m not saying that the virgin birth isn’t an essential aspect of orthodox Christian theology. It is. But I am saying that, with respect to one’s becoming a Christian, it is not essential first to believe in the virgin birth. In the New Testament, as in the Good News itself, the focus is on the death and resurrection of Jesus, not on his birth. Sometimes we forget this. It may have to do with the fact that in our experience, even in our church experience, Christmas is a much bigger deal than Easter. Good Friday barely gets a nod in some Christian contexts. So we can forget what matters most when it comes to beginning a relationship with God through faith in Christ.

Furthermore, though the virgin birth expresses eloquently the fact of Jesus’s nature as both divine and human, the early Christians did not base their belief in Jesus’s deity on their belief in his virginal conception. At least we have no evidence of this whatsoever. Rather, Christians came to see Jesus as God on the basis of what he did and said, in the light of the Old Testament. And then, once they saw him as God in the flesh, it wasn’t terribly difficult to affirm the stories of his virginal conception.

(via Donald Sensing)

Here is another perspective on the virgin birth that I believe provides an important degree of divine symmetry to the Christian faith. From the writings of Ravi Zacharias in a short piece entitled ”The Peg On Which The Coat Of Christianity Hangs”:

Some years ago, I along with other evangelists was at a lunch hosted by Billy Graham. He was narrating some of his most memorable experiences. He told a fascinating story of the time he was with the German chancellor, Konrad Adeneur. In the middle of their conversation, Adenaeur paused and asked Billy Graham this question: “Mr.Graham, do you really believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead?” Billy Graham somewhat taken aback by the question said, “Sir, if I did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I would have no gospel left to preach.” And he said Conrad Adeneur paused, walked over to the end of the room, looked out of the window, at the post-war ruins and said, “Mr. Graham, outside of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I know of no other hope for mankind.”

An incredible statement from a world leader. “Outside of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I know of no other hope for mankind.” He had seen what destructive capacity we have as human beings. Unless there was a God to rebuild us from our destruction and death, there was no hope.

I believe Adeneur was right.

On another occasion, in a different setting, Broadcaster Larry King was asked: “If you had one person to interview across time, who would it be?” Larry King said he would like to interview Jesus Christ.” “What would you ask him?” said the interviewer. “I would ask Him if He indeed was virgin born. The answer to that question would interpret all of history,” said King.

He too was right. You see, both individual life and history must have a transcendent perspective if they are to be rightly interpreted. The birth and the resurrection of Jesus Christ give us just that.

Think of the contrasting views we live with. The existentialist lives for the moment, the traditionalist for the past, the utopianist for the future. Jesus fused every moment of history with meaning—past, present, and future. That means your life and my life, and every generation has purpose and meaning no matter how vast history's reach might be. We do not get lost in the drift of history, nor do we live just for the moment. God reminds us in the birth of Jesus that He is sovereign over life. He reminds us in the resurrection that He is sovereign over death.

Adeneuer and Larry king pointed to the logical connection between the Christian faith and knowing what life is about. The Bible states clearly and history substantiates that claim: We cannot understand how to live unless we know what happens after we die. We cannot understand the progress of history until we know that history is ultimately His story.

I thoroughly enjoy this viewpoint because I enjoy the notion of symmetry that it brings to Christianity. The transcendent nature of the birth and of Jesus, followed by his a resurrection and the promise of his return all confer a wholeness and a completeness to the divine plan for creation.

TomBombadil