Matthew 1:18-2

It's not easy to explain to others how you became pregnant or caused someone to become pregnant outside of marriage. Mary and Joseph's situation was not unique in that a pregnancy had occurred. Several people prior to them had experienced this situation and many others since have also had to manage this problem. In many circles today we don't even blink when this happens. It seems like many couples choose to live together or engage in intercourse until they become pregnant. Then they decide to get married.

While people got pregnant outside of marriage in Mary and Joseph's day it was not something accepted lightly. The punishment was often being stoned to death. If that didn't happen the relationship between the two people ended bringing both of them shame and the woman and child a life of hardship.

When an unwanted pregnancy occurs the couple almost always attempts to explain to themselves and others how it happened. While many explanations are given about what seems so obvious, the one Mary and Joseph offer has to be given points for originality even though it wasn't all that original. Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit of God. In many cultures there are stories about gods who impregnate humans producing an extraordinary offspring. So it is today that many Christians believe this story is a myth created after the fact in order to make Jesus bigger than He really is. You can believe that if you want to but I don't and I doubt that I ever will.

Last Sunday night I watched a movie starring comedian Tim Allen, called The Santa Claus. The plot was how a sarcastic, non-believing divorced father becomes Santa Claus and in the process wins the love of his son. In the movie one adult character says, "Seeing is believing." This character is corrected by a much younger one who says, "No! Believing is seeing."

Pope John Paul II writes in Draw Near to God, "Christmas demands faith, because Christmas is a mystery. Our reason cannot succeed in trying to understand how God could possibly have loved us to such a degree. The shepherds are given a sign. They will find him in a manger. There the infant Jesus has been placed; a sign of extreme poverty and of God's supreme humility. Such a thing baffles the intellect. It teaches us that in order to welcome the message of Christ, the divine Redeemer, our reason must be laid aside. Only humility, which melts into trust and adoration, can comprehend and welcome God's saving humility."

The highest ranking Roman Catholic theologian says, "Christmas is a mystery and can only be understood through faith." Imagine poor Joseph. He was a righteous man but not a learned one. He knew he had not caused Mary's pregnancy. He knew that according to the Law he could not marry her and that he had the right to demand an end to the engagement, a demand that would humiliate Mary and her family and possibly bring an end to Mary's life.

Believing himself to be betrayed in the worst possible way this almost unknown character of Scripture still had positive feelings for Mary and hoped to just quietly end the relationship without causing her further harm. God speaks to Joseph in a dream. Others before him had also received direction from God but this was about as personal and demanding as it could get. Mary was carrying God's child and God wanted Joseph, who was of the house of David, to be the legal and earthly father of a son who was to be called Jesus.

Life often has roads we don't care to travel. Think what some of these roads have been in your life. Almost all of us have had to accept one or more challenges we really didn't want to experience even when we were promised that God would be with us which is what the name Emmanuel means, a name first given by the prophet Isaiah centuries before the birth of Jesus. I don't think Joseph went around telling others that the Holy Spirit of God was responsible for Mary's pregnancy.

Michael Lindvall, a Presbyterian minister, has written a story called The Christmas Pageant. It is set in a fictional town called North Haven, Minn.. It seems the young mothers of Second Presbyterian Church organized a rebellion.

For 47 years Alvina Johnson had directed the Christmas pageant at the church. There had not been a single change in the script which was taken directly from the King James Bible. Children came and went but the play stayed the same.

Then the young mothers rebelled. They wanted a new play with parts for all the children. Alvina resigned in a huff so the mothers had to come up with something. They dumped the King James Version for a modern one. As a result, Mary was no longer "great with child." She was"pregnant."

This change was made at the last minute so the little boy playing Joseph heard it from the narrator for the first time on Christmas Eve. He froze in his tracks, gave Mary an incredulous look, peered out at the congregation and exclaimed, "Pregnant? What do you mean, pregnant?"

My guess is the original Joseph may well have had the same reaction. We too may find it incredulous and hard to believe God became one of us as a tiny baby in an out-of-the-way place. But that's the real Christmas story. If we are able to believe it we may in time also see or understand it.