Posted on Tuesday 6 April 2010
The birth of Jesus is often played up as such a heart warming and wondeful time for Joseph and Mary on Christmas cards and in the songs and stories we hear as children… But the Bible paints a much different picture of the event. Far from being a warm and cheery holiday season, with a mother anxiously awaiting the birth of her child, I don’t think Christ came into the world with such excitement as some infants do.
Mary, in fact wasn’t excited to see Jesus birth, but actually very scared! “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin.”
Don’t forget, Mary is a single woman. To be pregnant and to give birth out of wedlock in that culture and at that time held terrifying consequences for single women. Yes, she is engaged to be married to Joseph, but his reaction to her pregnancy can be expected to be quite strong. In fact, Matthew’s Gospel tells us that Joseph did decide to divorce Mary (Mt 1:19).
I don’t think we can ever fully appreciate in the Western world or North American culture just what the situation was like without this background view and knowledge. We see movies in our culture where, while strange, teenagers have births with no marriage at all and it’s somewhat becoming accepted.
The virgin birth. Mary knows what this means. She knows people will have a difficult time believing her claim to be pregnant by and through the Spirit of God. She knows Joseph will probably leave her. She knows her friends, neighbors, and family will probably brand her as an adulteress. She knows she faces persecution, snickers, laughter, mockery. As the Law commanded the death penalty for pre-marital sex, Mary even faces the awful prospect of death by stoning (cf Deut 22:13ff).
Christ’s birth certainly came from the lowest point one could ever imagine in that culture at the time.