Miracles of Birth
Rev. Paul Sprecher
Second Parish in Hingham, www.secondparish.org
December 7, 2008
Each year during the Advent season we tell the story of Mary and her response when the angel tells her she will bear a wonderful son, Jesus by name. Her Magnificat is one of the most beautiful hymns of praise in the New Testament. We sometimes forget that it is closely related to the Song of Hannah, mother of the prophet Samuel, which she sang when she brought her beloved son to the house of the Lord to serve there for the rest of her life. Here’s how that song of praise reads:
NKJ 1 Samuel 2:1 And Hannah prayed and said: "My heart rejoices in the LORD; My horn is exalted in the LORD. I smile at my enemies, Because I rejoice in Your salvation. 2 "No one is holy like the LORD, For there is none besides You, Nor is there any rock like our God. 3 "Talk no more so very proudly; Let no arrogance come from your mouth, For the LORD is the God of knowledge; And by Him actions are weighed. 4 "The bows of the mighty men are broken, And those who stumbled are girded with strength. 5 Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, And the hungry have ceased to hunger. Even the barren has borne seven, And she who has many children has become feeble. 6"The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up. 7 The LORD makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up. 8 He raises the poor from the dust And lifts the beggar from the ash heap, To set them among princes And make them inherit the throne of glory. "For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, And He has set the world upon them. 9 He will guard the feet of His saints, But the wicked shall be silent in darkness. "For by strength no man shall prevail. 10 The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken in pieces; From heaven He will thunder against them. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth. "He will give strength to His king, And exalt the horn of His anointed."
Hannah and Mary both had unexpected children, Hannah after a long and bitter period of barrenness and after fervent prayer for a child, Mary even before she was married to Joseph. Despite their very different circumstances, they both exult in a similar fashion because they recognize that something wonderful is happening through them, that they are part of the story of salvation for their people.
The three mothers about whom we spoke in this morning’s readings – Sarah, Hannah and Mary – are representative of many mothers who have experienced miracles around giving birth in the Bible. Rebecca, Isaac’s wife, does not conceive for many years, and once again the promise to Abraham that he will have innumerable descendents is at risk until God remembers Rebecca. Their son Jacob marries Rachel for love but has no children with her for many years (though he has several with her sister Leah, whom he also marries) until, again, God remembers Rachel and she bears Jacob’s favored children Joseph and Benjamin. These stories all suggest that God has the fate of Israel firmly in hand, and that each generation has reason to give thanks for the next generation’s appearance.
We think also of other heroes of the Bible and their remarkable birth or survival of danger. There was Sampson, born at a time of oppression for the people of Israel, who was announced by an angel first to his mother and later to both his parents. And of course there was Moses, whose birth was foretold to the Pharaoh and who was miraculously saved from being killed at birth because the Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him as her own child.
We remain fascinated with the birth of children. Each new being who joins us seems to hold extraordinary promise, to raise new possibilities for all of us. Each birth is a miracle. And yet certain stories captivate us more than others. When did her parents know that she would become a great star, a writer of fame, a doctor, a great political leader? When did his parents know that he would be a scientist, a religious leader, a sculptor, founder of a religion? What were the earliest sign of an extraordinary talent that everyone would eventually recognize? When someone we knew at one time appears in the news, we like to say, “I knew him when… and even then….”
When we think broadly about birth stories of heroes, we can see them as a way of reading back the special character of an adult life into the beginning of life – a way of explaining where extraordinary qualities arose. Here are some of the common features we see in stories like this:
Announcement: The special character of the birth is foretold in some special way; for example, a mother’s dream in the case of Zoroaster and the Buddha. In the Biblical tradition, there is often a visitor, as in the story of Abraham and Sarah, Sampson’s parents, and of course Mary.
Miracle: We have spoken of the barrenness of the Patriarchs of Israel, of Sarah and Hanna, Rebecca and Rachel. The founder of the Baha’i faith was said to have a caul – a sac – around his body at birth, a sign in Persia that he would be a prophet. Mary was a virgin, as was the mother of Octavian, who became Caesar Augustus, ruler of the Roman Empire; he was also declared to be Lord and Savior. The mother of Appollonius of Tyana, a Pythagorian miracle worker of the same era as Jesus, was also said to be a virgin.
Protection from Threat: The arrival of a rival to the powers of this world is perceived as a threat by those who are in power. So it is that Zoroaster is repeatedly rescued from the attempts of the evil prince to destroy him; that Moses must be rescued from the murderous Pharaoh, who orders that all infant boys of the Israelites be killed for fear of him; and of course Jesus and his family flee to Egypt to escape the Slaughter of the Innocents ordered by the evil Herod, who fears that he and his heirs will be displaced by another King of the Jews.
Growth in Wisdom: Each hero is precocious in some particular way; we remember especially Samuel at the house of the Lord who when quite young hears a voice calling his name and who finally realizes that it is God who is calling and says, “Here am I.” Jesus, when he comes to the Temple in Jerusalem at age twelve, remains behind when his parents head back to their home. Here’s how Luke tells the story:
[NKJ Luke 2: 42] And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. 43 When they had finished the days, as they returned, the Boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem. And Joseph and His mother did not know it; 44 but supposing Him to have been in the company, they went a day's journey, and sought Him among their relatives and acquaintances. 45 So when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking Him. 46 Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers.
So these are all common features in stories like those about Jesus. If we find parallels between the story of Jesus and other stories, does that mean that this particular story is just the same as all the other stories of heroes and holy men?
It seems to me that the followers of Jesus were trying to convey a message by means of the stories they told about Jesus. They wanted to say that God plays a hand in history, just as the stories of the patriarchs tell us that God was with the people of Israel from the beginning. They wanted to provide analogies for us to grasp the extraordinary character of this one who came among them and spoke with great wisdom and then was taken away but remained as an inspiration to them long after his death. They wanted to call forth echoes of others who had come before to help describe the indescribably character of this man who also seemed somehow more than a man.
So it is that in the birth and infancy narratives told by Matthew and Luke call upon familiar images and characters to offer a way of grasping who this extraordinary man was for them, and who he might be for us. Like Moses, Jesus was a lawgiver, making the Law of Moses available to everyone, not just the scholars, in a way which made the performance of the law both possible and understandable – love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself. And, like Moses, Jesus had to escape the attempt of an evil ruler to destroy him before his ministry began. Like Samuel, he was a prophet, calling out the religious leaders of his day for their hypocrisy. And, like Samuel, he showed his learning in the House of the Lord from an early age. Like David, he was a king – indeed, he was descended from the line of David and thus a legitimate heir to the throne. Like a king, he was a ruler who also challenged the rulers of his age – and was killed for it. Also like a king, he would render judgment and reward those who cared for the least among us, the poor, the sick, the widows and orphans, those in prison. Like a shepherd, he would care for the people tenderly and fend off threats to them. He was all of these things, and like nothing they had ever know before. He was wise beyond his years and beyond his times.
In telling these stories, there were of course also practical issues. Mary was not married to Joseph when Jesus was born; one explanation could be one that was current in the cultures about – that she was in fact a virgin. To make the claim that Jesus was descended from David and rightful heir to the throne, it was important the Jesus be born in Bethlehem – but it was also well known that he was from Galilee – so Matthew and Luke each came up with their own explanations of how the birth happened in Bethlehem – Matthew has the family living there in a house (no manger in this version) while Luke has them coming down to be taxed in their ancestral home. The details vary, but the message is clear – here is a royal person being born – pay attention!
The other two gospels, Mark and John, know nothing about the story of Jesus’ birth and infancy; Mark starts his story right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry as an adult, and John traces his origins to the creation of the world, but makes no reference to his birth as a human being.
There are many resonances in these stories, and our part is to recapture the naïveté of a child and to bask in the resonances rather than getting stuck on the details. Marcus Borg remembers a Christmas sermon by Meister Eckhart,
a Christian mystic, theologian, and preacher from the thirteenth century … [in which he] spoke of the virgin birth as something that happens within us. That is, the story of the virgin birth is the story of Christ being born within us through the union of the Spirit of God with our flesh. Ultimately, the story of Jesus’ birth is not just about the past but about the internal birth in us in the present.”[1]
Albert Schweitzer, a great German Unitarian, spent years studying all of the attempts to write a “true” account of the life of Jesus during the 19th Century. At the end of his Quest of the Historical Jesus, he determines that we can never know who Jesus really was across the gap of two millennia. As he puts it:
It was because He was so in His inmost being that He could think of Himself as the Son, of Man…. The names in which men expressed their recognition of Him as such, Messiah, Son of Man, Son of God, have become for us historical parables. We can find no designation which expresses what He is for us.
He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.[2]
That, I believe, is the real miracle of the story of Jesus birth: He is the one who calls to us and says, “Follow me.” In that spirit, Schweitzer dropped his professorship and became a doctor and followed to the depths of Africa to serve. There was another miracle of Christmas. May we also be followers as we are called by these stories, by the One behind all the stories.
Amen.