The Virgin-Birth Skeptics Society
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I was so touched by this painting of “Joseph’s Dream” by the French Baroque artist Georges de la Tour. It’s our gospel story told on canvas—the old man Joseph, lost in sleep. He’s leaning his head on his hands. A candle’s burning on the table near him—and reflecting warm light on his angelic visitor, who holds up her hands. Look closely and you see that the candlelight is also shining on Joseph’s forearm—and on his heart. Not his head.
It’s a matter of the heart. That’s where the light is for Joseph.
Joseph is the first person in history—but certainly not the last person—to have trouble with the Virgin Birth. He is the founder of the Virgin Birth Skeptics Society. The charter member.
Just imagine Joseph’s disbelief and anger at hearing Mary’s story. Imagine it. That has to be one of the most clever explanations for a pregnancy ever, and certainly the most unbelievable. Imagine how angry you’d be if your fiancée became pregnant by someone else, and then, on top of that, she developed a story of the supernatural to get herself off the hook.
Joseph has every excuse for being angry with Mary and for divorcing her and sending her out on the streets. There’s a carol that celebrates his anger and then his subsequent coming to belief—it’s called the Carol of the Cherry Tree. Some of you may have heard it. In this song Mary is hungry and asks Joseph to climb a cherry tree to find her some fruit. And Joseph angrily replies, “Let the father of the baby gather cherries for you.”
And the tree bends down, and Joseph is abashed and turns around from his anger to a sense of wonder and regret for his disbelief.
So back to our story from Matthew’s gospel. Joseph uses his logic and his First-Century knowledge of human biology and human behavior to deduce that Mary was running around on him. Sure, that makes sense, doesn’t it?
It takes an angel—a messenger of God—encountering him in a dream, to turn him around. A dream—an encounter with the illogical, the irrational, the improbable, the impossible—a crazy vision of an angel confronting him. That’s what it takes to turn him around. To bring him to belief in this utterly unlikely truth. Mary has been impregnated by the Holy Spirit, in the power of God. However illogical and improbable and impossible to understand, that is the truth of things.
Sometimes the truth is like that.
Our picture captures it well. Joseph’s sleeping head is in the dark. Logic is eclipsed by a message to the heart, the seat of wonder and awe. His heart is lit. His head is dark.
Joseph makes the turn from logic to love. From the probable to the impossible. From the rational to the irrational.
Joseph makes a leap of faith.
What about us? I know for a fact that modern people like us have a huge problem with the idea of the Virgin Birth and with lots of other God-infused episodes in history, such as the Resurrection of Jesus. I know for a fact that some modern people refuse to say that sentence in the Creed about the Virgin Birth. Others won’t say any of the Creed because it feels too much like a fairy tale. They cannot abide anything that involves God bending the laws of nature.
I knew one of those people a while ago. Raised in a Catholic family, she found herself following rules without faith. Trained in university as a scientist, she could not in her right mind assent to things that were far fetched.
Yet faced by a messenger of God in the guise of a neighbor who asked her about faith point-blank she was challenged to admit she’d lost it. And that identified for her what felt like a huge, frightening hole in her core. One day while she was ironing her husband’s shirts in her kitchen, she decided she needed to believe -- because life with this ongoing vacuum was too much to endure.
Standing at the ironing board she asked God to help her believe what was irrational or unscientific. She wanted to believe what was not provable or measurable.
That was an adult conversion experience. Does she believe now? Yes, wholeheartedly. Is she able to suspend scientific objection? Sure. Has she lost her mind? I hope not!
Or if she has, she’s gained something even more valuable, a fiery faith in God and a deep understanding that she has a place in God’s heart and a purpose in the Creation.
So--can we trust the irrational, the dream-world, the God who cannot be proven? Can we trust?
Must we trust?
Amen.
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