Incarnate

Last of Four Parts

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If you missed parts 1, 2, or 3 of this series, please start here.

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. – Matthew 1:24-25

And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”  But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. – Luke 1:28-29

I took a religion seminar my senior year of college.  I remember sitting in the class next to my friend Grace (the one other practicing Christian in the class) as my professor talked about the possibility that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had been married.  The idea was completely foreign to me.  Completely.  It was never something I had even considered as a possibility.  Why question it?  Why ask?  Our scriptures don’t indicate such an arrangement.  What’s the point?

Perhaps you’ve had some of those questions as we’ve explored alternative circumstances of Mary’s pregnancy over the last three weeks.  Why question the virgin birth?  Our scriptures are clear, so what’s the point?  It is ironic, I think, that so much of our theology has been, is, and will be hotly debated by Christians across time and space.  The nature of faith as assent to rational truths vs. conviction of the heart, salvation, the roles of faith and works, discourse over the exact nature of the trinity, and more has filled book after book with ponderings on what exactly it means that Emmanuel, God-with-us, the Christ, took human form in Jesus.  Why not the virgin birth too?

And honestly, that space of the unknown – the debatable, yes – but ultimately the unknown, the mystery, is where my soul has come to rest in the season of Advent.  A virgin birth, after all, would epitomize the mystery, highlight the gift of the Christ in a way that no human experience of procreation could approach.

So, what if the miracle of Christmas is in the virginity of Mary after all?  That God would come and choose her to carry a baby both fully divine and fully human?  That God would consent to be a parent, with all the love and fear and sleepless nights that it entails?  Sometimes it seems like we skip over this small detail, name it as part of the telling of the Christmas story, but not stop to ponder what deep good news it too imparts, not just for Mary – but for us.

Friends, we live in an incarnational world.  Humanity is joined with divinity.  As my friend Evan Hill described it, “all of humanity, even at its most mundane, even in its suffering, is shot-through with divine life.”  The scandal of Christmas is that God would take on flesh, real live human flesh and all the messiness that goes with that.  That God would walk among us, bring the divine to earth, permeate our world and our lives with the sacred; Emmanuel, God-with-us.  And as Evan finishes, “Our work is to embrace it.”

Praise be to God who incarnates our world.  Praise be to God who walks among us.  Amen.

The Rev. Emily Carroll is an ordained elder in the Alaska Conference of the United Methodist Church.  She is a graduate of Candler School of Theology (Master of Divinity, 2018) and is currently serving at St. John UMC in Anchorage, Alaska. Emily has a deep passion for discipleship and justice work that encourage right relationship with God and one another. When she’s not working, you can probably find her outside enjoying God’s creation with her husband, Aidan, and their 1 year old baby, Elias.