12/24/10 Mt. 1:22-25 The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”(which means “God with us”). 24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sZLYj-q60I&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_921304
(Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing- "Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy" with nativity video)

(Gerard van Honthorst 1622)

Thoughts: Most who have problem with the virgin birth have problems with miracles.  It is out of the ordinary.  But as one person put it, "If God could create the universe, he could create an extra Y chromosome."  Matthew 1:16,18,20 and Luke 1:22-23,25,34,35 all point to the virgin birth.  Galatians 4:4 says "made of a woman" which may be an inference to it.  John speaks of Jesus "coming down from heaven" (6:38); "coming from the Father into the world (16:27,28) and being "sent by the Father" (5:36; 6:57; 10:36).  It was an unusual intersection of the divine with the human- yet Christ did not lose His humanity in the process (Heb. 2:15,17). 

Prayer: Lord you are extraordinary.  Your birth shows us that.  Do extraordinary things in our ordinary world once more.

John Calvin abridged: Isaiah tells of an Immanuel who delivers the city for King Ahaz (7:14).  So Jesus is the Immanuel who delivers us.  Paul speaks of God manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16).  We are at enmity and alienated from God apart from Christ (Eph. 2:15,17).  But God came to dwell among His people bodily in all his fullness (Col. 2:9).