Like a Virgin . . . for the Very First Time

Like a Virgin . . . for the Very First Time

Rev. Dr. Wilfredo Baez

Advent – December 14, 2014

Like a virgin . . .  for the very first time.   What is like to be a virgin . . . to experience something for the very first time . . .  We don’t get to experience things for the very first time very often, do we?  How many times do we get to experience something “for the very first time?  “Once,” you say.  “That’s really, too bad, isn’t it?”

I have been preaching for over nineteen years now.  When I came to preach here “it was for the very first time.”   But that was different.  I have preached in over twenty churches before that.  You had heard numerous sermons from numerous pastors and lay people in this church and in other churches.  I wasn’t preaching for the very first time and you weren’t listening for the very first time.   Still, I am looking forward to preaching to you “for the very first time” and you hearing me preach “for the very first time.”  What will it take for us to have that “very first time” experience?  What would it take for us to have that “very first time experience” with God, our spouses, our parents, our children, our friends, our church family and our clients?

What is like to experience something for the very first time?  Is it scary?  Is it exciting?  Do we compare our experiences with memories of past experiences . . . with future hopes . . . “I hope it is like this?”  What if we let go of all expectation based upon the past and projections into the future . . . we quieted our minds . . . and attended fully to what was before us?

Mary was a virgin.  She was experiencing something for the first time; a first time for herself, for anyone else and for Israel.  She was giving birth to a child, to God’s child and to Israel’s Messiah.  Now that certainly would cause a stir! Look how Mary responded!  Then think about how Joseph, Herod, the Jewish priesthood, the Jews later reacted!  Nothing like this had ever happened before!

The outcry about this event has continued to this day.  Some years back Time, Newsweek and US News and World Report had headlines about the Westar “Jesus Seminar” and its claim that Mary was not a biological virgin when she gave birth to Jesus but a young maiden.  It caused quite a stir within Christianity.   Not only were orthodox, fundamentalist and mainline Christians literarily interpreting the text, progressive Christians were as well!  Progressives argued that a biological virgin birth was not possible so Mary must have been a young maiden and there must have been a physical father.  We do the same thing with the Crucifixion, Holy Communion and Resurrection.  We take the theological narrative of scripture and make them into historical narratives and we fail to treat the events described in the narrative as symbolic, literary events.  We take them literally just like the fundamentalists we so want to differentiate ourselves from.  On the progressive end we throw out the biblical story and fail to garner its metaphoric meaning.  We throw out Jesus with the bathwater.  The story of Jesus’ birth was not a historical narrative.  It was not written to historically document and explain Jesus’ birth.   Rather, the gospels were theological narratives.  Written well after Jesus’ life and death, the gospel writers sought to describe and explain who Jesus was and what he meant to early Christians.   It was not unusual for ancient writers to introduce their heroes with supernatural fanfare and metaphysical origin.  The angels of heaven, shepherds of the earth and kings from afar welcomed Jesus as the newborn King.  Alexander the Great was said to born of a god and a virgin and to arrive in lands he conquered riding on the clouds.

We can observe a development in our understanding of Jesus from the first gospel Mark, through Matthew, Luke, Acts and finally John, where Jesus is divinized more in the later gospels than the earlier ones.  The first disciples experienced Jesus in a variety of ways.  First of all he was the son of Mary and Joseph.  He was a human being.  He was related by Mary to King David.  Thus Jesus was son of man.  Jesus himself was a disciple.  Second, he was the second person of the Trinity, God incarnate, Son of God.  He was God, but God in the flesh.  In order to be so, he needed to have God as his parent.  This was his primary identity.  Thus, we observe the diminished role of Joseph as Jesus’ Father and the heavy emphasis on God as Jesus’ father.  Jesus was both human and God, not half human and half God, but all the way human and all the way God.  The gospel writers each described their understanding of Jesus to meet the needs of the communities they were writing for.  It took a while for the church to come to this understanding.  If the gospels were being written today, they would be written differently.

The description virgin doesn’t have to be taken literally.  What is virgin?  Young, new, fresh, inexperienced, not used and potential . . . God had not been born as a human into the world before.  This was a virgin voyage, a first time, exploring new territory, a new frontier . . . God was entering human community in a new way . . . being born in the human form of Jesus, God was entering into relationship with God’s people and God’s creation in a new way.  When Mary speaks about the child she is carrying in her womb she does not speak as herself but as Israel.  Mary is representing Israel and its relationship with God.  The Holy Spirit brings life to and out of the virgin matter, Israel, virgin in that it has not yet been used for God’s purposes, and leaves it in its original virgin state after. 

What if we were to approach God like a virgin . . . like for the very first time . . . or approach one another  . . . like a virgin . . . for the very first time?    What if we were to approach scripture . . . prayer . . . meditation . . . like a virgin . . . the Buddhists call this “Beginner’s Mind.”  What if we emptied ourselves of all expectation and stood before God . . . open . . . and gave ourselves to God.  What might be birthed in us . . . in our lives . . . a product of our relationship with God . . . not in some faraway time and place or heaven above but right in our everyday, flesh and blood existence?