The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

Born of a Virgin:  Mt.1:18 – 25

^1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. ²⁰ But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will bear a Son; and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ ²² Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ²³ ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel,’ which translated means, ‘God with us.’ ²⁴ And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, ²⁵ but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son; and he called his name Jesus.

Mary has got to be one of the most courageous people in all of Scripture.  When we first meet her in Matthew’s account, and in more depth in Luke’s account, we get the impression that she was a young woman who must have been expecting a normal life.  She was betrothed to marry a good man, Joseph the carpenter.  She probably hoped to live and work together in a community she was familiar with.  She almost certainly hoped to have many children. 

But Mary was also a woman who listened carefully to the words of hope in sacred Scripture.  She knew that God is going to do something to deliver her people, Israel.  Her song of thanks and praise to God, called by church tradition the Magnificat (Lk.1:41 – 55), suggests that she was reflecting on Psalm 107 and the last segment of the Book of Psalms, which is notably about God restoring Israel from exile. 

What was Mary’s spiritual preparation like?  What did God do to prepare her for this?

Mary probably recognized that throughout the biblical story, God would work through special women who served, as mothers, to give birth to God’s holy work on behalf of the world.  Women play many positive roles in Scripture; being a mother is not the only one.  Nevertheless being a mother and bearing human life was a unique vocation for special women of God.  After Adam and Eve fell into sin and corruption, God prophesied that the seed of the woman – not, as regularly said in the ancient world, the seed of the man – would defeat the serpent, the personification of spiritual evil and the ultimate source of lies (Gen.3:14 – 15).  Hence, the very first messianic prophecy connects the Messiah to a woman giving birth to a child.  Adam, as he looked forward in hope for his and Eve’s mistake to be undone, named his wife Eve, or ‘mother of all living’ (Gen.3:20).  Israelite woman knew that one day, God would choose one woman from among them to bear this conquering Messiah.  One special woman would give birth to the victorious child whom God would birth in our fallen world.

God, like a master composer playing a deep melody building to a resounding climax, played a preliminary musical progression.  He did a miraculous work in another woman’s womb.  After Babel, when God was giving birth to His new people, Israel, He helped Sarah give birth supernaturally to Isaac, a progenitor of the nation Israel, despite the fact that Sarah was ninety years old at the time, and barren (Gen.21:1 – 7; Rom.4:16 – 25).  What an amazing thing!  Sarah’s husband Abraham conceived Isaac – with God’s miraculous help! – within Sarah’s womb when he was one hundred years old.  The lesson here was that God is fully capable of bringing forth life out of death, fruit out of barrenness, and hope out of despair, even when what needed to be overcome was the lack of life in physical human bodies.  This laid the groundwork for Israel’s own understanding of itself in the presence of God.  Birthing a new nation in the world, late in time, to serve Him specially, God used Sarah, an elderly woman to bear the miraculous child who would be at the start of that lineage.

In Egypt, God’s melody continued with a new variation on the theme.  When God was forming Israel as a nation, He used very special women.  When the Israelites suffered under Egyptian slavery, the Hebrew midwives, Moses’ mother, and even Pharaoh’s daughter played courageous roles to protect Moses (Ex.1:15 – 2:10).  They were life-bearing and life-guarding women, and God honored them.  He brought them into His story of deliverance of Israel as a nation.  Under Moses, the Israelites languishing in Egypt became a distinct people, a holy nation.  But Moses’ immediate, personal story – and Israel’s story in Egypt – owes its beginnings to these courageous women who bore life and protected it.

God played two new harmonies in that symphony centuries later.  One was the harmony of the Gentiles:  When God was preparing Israel to receive David as King, God brought a courageous and faithful Moabite woman named Ruth into the line of Judah to be the ancestor of David (Ruth 4:13 – 18).  The other was the harmony of the faithful but childless wife:  When God was on the verge of publicly identifying David, he helped a barren but faith-filled woman, Hannah, conceive a child, who became the prophet Samuel, the one who anointed David king (1 Sam.1:1 – 2:10).  God’s covenant with David, a covenant which was just as important as the covenant with Abraham, was prefigured with the birth of a supernaturally born son in the womb of the barren Hannah.

As God’s symphony neared its highest point, God wove together notes that reached new levels of the impossible.  Isaiah foresaw the day when God, in doing something utterly radical and astounding through the Messiah from David’s house, the ultimate king of Israel and the grounding of a new covenant with Israel, would take neither an elderly woman, nor a barren woman, but a virgin woman (Isa.7:14).  He will do something even more radical to mark off his radical love for us.  Through a virgin woman, God will bring forth a child.  That child will bring the covenants with Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Israel, and David and his heirs, to a climax.  On his shoulders will rest the government of the kingdom of God on earth (Isa.9:6 – 7; 11:1 – 9).  He will be called ‘Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Mighty God’!

God’s partnership with elderly, endangered, or barren women represents God’s personal commitment to bring salvation into the most unlikely places, and out of them.  He worked through these women who are willing and receptive, but who were – on their own ability and strength – powerless.  He provided the life and strength miraculously.

That’s the story Mary knows, the symphony she has heard in sacred Scripture.  And now, in the climactic crescendo, the melody was hovering on one note:  herself.

There may have been many things she was still not sure about, but she had prayed thoughtfully, and she had learned to deeply love the God of Israel, Creator of heaven and earth, who had partnered with her people through the long ages.  So when the angel appeared to her with news that she would bear a child who would fulfill the prophecies of old, she opened her heart.  She opened her womb, her very being, her very life and future.  God vaulted her life to an unexpected, joyous, and tumultuous level.

Mary risked complete rejection from her community.  In her pious, rural Jewish community, to have sexual relations before getting married was a mortal sin (Dt.22:23 – 24; cf. Jn.8:1 – 11).  Some of the Jewish elders might have called for her to be stoned.  Who would believe her when she tells people that God Himself – and God alone, without a man – had stirred a new life within her womb?  Everyone knows the laws of nature!  For a while, not even Joseph believed her:  Joseph thought Mary was either in love with another man or promiscuous.  Had it not been for the angel’s appearance to Joseph, too, Mary would have been an outcast.  At least she was with the man she respected and loved.

Mary’s journey as a mother will be totally unlike any other mother’s journey.  She will weep many tears when she watches Jesus, while he builds his movement, suffer verbal abuse and threats to his life (e.g. Lk.4:14 – 30).  Then a sword will pierce Mary’s heart as she watches her son die a publicly humiliating death at the hands of indifferent Roman executioners, for whom Jesus was just one more worthless Jew.  But she will cry for joy when Jesus rises again.  Mary will understand that the Son of God who took from her his humanity, would give back to everyone the Spirit of his new humanity.  And far from losing him at his death, or watching him depart in his ascension, Mary will gain her son Jesus in a new way.  Jesus will move from the deep intimacy of Mary’s womb to the even deeper intimacy of Mary’s heart. 

Perhaps, like Mary, you have been hoping for a predictable life.  But as you receive more and more of Jesus by his Spirit, your life will be less and less predictable.  Jesus will bring you on a journey that stretches you internally, and moves you farther externally, than you ever imagined.  And you will share in Jesus’ own vulnerability.  But your vulnerability towards Jesus will allow God’s very strength to be manifested in you – to a world that makes no room for Him.  Let us make room for His life within us.