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The familiar story of the annunciation serves today as the prelude to our Christmas feast. It falls into the pattern of annunciation stories in the Old Testament, where the birth of some great personage is announced, sometimes, as here, through the message of an angel.

But there is one element in our gospel story which has no parallel in the Old Testament annunciation stories. It is an element which we tend to pass over quickly, although it provides the conflict and tension which must be resolved before the story’s happy ending. The element in the story to which I refer is the fact that Mary conceived her child outside of wedlock.

In our society, where teenage pregnancy is so common, it may be difficult for us to realize the gravity of this situation in Jewish Palestine at the beginning of our era. The parallel story in Matthew’s gospel (1:18-25) tells of Joseph’s intention of divorcing Mary, when he learns that she has conceived during the engagement period, before the marriage was to be consummated (vv. 18-19).

Feminist writers today have emphasized the danger of this situation, both for the young woman and her unborn child. Although the Old Testament penalty for adultery, which was stoning (Deuteronomy 22:23-24; John 8:5), could no longer be imposed during the Roman occupation of Palestine, a young woman who was abandoned by her husband under suspicion of infidelity had no one to protect her in a patriarchal society. Least of all, would her own family be prepared to take her back and offer her support and protection.

In both Matthew (1:20) and Luke (1:26), an angel appears as a sort of deus ex machina, to resolve the problem and to allow the story to proceed to its appointed conclusion. But not everyone accepted the Christian explanation of the mystery which surrounded Jesus’ conception. In the Jewish Mishnah, Jesus is referred to contemptuously as “the son of Pandarus,” the name of a Roman legionnaire. Even in the gospels there are hints of ugly charges made against Jesus because of the circumstances of his birth. In the Fourth Gospel, as Jesus’ opponents defend their descent from Abraham, they say sarcastically to Jesus, “We were not born of fornication” (John 8:41).

Recently a Roman Catholic feminist and New Testament scholar has suggested an explanation which, though more respectful of Mary’s virtue, is scarcely less offensive to Christian sensibility: the suggestion that Mary’s pregnancy was the result of rape.

I do not raise these unsavory matters to spoil our preparation for the Christmas feast. I mention the problem of Jesus’ conception because we need to be mindful, especially at this time of year, that there are distressing family situations which no angel will come to resolve. Christmas is a happy time for many, but it is a cruel time for others, who have no good news to console them.

Today we may be spared the rigors of patriarchal morality, but we have not eliminated the suffering and poverty which make this holy season an especially bitter time for many. Although Christ’s birth is proclaimed by the angel as “good tidings of great joy” (Luke 2:10), it was a birth touched by scandal. It was the beginning of a life which would scandalize many and end, finally, in the scandal of the cross. Simeon says to Mary, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35).

What thoughts are revealed out of our hearts, as we await the birth of the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), who would nonetheless declare paradoxically, “ Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34)?

God grant us to know the peace which is not the absence of conflict but which comes into being out of conflict, as the reward for perseverance.

December 18, 2005

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