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WHEN IS JESUS’ REAL BIRTHDAY?

There’s a fascinating expression in the recent bestseller, The Bounty, written by Caroline Alexander. In telling the story of this most famous of mutinies, the author has done impeccable research about Lieutenant Bligh, Fletcher Christian, and all of the other colorful characters who were on board that ill-fated voyage in the year 1789. But one of the able-bodied seamen in the crew, Edward Young, was hard to track. He was a homely kid, standing about five foot eight, rotten teeth – several of the front ones missing – dark complexion, and “rather a bad look,” as one log put it. He was the nephew of a Sir George Young, who had served His Majesty’s navy with distinction as a naval captain and admiral. But family records don’t say anything about this nephew. Sir George had a younger brother named Robert; was this Edward HIS son? And it’s conjectured, as Ms. Alexander puts it, that this nondescript young sailor had been “born on the wrong side of the blanket.” In other words, born out of wedlock under unsavory circumstances.

Well, it’s a fascinating turn of phrase, and maybe a bit serendipitous here that we began this series thinking about Mel Gibson’s controversial film, The Passion of the Christ, and now find a little illustration here from a story where he played the Fletcher Christian role in Hollywood’s third telling of the great sea saga. But as the world continues to wonder and debate about the origins and the purpose of one Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I imagine there must have been a similar expression used in Judea or Bethlehem or Nazareth for boys whose moms weren’t married when the midwife brought them into the world.

What does it mean when Christians claim that Jesus was “born of a virgin”? That claim is strongly made in Matthew chapter one, where the writer says succinctly:

“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” Down about seven verses later, this conclusion: “But [Joseph] had no union with her until she gave birth to a Son.”

The paraphrase interpretation many people in my Adventist denomination sometimes use for meditative reading, entitled Clear Word by Jack Blanco, goes like this:

“Joseph, don’t be concerned about Mary.” (This is the angel speaking.) “She’s still a virgin, in spite of what you think. She was made pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit and will give birth to the Messiah.”

In the Message paraphrase by Eugene Peterson, which you might be more familiar with, it reads this way:

“Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant.” Then the angel’s announcement: “Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived.”

Some scholars debate and discuss whether “virgin” means what we all think it means. Perhaps it’s just a euphemism for “young girl.” But if we accept the account of God’s Word here, we find over in Luke 1 that Mary herself responds to the angel’s announcement of her pregnancy:

“How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

In their scholarly book, Ready With an Answer, John Ankerberg and John Weldon discuss this very question. First of all, if you saw The Passion of the Christ, which was all in Aramaic and Latin, here’s a bit of Greek instead. But these writers assert that when Matthew quoted back from Isaiah in the Old Testament and his prophetic statement, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son,” he used the word parthenos:

“The word parthenos has only one meaning: virgin,” they write.

Here’s why it’s an important point. First of all, as we mentioned yesterday, we either accept what the Bible says about Jesus, or we don’t. And if we don’t, then there’s no point to the study. This Mel Gibson film would just be one more R-rated Hollywood blockbuster, and Jesus was an unlucky teacher who offended the wrong people on Passover weekend: nothing less, nothing more.

But these same two writers go on to make a powerful observation. Here it is:

“The virgin birth not only undergirds the doctrine of Christ’s deity, it also undergirds the doctrine of Christ’s sinlessness and His role as the world’s Savior. This is why the virgin birth is an absolutely essential doctrine.”

We’re going to keep on studying in this radio series the teaching that the story of Jesus doesn’t begin in a stable in Bethlehem. Oh, He IS born there. He was a baby in a manger. He was in the womb for nine months like all baby boys; there was blood and a placenta when He was born; there was a circumcision eight days later. All of those things are the same for every citizen of Planet Earth. But core to the Christian message is that BEFORE Bethlehem, Jesus existed then too. When this world was created, Jesus was there. In the courts of heaven before there was an Adam and an Eve, Jesus was there. Before there were angels, Jesus was there. Before the sun, moon, and stars came into being, Jesus was there. In fact – and I plainly confess that I can’t grasp this one – you can go back and back and back as far as there is anything to go back TO . . . and Jesus is there. Just as God the Father has ALWAYS existed, Jesus Christ has existed as well.

Let me say it again another way: There has never been a time when God the Father hasn’t existed. Furthermore, there has never been a time when Jesus the Son wasn’t there too. Both of them have simply always BEEN.

Right away, our minds blank out . . . in two ways. We struggle to understand the concept of eternal life, that God’s redeemed children will be with Him for all time. Living in heaven forever – that’s an idea that just blows my mind; it really does. But that is on the number line going to the RIGHT. Infinity going to the RIGHT. I can’t grasp that, and I imagine you can’t either. We think of the gospel song, Amazing Grace, where we sing:

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun, We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, Than when we’d first begun.”

I sing that song, and I love it, but I don’t comprehend it. But even more difficult to grasp is the Bible statement that God the Father AND God the Son – Jesus – have always existed on the LEFT-hand side of that number line too. Infinity in THAT direction!

Here’s a Bible passage from Colossians 1 which puts the truth right out there:

“[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” We’ll dissect that word “firstborn” in a minute. “For by Him [Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before ALL THINGS, and in Him all things hold together.”

Notice that Jesus was involved in the creating of all things. You think about the fact that in this film, The Passion of the Christ, the Lucifer character is silently there: in the garden, as Jesus is whipped, as He painfully makes His way to the Cross. But we read here that when Lucifer was created – as all angel beings were, of course – Jesus was already there. In fact, Jesus created Lucifer, the being who would plot His own death.

How about where it says that Jesus is the “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation”? Wouldn’t that mean that there was a time when God the Father was here, but not Jesus? Or that – just as it is for us – there was a moment in history when God somehow “had” Jesus, as all fathers have sons? That same writing duo of Ankerberg and Weldon give us two great insights:

“The Greek word translated ‘image’ is eikon,” they write. Referring to “He is the image of the invisible God.” They continue: “It means Jesus ‘is the express image of’ or ‘of IDENTICAL nature with’ God. Further, when Jesus is described as the firstborn over all creation, the word translated ‘firstborn’ is protokos and stands in contrast with ktizo (created). By using the word protokos, the Apostle Paul was emphasizing Christ’s preeminence, priority, and sovereignty over all creation as the context reveals.”

So Jesus being “firstborn” over all creation simply means that He rules over everything He has made. Friend, Jesus the Son and God the Father are eternal. Equally eternal. That’s why it simply misses the point for any Christian anywhere to play a blame game along the lines of “who killed Christ”? Jesus wasn’t an unlucky revivalist preacher who said the wrong thing once too often. He was the incarnate King of the universe, now in human form, now a Man among us. He CAME here to die. He and His co-equal Father determined eons before Eve ate the apple that this is what they were going to do. And if you watch Mel Gibson’s movie or any other Jesus film project and get the idea that here was just a man who loved us enough to suffer pain, a man with the original martyr complex, then you’ve missed the point.

It would be like seeing this one unique Baby, born of the Holy Spirit, descended from the throne room of heaven itself, and then sniffing to your friends: “Aaah, born on the wrong side of the blanket.”