Virgin

The Virgin Birth

If God is the Creator of all, and in Genesis God says, “It is good,” meaning all of creation.  Sex is part of God’s creation.  When God came into the world as Jesus, why would God bypass sexual intercourse, which is part of God’s good creation?  This brings me to the Virgin Birth.  Is it factual or symbolic?  If it is factual, how do the facts help you to live the teachings of Jesus?  My sense is that for many, factual is comforting, but does little to to make one a follower of Jesus.  It is also easier for many people to be told what to think rather than how to think.  Only in religion do people seem to find comfort in being told what to think.  Comfort is often about the fear of death and afterlife.  It is easier to believe the right teaching, than to live the Jesus life.  Jesus did not talk about Virgin Birth.  He did talk about the Sermon on the Mount.  I am fine with Virgin as in my Creed, but many are not.  The virgin birth is difficult for some folks to believe… here’s another way to look at it.

 I want to attempt to look at it symbolically.  Each one of us is energy from the Big Bang.  Creation is all about change, chemistry/physics change.  A super nova star comes into existence, lives and then runs out of energy to hold itself together and blows up making for a chemical reaction that goes on to make our solar system, planet earth and us. Modern science has revealed these connections.  This earth life is where our energy becomes human, bodily, personal.  I become me, the human, Terry Ryan.  

Creation is the incarnation of God, in all things, all matter and energy. All is God. Human life has been evolving for a long time before Jesus came along.  There has been a lot of unique God-bearers, full of love for centuries before Jesus.  But at some point, the Creator is going to reveal how this energy is going to come together, in a heightened fashion, a process that has not happened yet in time. It might be called, “The Fullness of Time.” This is the conception and birth of Jesus.  Call it Virginal because it is new and powerful, the most human that God can be, but not unrelated to the way humans come into existence.  It is what happens when the Creator takes on a human body like never before.   It could be a birth that points to the future since creation is evolving.  Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life and live it to the full.”  The way that Jesus lives his life and his teachings, so filled with the Divine that it is pointing to the way we can live both now and toward the future.  Jesus is the Divine, the Creator, in flesh, pointing to a near and distant future.  We have potential. He has fullness.  His humanness gives us hope we can follow.  

When we live according to Jesus’ teachings we are energized.  Our bodily chemistry has a spiritual dimension that  activates this energy and is manifested in daily life.  It is called, “Love.”  God is Love, the fulness of life.  Now why is Mary called Virgin?  It is not about having no husband or no sex.  Sex is not the focus or non-focus.  It is about the power of woman, especially in cultures where she is diminished.  She has the power to hold in her body for all those months, the quickening, or fullness of the Spirit that animates all creation.  She is not obliterated by it.  What is her power?  It is her ability to say “Yes,” to something new, “virginal” as God is bringing her into a future that she does not fully understand.  It is trust, hope, love and cooperation, all the things one needs to live the Gospel Jesus proclaimed.  It is called Grace. It will make Mary, all that Mary has the potential to be.  

So Mary is still special, still unique, and still a model of “follower” of Jesus.  She is still with the title, “Virgin” and God-Bearer, and lots of other titles,  but all this is to challenge us to allow our own bodily energy to quicken, to unleash the chemical/spiritual processes to make us all that God created us to be.  To say yes to Grace.  Be God-bearers.  Love is what will bring us along into a new future that becomes a bit more present as we live it.  Jesus’ teaching gives us the Love map.  

Jesus is God’s plan for humankind in the evolving future as it is lived now uniquely in Jesus.  He is God in all the fullness of the Creator’s plan.  He can do all these miracles and teach all this wisdom, and forgive all the power hungry religious rule makers, because that is what a God-filled person can do.  We are not there yet, but we can draw a bit closer to the Jesus way by living as he lived, in love, his way of love.  

When Jesus dies, he is dead.  No pretend.  It is as the Big Bang meant creation to be, but God reveals that death is not the end of life.  Resurrection is not afterlife.  There is no after.  There is change of how energy connects, functions.  He reveals an energized future, all those electrons, photons, and so on, if you will, of Jesus, reforming as something new, but also connected to the earthly body. It is the Divine of Jesus pointing ahead. Energy is never extinct, or at least not yet.  Jesus can be recognized, talk, eat, but function in new ways, such as suddenly appearing, and then disappearing.  He is what we are all called to: “A fuller life.”   Will believing a creed do it for you, when simply told what to believe?  Maybe.  Does it energize you to live the Sermon on the Mount?  If so, then you are good to go.  

I am trying to make sense of all this for the many who have heard the creed, found it incredulous and watched how congregations and individual believers live.  Then they have walked away.  Plus they may have read a bit about science, chemistry, physics, astronomy, most of which Aristotle and Plato did not have.  God’s universe is expanding, changing, evolving.  Maybe our explanations of belief need to keep up.  Or maybe I will just burn.