Advent 4A (Matthew 1:18-25)

​The story behind Jesus’ birth becomes even more radical if we set aside, for a moment, the doctrine of the virgin birth. Now, for some this can feel provocative—especially for those who approach Scripture as something to be taken literally at every point. That approach is sometimes called biblicism: believing in the Bible in such a way that belief in the living God gets reduced to simple, unquestioned assertions. But as Episcopalians, we do not fear questions. Faith is not undone by wonder or honest inquiry.

So let us imagine for a moment that there was no virgin birth, and of course no medical technology such as IVF in the ancient world. Let’s simply take the story as Matthew tells it. Mary becomes pregnant—and we are given no explanation of how. It is clear that Joseph is not the biological father. Joseph, who is described as righteous, meaning aligned with God in action and intention, chooses not to expose Mary to shame. He plans to quietly dissolve the engagement.

This is a scandal. Mary is vulnerable. Joseph is distressed. The situation is socially dangerous—just as it still can be in many cultures today.

But in the midst of this rupture of norms, Joseph is invited not to abandon Mary, but to protect her and the child. The baby who would otherwise be marked as “illegitimate,” as outside the lines of order and propriety, is the one Matthew identifies with Isaiah’s prophecy: Emmanuel—God with us. And Mary is linked with Isaiah’s “young woman,” the one from whom God’s presence emerges.

Everything here is upside down. A situation that appears socially disordered becomes the very place of God’s nearness. The one who, by societal standards, might have been dismissed as cursed, unwanted, or unworthy is revealed to be the bearer of divine presence.

This is the nature of the kingdom of God.
It overturns what we call normal.
It rearranges our values.
It gives dignity to those the world pushes to the margins.

The gospel consistently moves toward the forgotten, the shamed, the overlooked. It exposes the fragility of the structures that favor the powerful. And it reveals the presence of God where we least expect to find it.

The Incarnation begins not in order, but in disruption.
Not in social approval, but in vulnerability.
Not in perfection, but in the fragile courage of two people who choose love over fear.

And that is where God still shows up.



Descending Theology: The Resurrection by Mary Karr

From the far star points of his pinned extremities,
cold inched in—black ice and squid ink--
till the hung flesh was empty.
Lonely in that void even for pain,
he missed his splintered feet,
the human stare buried in his face.
He ached for two hands made of meat
he could reach to the end of.
In the corpse’s core, the stone fist
of his heart began to bang
on the stiff chest’s door, and breath spilled
back into that battered shape. Now

it’s your limbs he comes to fill, as warm water
shatters at birth, rivering every way.