That Surprising Birth - Reflections on Matthew 1:18-25, Advent 4, Year A

by John C. Holbert on Monday, October 20, 2025

          Here we are again at the magical time of Christmas, announced by the fourth Sunday of Advent. All four Advent candles are now aglow, the choir will have prepared the special music for the season, and the service will probably close with a rousing rendition of “Hallelujah” from George Frederick Handel. In my congregation, members of the congregation who do not sing in the choir regularly, but who have some musical background, are invited to join the choir in the fun and joy of that fabulous music. We are fortunate enough in our place to have several brass players—one on that bright E-flat trumpet—accompany our vocal efforts. It is altogether a grand occasion, and I hope that your service may also be splendid.

         But it is always crucial on such a day to make it as clear as possible just what all these lengthy and serious preparations are for—why are we all here? What has caused even many strangers to come on this day, strangers we welcome, of course, and do not single out with some sly reference to “E-C” (that is “Easter/Christmas) Christians. Well, of course, the music is special, but there are some rather more hidden and unspoken reasons that bring some unfamiliar folks to church this day. Nostalgia plays a large role; they used to come but have lost the habit since the kids are grown, or the parents are gone, or they live alone. Community still has its draw, and there remains great pleasure in singing and hearing others sing, too. 

         But what about the sermon? This Matthew text often is read, and we all are confronted with the theological bit about the miraculous birth of Jesus. The Hebrew Bible text from Isaiah 7 makes it altogether plain that the virginal brith claim simply will not do—at least as some easily accepted fact. As any serious Bible reader knows, Isaiah knows precisely nothing of any virgins giving birth, since the word he uses frankly never means virgin in Hebrew. Matthew, however, knew of the Greek version of that Isaiah text, and the word it used to translate the Hebrew “young woman,” parthenos, can indeed mean virgin. It may well be that Matthew already knew of the miraculous birth of the Messiah, and heard in that Greek word a bolstering of what he already perceived and believed—Jesus was in reality born of a virgin woman, Mary. Indeed, his tale about the birth is designed exactly to show how that came to pass.

         “Now the birth of the Messiah took place in this way” (Mt.1:18). “The birth” translates the word “genesis” (“birth-record”), the very first word of Matthew’s Gospel, Mt.1:1. “When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, before they lived together, she was found to be with child—from the Holy Spirit” (Mt.1:18). Joseph is clearly not Jesus’ biological father, and a desperate scandal could well ensue. Deut.22:23-27 provides the terrible result in the case of an engaged woman found not to be a virgin: she is to be returned to her father’s house and stoned to death by the men of the city due to the disgrace she has brought upon the father’s family. However, says Matthew, Joseph, though having every right as the apparently cuckolded man, to bring a public charge against Mary, was rather a “just” man. The word dikaios is a powerful one. Joseph is not merely “kindly” or “pious;” he is just, a man of the deepest religious principles, “not willing to shame her” (publicly) but instead “planned to divorce her quietly” (Mt.1:19). Exactly how Joseph could pull that off is not explained, but his attempt marks him as just.

         “As he was considering this,” no doubt formulating a plan of desperate action, “an angel appeared to him in a dream.” Rather like his ancient namesake, that famous Hebrew Bible dreamer, Joseph in Genesis, this new Joseph experiences a visitation from “an angel of the Lord.” The angel urges Joseph to take Mary to his home as wife, despite the obvious difficulties and sure scandal that will result, because “what has been begotten in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Mt.1:20). “You will call him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Mt.1:21). The name “Jesus” derives from the Hebrew word yasha, a word meaning “savior, deliverer.” 

         The angel then quotes the Is.7:14 passage, using the word parthenos to suggest the virginal status of Mary. Joseph awakes, and does what the angel asks of him, taking Mary home with him, and having no sexual relationship with her “until she bore a son” (Mt.1:25). Thus, Jesus’s birth was for Matthew a thoroughly miraculous one.

            So, preacher, what to do? It is common to use Joseph as a major actor in Advent, pointing to his confusion in the face of his pregnant fiancée, his subsequent trust due to his actions of justice, and finally his enlightenment by the angel of God, and his obedience to what the angel asks. Or, the whole story may have been concocted by Matthew to combat early notions that Jesus was the illegitimate child of Mary. Such charges may be found in some Talmudic texts and even later in a collection of anti-Christian polemic known as Toledot Yeshu (“Tales of Jesus”). In that collection, the claim is made that Jesus was fathered by a Roman soldier named Panthera. However, those polemics, along with the Talmudic sources are much later than the first century, making it likely that Matthew’s story of Jesus’s virginal birth generated the charge of Jesus’ illegitimacy, rather than being a response to that charge. I do not think a preacher should on the fourth Sunday of Advent argue about the virgin birth, but neither do I think the subject can be avoided by any preacher. Use a study session to discuss it, not a sermon. Why not allow the musical magic of the season carry the day, while you focus attention on the power and trustworthiness of Joseph as a model for superb Christian behavior? That is to me a useful way to address this great day in the church’s life.