So far in this journey through the Apostle's Creed, we've looked at few things regarding how the Creed clues us into some ways of answering the question of finding meaning in life. We've noticed, for instance, that the Creed is a communal statement of faith, which suggests that our need for meaning is connected with our need to belong and our need to find unity. We've learned about the idea that God is our "Father" and how that stresses the role of love in meaning-making; and how God as "maker" suggests our need to receive the gift of creation with thanksgiving and our need to be co-creators with God. That Jesus is the “Son of God” and “our Lord” highlights the relationship between freedom and authority, and suggests that meaning is found in service and responsibility.
Of course, all of these ideas speak back to each other, and hints of these ideas are found not just in any single statement but in every statement. One way to think of the Creed is as a network of meaning.
So here I want to briefly look at the next idea: Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit” and “born of the virgin, Mary.”
This line of the Creed is probably one of the more counter-cultural lines and it’s one that many people struggle to accept, but it speaks to the heart of a very deep need within us. We all have a need for the familiar and the unfamiliar, for the intimate and the strange, for mystery and revelation, for astonishment and comfort, for the new and the old.
This is all symbolised perfectly in the idea of the virgin birth.
Chesterton tells a story about an English yachtsman who sets off to find a new land, but navigates poorly and so ends up arriving back in England and planting a flag. This is what he says:
"I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England under the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas. I always find, however, that I am either too busy or too lazy to write this fine work, so I may as well give it away for the purposes of philosophical illustration. There will probably be a general impression that the man who landed (armed to the teeth and talking by signs) to plant the British flag on that barbaric temple which turned out to be the Pavilion at Brighton, felt rather a fool. I am not here concerned to deny that he looked a fool. But if you imagine that he felt a fool, or at any rate that the sense of folly was his sole or his dominant emotion, then you have not studied with sufficient delicacy the rich romantic nature of the hero of this tale. His mistake was really a most enviable mistake; and he knew it, if he was the man I take him for. What could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again? What could be better than to have all the fun of discovering South Africa without the disgusting necessity of landing there? What could be more glorious than to brace one's self up to discover New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy tears, that it was really old South Wales. This at least seems to me the main problem for philosophers ... How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it?"
Chesterton says (and I agree) that this puzzle is answered in Christianity. Christianity hinges on paradox. God is mysterious and totally other, but is also intimately with us. Jesus was true man but because he was “conceived by the Holy Spirit” he was also true God.
The technical term for this is hypostatic union, which is to say that Jesus is not 50% human and 50% divine, but 100% human and 100% divine. This suggests a perfect, non-competitive relationship between God and creation, a perfect co-existence of two totally different orders of reality—the Uncreated (God) and the created. The second person of the Trinity, by taking on flesh, does not cease to be true God, but is true God as true man.
The Christian faith makes this claim, along with the fact that the Holy Spirit, as the 3rd person of the Trinity, is also God. And while it may seem to be a strange claim, since the mathematics isn't all that easy to comprehend (How does 3 = 1?), taking it seriously allows everything else to become clear. As Chesterton says, “The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.”
Whatever worldview you happen to have, there is a need we have for things to be integrated. Christianity suggests a way of looking at everything that is perfectly integrated. The spiritual really is spritual and different from the material, but it is also so intimate that it saturates everything with God's grandeur and glory. God is, in this view, not somewhere out there, operating at a distance, but is always near to us.
Of course, all of these ideas speak back to each other, and hints of these ideas are found not just in any single statement but in every statement. One way to think of the Creed is as a network of meaning.
So here I want to briefly look at the next idea: Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit” and “born of the virgin, Mary.”
This line of the Creed is probably one of the more counter-cultural lines and it’s one that many people struggle to accept, but it speaks to the heart of a very deep need within us. We all have a need for the familiar and the unfamiliar, for the intimate and the strange, for mystery and revelation, for astonishment and comfort, for the new and the old.
This is all symbolised perfectly in the idea of the virgin birth.
Chesterton tells a story about an English yachtsman who sets off to find a new land, but navigates poorly and so ends up arriving back in England and planting a flag. This is what he says:
"I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England under the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas. I always find, however, that I am either too busy or too lazy to write this fine work, so I may as well give it away for the purposes of philosophical illustration. There will probably be a general impression that the man who landed (armed to the teeth and talking by signs) to plant the British flag on that barbaric temple which turned out to be the Pavilion at Brighton, felt rather a fool. I am not here concerned to deny that he looked a fool. But if you imagine that he felt a fool, or at any rate that the sense of folly was his sole or his dominant emotion, then you have not studied with sufficient delicacy the rich romantic nature of the hero of this tale. His mistake was really a most enviable mistake; and he knew it, if he was the man I take him for. What could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again? What could be better than to have all the fun of discovering South Africa without the disgusting necessity of landing there? What could be more glorious than to brace one's self up to discover New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy tears, that it was really old South Wales. This at least seems to me the main problem for philosophers ... How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it?"
Chesterton says (and I agree) that this puzzle is answered in Christianity. Christianity hinges on paradox. God is mysterious and totally other, but is also intimately with us. Jesus was true man but because he was “conceived by the Holy Spirit” he was also true God.
The technical term for this is hypostatic union, which is to say that Jesus is not 50% human and 50% divine, but 100% human and 100% divine. This suggests a perfect, non-competitive relationship between God and creation, a perfect co-existence of two totally different orders of reality—the Uncreated (God) and the created. The second person of the Trinity, by taking on flesh, does not cease to be true God, but is true God as true man.
The Christian faith makes this claim, along with the fact that the Holy Spirit, as the 3rd person of the Trinity, is also God. And while it may seem to be a strange claim, since the mathematics isn't all that easy to comprehend (How does 3 = 1?), taking it seriously allows everything else to become clear. As Chesterton says, “The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.”
Whatever worldview you happen to have, there is a need we have for things to be integrated. Christianity suggests a way of looking at everything that is perfectly integrated. The spiritual really is spritual and different from the material, but it is also so intimate that it saturates everything with God's grandeur and glory. God is, in this view, not somewhere out there, operating at a distance, but is always near to us.
Christians are called, as a result, to resist any “disintegrating” ways of seeing; they are called into the dynamic and loving “Life of the Trinity.”
Remember, everything real is created and sustained in God. When we embrace the mystery, revelation follows. When we love heaven, we get earth thrown in (as CS Lewis notes). While we cannot fully understand the mystery, just as looking into the sun renders us blind, when we embrace the mystery everything else is illuminated.
So, yes, it's difficult to grapple with the paradox: Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, yet when we embrace it so much else becomes clear.
We should note, of course, that the idea that Jesus was "born of a virgin" references the entire history of Israel as we find it set out for us in the Scriptures. You will notice throughout the bible a very strong connection between God’s redemptive plan and miraculous births.
Israel’s story begins with Abraham and Sarah (Gen 12-17) who can’t conceive and then do when they are very, very old. Their son’s name is Laughter (Isaac) because of the astonishment and joy of his parents. The next turning point in Israel’s history is with the birth of Moses (Ex 2:1-10). His arrival isn’t a miracle exactly, but he miraculously escapes an impossibly huge danger. As a result of Moses, Israel gains new life through their exodus from Egypt/slavery.
Then, 1 Samuel 1:1-20, we read about Hannah, who is grief-stricken because she is barren. But then, God hears her prayer and she gives birth to Samuel who will anoint the first kings of Israel. It's also with Samuel that the line of the prophets begins.
The general idea is this: when there is a need, God hears and answers not by some deus ex machina appearance but by allowing for the reshaping of history within history.
Then, Luke 1:5-25, we read about Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, who also miraculously falls pregnant, in the same way that Sarah had in old age. This is a call-back to what God has done (found a nation, the start of the “old covenant”) and a call forward to what is to come (John the Baptist will “prepare the way of the Lord” and announce the new covenant). At every turn, as the above shows, we find that God's promises find their way into the world through the world. When Christians confess that Jesus is "born of a virgin," we're not looking at some weird anomaly but an extension of how God has always worked in the midst of history, in the midst of our lives.
Whenever we are in trouble or are faced with difficulties, we may tend to adopt the stance of people in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We waiting for redemption to invade our world from the outside. But this suggests a “dualistic” worldview: that sees God's work as separate from our lives. Against this, the story of the bible is the story of redemption within the world, with new creation bursting up from within the old creation.
Remember, everything real is created and sustained in God. When we embrace the mystery, revelation follows. When we love heaven, we get earth thrown in (as CS Lewis notes). While we cannot fully understand the mystery, just as looking into the sun renders us blind, when we embrace the mystery everything else is illuminated.
So, yes, it's difficult to grapple with the paradox: Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, yet when we embrace it so much else becomes clear.
We should note, of course, that the idea that Jesus was "born of a virgin" references the entire history of Israel as we find it set out for us in the Scriptures. You will notice throughout the bible a very strong connection between God’s redemptive plan and miraculous births.
Israel’s story begins with Abraham and Sarah (Gen 12-17) who can’t conceive and then do when they are very, very old. Their son’s name is Laughter (Isaac) because of the astonishment and joy of his parents. The next turning point in Israel’s history is with the birth of Moses (Ex 2:1-10). His arrival isn’t a miracle exactly, but he miraculously escapes an impossibly huge danger. As a result of Moses, Israel gains new life through their exodus from Egypt/slavery.
Then, 1 Samuel 1:1-20, we read about Hannah, who is grief-stricken because she is barren. But then, God hears her prayer and she gives birth to Samuel who will anoint the first kings of Israel. It's also with Samuel that the line of the prophets begins.
The general idea is this: when there is a need, God hears and answers not by some deus ex machina appearance but by allowing for the reshaping of history within history.
Then, Luke 1:5-25, we read about Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, who also miraculously falls pregnant, in the same way that Sarah had in old age. This is a call-back to what God has done (found a nation, the start of the “old covenant”) and a call forward to what is to come (John the Baptist will “prepare the way of the Lord” and announce the new covenant). At every turn, as the above shows, we find that God's promises find their way into the world through the world. When Christians confess that Jesus is "born of a virgin," we're not looking at some weird anomaly but an extension of how God has always worked in the midst of history, in the midst of our lives.
Whenever we are in trouble or are faced with difficulties, we may tend to adopt the stance of people in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We waiting for redemption to invade our world from the outside. But this suggests a “dualistic” worldview: that sees God's work as separate from our lives. Against this, the story of the bible is the story of redemption within the world, with new creation bursting up from within the old creation.
We’ve spoken about the balance between order and chaos, but this line in the Creed reminds us that we need a balance of homeliness and adventure, and this can take the form of any ordinary act in which we "welcome the stranger" (a very powerful theme in the Scriptures) and "loving enemies."
We tend to pick sides in our lives, living for either welcome or adventure. But the virgin birth reminds us, among other things, of our need for both.
We tend to pick sides in our lives, living for either welcome or adventure. But the virgin birth reminds us, among other things, of our need for both.
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