I not only believe in the Virgin Birth, I have seen it.

“Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.”

Under the law, Joseph and Mary were husband and wife, even though they had not consummated their marriage. The law further provided that if an act of adultery occurred, both the adulterer and the adulteress were to be publicly stoned to death. Joseph’s plan to divorce Mary quietly was, therefore, very gracious.

In our own Episcopal marriage liturgy, we pray “Grant that their wills (that is, the will of the husband and the will of the wife) may be so knit together in God’s will, and their spirits in God’s Spirit, that they may grow in love and peace with God and one another all the days of their life.” When Matthew calls Joseph a righteous man, he is telling us that Joseph is the kind of man who would have prayed this Episcopal marriage prayer, that his will might be God’s will, and God’s will might be his will. In planning to divorce Mary quietly, Joseph thought he was going to do what God would want him to do under the circumstances. God, in his mercy, sends an angel to Joseph in a dream to explain the unique situation in which he and Mary find themselves so that Joseph can do what God really wants him to do, which is to take Mary as his wife and to call the child to be born Jesus, since he would save his people from their sins, which is what the word, Jesus, means: God saves.

Now many people, including those with lots of theological and biblical training, still find the idea of a virgin birth to be impossible and unbelievable. But I am here to say that I not only believe in virgin birth. I have actually seen it and experienced it myself.

Let me explain how this can be true.

In the days of Joseph and Mary, there were often three stages to a marriage: the engagement, the betrothal and the consummation. The engagement often took place when the future husband and wife were still children. The engagement was, in those cases, arranged by the children’s parents. The betrothal took place when the couple was old enough to consummate the marriage, but there was always a period of preparation which was still necessary for the ceremony and the couple’s future life together. When everything was finally ready, the couple was married and the marriage was consummated.

For those of us who had our children baptized as infants, that baptism marked our child’s engagement to Christ. Confirmation, sometime in that person’s adult life, marked the betrothal of the person to Christ, to be followed by a period of preparation for the actual consummation, which is equivalent to the second coming of Christ.

Now I can’t even begin to imagine the glory and wonder of the marriage feast of the Bride and Bridegroom, the Church and Christ, and the bliss of the consummation that awaits us when our union with God in Christ is complete and total. But what I want to point out to you is the fact that, in the meantime, you and I, during the period of our betrothal to Christ, under the operation and power of the Holy Spirit, are able to give birth to the fruits of the Spirit quite apart from that future consummation with Christ. And that is why I not only believe in the possibility of virgin birth, but I have seen it in you and I have experienced it in myself every time an act of love or joy or peace or self-control or generosity or kindness has come out of you or me not from any natural goodness or virtue, but by the cooperation of the Holy Spirit with each of us. The fruits of the Spirit cannot be reduced, in other words, to some form of sublimation of our id. The procreative power that has been given to us as human beings is not the only way that you and I can be creative.

To be sure, the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of Mary, supported by the same creative work of the Holy Spirit in guiding the will and judgment of Joseph under very challenging circumstances, allowed for an absolutely unique, one-of-a-kind, birth of the eternal Son of God in human flesh. But in principle, the Holy Spirit is not only capable, but in fact is effective, in accomplishing similar creative acts through us in our own period of betrothal to Christ. In other words, what I am trying to say is this: that we don’t have to be united completely to Christ in order for the Holy Spirit to produce Christ-like thoughts and actions in and through us. In that sense, our Christ-like love and patience is virginal. It happens through the Holy Spirit because we have already pledged ourselves to Christ and are preparing for his second coming to consummate and seal our relationship with him.

Now the Holy Spirit can act however the Spirit sees fit, whether or not we are baptized or confirmed, engaged or betrothed, but Joseph and Mary are signs of what the Holy Spirit can do in our lives when we have grown in grace and wisdom to a level of maturity that allows that same Spirit to work in us in ways that may not be possible otherwise in those who are still immature and childish in their thinking and acting, even though our union with Christ is not complete.

That is our mission as individual Christians, as well as the corporate Bride of Christ, to the world: to be a witness to the power of the Holy Spirit to act in remarkable ways in the lives of those who are betrothed to Christ, even if the marriage hasn’t taken place yet. That is why it is right to think of the past 2000 years as the time of the Holy Spirit, doing the Spirit’s unique, creative work, which transcends mere human procreative potential, though that potential is certainly one form of the Spirit’s work.

Virgin births, whether they take the form of an actual birth, as in the case of Jesus, or the more common form of the fruits of the Spirit in those who are betrothed to Christ, remind us that even in the face of modern advanced genetic techniques, God is still God, and the Holy Spirit, and not man, is the author and giver of life.

So let us never hesitate to pray that our wills may be so knit together in the will of God’s Spirit that we might prove to be as willing to let God have his way with us as Mary and Joseph did, bringing forth is us, during our time of preparation for the great wedding feast of heaven, the pure fruits of the Spirit. AMEN.