God Chose A Side

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

Matthew 1:18-19,  New Testament, The Bible

Maybe it’s because I have been watching a lot of police dramas set in the middle of the last century that these verses have hit me with particular vehemence this Christmas. The best of these address social issues prominent at the time, but even those that don’t reflect cultural norms that are disturbing from the perspective of sixty years in the future. Something that repeatedly strikes me is how badly women were treated at every level of society – not only as victims of crime but simply in everyday life ( I recommend the series Inspector George Gently as a series that powerfully addresses the issue of the day while providing absorbing crime drama).

It’s not new, of course, to recognise that Jesus’ birth was surrounded by controversy but our celebration of the festival obscures and sugar-coats the nature of His birth. It doesn’t strike us with the force that Matthew’s original readers might have felt. The truth is, the circumstances of Jesus’ birth were shocking and Matthew does not shy away from it. Mary, a young girl, supposedly a virgin, is suddenly discovered to be pregnant. Joseph, her fiancé, reaches the obvious conclusion and decides what any man in his position would have done (and would still do today) – he annuls the engagement. He is a kind man and aims to do so quietly to spare Mary, but it is clear what he, and any other person, believes.

Reading these verses again I was struck by the realisation that, when He sent his Son amongst us, God chose a side. Of course, we are well aware that in being born as a human being Jesus was humbling Himself to an incomprehensible degree, but, even so, we identify Him with the “good”, “upright”, “moral” (middle class!) people. We fail to recognise that from the very beginning God chose to be identified with the outcast, the despised, the damned. God caused His Son to be born in such a manner that He would be known as the son of a woman who had become pregnant by someone not her fiancé or husband; she was a woman who had made an “unfortunate” mistake; a flirt, a slut, a whore. Jesus, in short, was a bastard. In the mid-twentieth century this would have condemned her.  It’s clear, that this judgement was in the background of Jesus’ story all through His life. The gospel of John, chapter 8:19,41, only makes sense if the Pharisees were referring to stories of Jesus’ illegitimacy. Jesus’ dubious parentage was clearly widely known. God chose a side.

In the birth of His Son, God chose to stand with all those judged and damned as unworthy by society. He chose to stand with the outcast, the immoral, the weak, the poor.  When I look at the church today I wonder if we, in our moral judgments and condemnations, really stand on the same side as God chose or whether, in Jesus words in John 8, we belong to a different father?