Mary and Joseph were betrothed to be married. In that culture of arranged marriages, likely their families had been friends. A big wedding was planned.

But there was a snag. Mary became suddenly pregnant. Baby Boomers were the first generation to learn about “birth control,” and abortions were not widely recognized as an option until the 1980s. Gen Z was the first to learn about medical abortions. Young people are taught that, because of evolution, sex is just a normal appetite of a human being, without meaning in the context of marriage. The villagers in Nazareth all must have wondered how Mary became pregnant. Never before in human history was there a record of a virgin birth.

But Isaiah had predicted this centuries before. In Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah had prophesied to King Ahaz of the southern kingdom of Judah. He was being attacked by a coalition of forces from Ephraim (the northern kingdom) and Syria. Isaiah’s promise of a virgin birth was to convince Ahaz that the southern kingdom would survive such an attack. The catch was that Ahaz was an evil king who did not worship Yahweh.

Ahaz was probably skeptical of this prophecy. He knew about pregnancy and childbirth. He might have interpreted Isaiah’s prophecy as referring just to a “young woman” of childbearing age, not a conception by the Holy Spirit.

Rome was also a culture which was highly sexualized. Women were considered to be property, and prostitution and homosexuality were widespread. The worship of the goddesses of fertility only made matters worse. While Judaism forbade sex outside of marriage, the Old Testament is rife with men who engaged in it anyway. How many of them got stoned for doing so?

The appearance of Gabriel to Mary was unexpected. What was she doing when he showed up? She was likely frightened by his arrival, since these kinds of theophanies had been rare. She certainly had hopes and dreams for her marriage and family, but not this. What would her parents say when they found out? What would Joseph say?

Matthew clarified that Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 was not to be to any young woman, but to one who was entirely chaste, a virgin (Matthew 1:22-23). The original sin of Adam passed along by the male lineage would not pass from Joseph to Jesus. His father was to be the Heavenly Father.

No doubt this unexpected pregnancy created quite a stir in Nazareth. Mary decided to leave for Judea to stay for three months with her relatives there. Joseph’s initial reaction was also disbelief. He concluded that Mary was pregnant by another male. Only the appearance of God’s angel prevented him from doing what he wanted to do, break off the marriage and hope for the best for Mary. Did his carpentry business suffer as a result of this stigma?

The virgin birth was significant because the birth of Jesus fulfilled prophecy. He wasn’t born in a hospital with an ob-gyn attending. It was in the middle of the night, interrupted by the cries of the newborn and the angelic choir. Nothing was normal about this. That is Luke’s point. And he defended Jesus’s birth by a virgin in His gospel.

Do you struggle with believing in the virgin birth of Jesus? As God incarnate, His conception and birth had to be different. Feel free to post your comments in the box below.