by Sheila Gossett, Moderator
My perspective on the sacred is a mix of the logical and the spiritual. My spiritual side tells me that there is a sacred level of reality that I can’t explain; while my logical side acknowledges all the ways humans have tried to explain it. Since recorded history began we have created stories that point to the reality of the sacred. The Christmas story of God’s justice entering our awareness through the humble innocence of a young girl living in a culture of domination is especially appealing to me.
In ancient times, the term “virgin birth” was a figure of speech, a way of pointing to extraordinary personal qualities exhibited by an individual. The term was never expected to be taken literally. In the ancient world, being divine was description, meaning somebody who did something very important for the human race. For example, Alexander the Great was said to be virgin-born more than three hundred years before Jesus. The same was said of the Roman Emperor, Augustus Caesar, whose birth story preceded Jesus’ and was the model for Jesus’ birth story in nearly every detail. Julius Caesar, Plato, Pythagoras, Buddha, Socrates, and many more were said to have been born of a virgin through divine intervention and were called the Son of God.
So, for this story to be told about a peasant justice fighter would have been considered blasphemy against Caesar. As historian Jon Dominic Crosson explains, it was a way of proclaiming that God sanctioned Jesus’ realm of justice and equality over Caesar’s rule of domination and oppression.
I love it. It works for me. It meets my need for a logical, scholarly explanation grounded in historical evidence, and, at the same time points to an inclusive God of justice and liberation.
In the Zen tradition, a student is warned not to confuse the finger pointing to the moon for the moon itself. In the same way the expression ‘virgin-born,’ pointing to the greatness of a person, ought not be confused with the literal birth-origin of that person. To do so is to undermine what the tradition is telling us about that person.
Becoming AWARE of this scholarship changed my relationship with Jesus. Instead of a “magical being” with characteristics no human could ever achieve, he became real to me. He became a person of great courage in the face of oppression and a deep sense of the sacred within everyone he met. It is the life of this incredible person that I celebrate at Christmas. May his understanding and desire for peace, both inner peace and peace between us, be with us all. Merry Christmas.