Text: Matthew 1:1825

Topic: How the birth of Christ was an event outside normal experience

Introduction

Illustration : Pentz reads a section of Dr. Seuss' On Beyond Zebra, in which the narrator explains to his young friend who is learning the alphabet that in his alphabet, there are letters beyond Z that are used to form other words. Similarly, Christians must believe in the Virgin Birth in order to spell Immanuel, which is where we find Christmas.

The birth of Christ is without a category into which we sort life's experiences.

Illustration : In this brief illustration, Pentz tells a story that a congregant shared with him: a woman and her daughter were driving and were stopped at a stoplight. Once the walk sign had illuminated, a mother hen and her chicks hopped off the sidewalk and proceeded across the street; at which point the girl mentioned to her mother, "This is not normal." It was on beyond zebra.

What Mary had to tell Joseph was beyond belief.

When Mary told Joseph she was pregnant, Joseph exhibited an ageless human trait: fear of the unknown.

Illustration : Pentz compares Joseph's reaction to an assumption shared by ancient cartographers that beyond the explored regions lay danger. They typically wrote warningsin the marginsnext tothe unknown areas on their maps: "Beyond this there be dragons."

The miracle of miracles is that the baby inside of Mary was God in human flesh.

We cannot grasp the totality of this baby, through whom and for whom all was created, and who is before all things and holds them together.

Colossians 1:15

Since we have no category for this G, we subsume Christ into one; calling him the greatest teacher; the greatest moral exemplar ever known.

Like Joseph, if we do not accept this baby, we will miss Christmas, because it is on beyond zebra.

Illustration : C.S. Lewis compares Christ's plunge into human existence to a diver's journey down through the various temperatures and colors of water, to the oozing, deathlike bottom region, where he retrieves the precious thing he was diving for (which is you and me) and returns to the surface with his treasure.

Illustration : Here Pentz quotes Harry Reasoner, who says that the way God chose to send Christ into the world shows his love for us; but Reasoner speculates that the idea is not popular with theologians, who like logic.