Thursday, December 20, 2018
Human virginity, far from being able to construct for itself a point of connection for divine grace, lies under its judgment.
Yet it becomes, not by its nature, not of itself, but by divine grace, the sign of this judgment passed upon man, and to the extent the sign of divine grace.
For if it is only the virgo who can be the mother of the Lord, if God’s grace considers her alone and is prepared to use her for His work upon man, that means that as such willing, achieving, creative, sovereign man is not considered, and is not to be used for this work.
Of course, man is involved, but not as God’s fellow-worker, not in his independence, not with control over what is to happen, but only–and even that because God has presented him with Himself–in his readiness for God.
So thoroughly does God judge sin in the flesh by being gracious to man.
So much does God insist that He alone is Lord by espousing the cause of man.
This is the mystery of grace to which the natus ex virgine points.
The sinful life of sex is excluded as the source of the human existence of Jesus Christ, not because of the nature of sexual life nor because of its sinfulness, but because every natural generation is the work of willing, achieving, creative, sovereign man.
No event of natural generation will be a sign of the mystery indicated here.
Such an event will point to the mighty and really cosmic power of human creaturely eros.
If our aim is to discover and set up the sign of this power, the event of sex still forces itself upon us as the sign which is unmatched by any other in importance and persuasiveness.
The event of sex cannot be considered at all as the sign of divine agape which seeks not its own and never fails.
It is the work of willing, achieving, creative, sovereign man, and as such points elsewhere than to the majesty of the divine pity.
Therefore the virginity of Mary, and not the wedlock of Joseph and Mary, is the sign of revelation and of the knowledge of the mystery of Christmas.
from Karl Barth, “The Miracle of Christmas”, Church Dogmatics I.2, page 192.
