It is easy to overlook some of the remarkable claims of Christmas. One such claim is that a young woman named Mary gave birth to a child without having had sexual intercourse.

I have noticed that this amazing claim is generally responded to in two ways. 1) Many people reject it outright. 2) Most Christians blindly accept it without ever thinking much about it. However, Mary, herself, was astounded by the claim. When she first heard it she said: “How can this be since I have not been intimate with a man?” (Christian Standard Bible)

Mary asked a fair question. She and others at that time were well aware of where babies come from. They were not ignorant of the scientific fact of procreation, as some skeptics suppose. They knew that for a virgin to conceive was an impossibility in their time. (That was before artificial insemination.)

So Mary asked “How?” She was told that it would be a supernatural event — that God would by a miracle cause a baby to be conceived in her womb. But do supernatural events happen? That is another good question.

Personally I rejected the idea of a virgin birth when I was in high school. I could not conceive (excuse the pun) of how it could possibly happen, so I admitted to myself that I didn’t believe it. For me to believe something, I have to be convinced of its truth.

A couple of years later I had a supernatural experience that convinced me that Jesus Christ is alive and introduced me to a personal relationship with Him. Since that time the supernatural has become a frequent experience for me. God, a supernatural Being, who created human beings, would have no trouble creating a baby in the womb of a woman using supernatural means.

As I began to read the testimony of Mary and others in the New Testament, I realized that they were not reporting or creating myths. They were making the claim that the amazing miracles of Christmas had literally occurred.

Luke (author of the Book of Luke) even says: “Many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed them down to us. It also seemed good to me, since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first, most honorable Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed.”

The claim is that the miraculous events of Christmas actually happened in this space/time world. The Creator actually became a human being through a physical virgin birth.

Reading the claims of the New Testament writers, along with my personal experience of supernatural events, eventually convinced me that Mary did indeed conceive as a virgin. I believe the virgin birth of Christ is no myth, but that it really occurred as Mary and others declare in the Bible.

The virgin birth — what an amazing claim! That claim should not be taken lightly with an “O sure, I believe that.” It should be examined and explored and pondered and wrestled with. If it happened in space and time as the New Testament claims, then Christ deserves our total commitment and allegiance.