OUR friend Rose usually pops in on Saturdays for tea. As she waits for the rain to stop, I ask her: "Have you heard the first Christmas story?" 

Although a long-time friend of my wife and I, Rose quickly shuts the door whenever we open any window that concerns Christianity. But this time, she is curious. "Which one?" 

"The one in which a teenager got pregnant at the first Christmas and rumours of a sex scandal spread throughout the kampung!" 

"Got such thing, meh?" Rose is aghast and intrigued at the same time. Just then the rain stops and she bids us goodbye without hearing the story. But she takes with her a little tract on Christmas Hope. 

As the story goes, the Palestinian teenager, who was probably between 12 and 14 years old, or, at the most, 16, became pregnant. It was not unusual in her culture for girls to start bearing children at this age. 

But Mary, or Maryam as she was known in the Qur’an, was not married, although she was betrothed to the carpenter Joseph, or Yusuf. If the bearded and turbaned ones had their way, Mary would have to be stoned for such an infraction, following austere ancient Jewish laws. 

Like most couples, their betrothal had been arranged by their families, probably with their consent. Betrothal then was more binding than our modern-day engagement; it normally involved the groom paying a part of the dowry first. During the betrothal period, normally a year, both boy and girl were officially pledged to each other, and any advances toward anyone else was regarded as adulterous under the Torah or Old Testament laws. 

Pre-marital contact was frowned upon in Galilee, where they lived, so Mary and Joseph might not have had any time together at this point. The teenager discovered that she was pregnant in the most startling manner. According to the gospel recorded by Luke, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth (a village in Galilee), to a virgin named Mary. 

Confused and disturbed, the girl tried to make sense of the angel’s visit.  

"Don’t be frightened, Mary," the angel told her, "for God has decided to bless you. You will become pregnant and have a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High." 

Mary asked the angel: "But how can I have a baby? I am a virgin." 

The angel replied: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby born to you will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God ? For nothing is impossible with God." (Luke 1:26-37) 

Some 600 years after the event, Mary’s confusion about the virgin birth was recorded in the Qur’an in the Surah named after her: "He (the angel) said, ‘Nay, I am only a messenger from your Lord, (to announce) to you the gift of holy son.’  

"She said, ‘How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and I am not unchaste?’  

"He said: ‘So (it will be): your Lord says, ‘That is easy for Me: and We (wish) to appoint him as a sign unto men and a Mercy from Us’: it is a matter (so) decreed." (Surah Maryam 19-21). 

How would any man react upon finding out that his betrothed was pregnant when he had not touched her at all? Joseph, being a just man, decided to break off the engagement quietly, so as not to disgrace Mary publicly, according to the Gospel of Matthew.  

But God sent an angel to him in a dream: "Joseph, do not be afraid to go ahead with your marriage to Mary. For a child within her has been conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. 

"When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord commanded. He brought Mary home to be his wife, but she remained a virgin until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus." (Matthew 1:18-25) 

Mary and Joseph survived the vicious and scandalous rumours at that first Christmas. They faced an impossible situation and overcame it. 

Two thousand years later, we too, face many impossible situations. With God nothing is impossible, the angel told Mary. The angel may still be telling us the same thing. There’s still hope in Christmas. 

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