Knowing The Word in Luke 1:34-38

God The Spirit, God The Son, The Incarnation

34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Comments

While Zechariah disbelieved what Gabriel says to him, Mary was puzzled. She knews her biology and that the only one who can make her pregnant was Joseph. There could not be another way. Then Gabriel explained she will conceive through the power of the Holy Spirit who will “overshadow” her. She would not have sexual relations with a man or with God. Instead, Jesus would be conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit. He would be holy because he would not inherit the corrupted nature of Adam that all human beings have. He would be the Son of God.

What Mary heard from Gabriel about her pregnancy was astounding, and then he added to it telling her that her cousin Elizabeth was also expecting. She who was beyond childbearing years would have a son, and all of this was part of God’s plans. He could do anything he wanted, and he was doing.

Mary immediately submitted to God. Her response may seem natural in our eyes, but as we see in contrast to Zechariah, it was not. This was humble, obedient heroism. Yet to be married to Joseph, Mary might be in trouble. The penalty for pregnancy outside of marriage was death according to Deuteronomy 22:23-24: “If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.” At this point, Mary could not be sure she would not suffer or perhaps die. Yet she recognized God’s will and accepted it. This was her quiet, obedient, humble heroism. Gabriel’s mission was accomplished, and he disappeared.

Application

Mary trusted the promises of God and obediently submitted herself to his plans. Do you trust the promises of God in your life? Where do you need to work on your obedience?

Prayer

Lord God, as Mary humbly accepted your word, your promise about her pregnancy, grant me the wisdom and strength to follow her example of trusting obedience. I desire to love you and obey your every command and promise, but I need your Spirit to lead me. Thank you for granting this request.

Bonus Material: The Doctrine of the Incarnation

The Doctrine of the Incarnation is the climax of Christian reflection upon the mystery of the conception and birth of Jesus. In Jesus God assumed a human nature and becomes a man. Jesus, then, is both truly God and truly man—our human nature and flesh in union with the Divine. It is essential and integral to authentic Christianity and to understanding ultimate reality and the meaning of the cross. Without the doctrine of the incarnation, the following misunderstandings of the cross are possible:

· The cross is the devastating and unexpected end to the career of Jesus, forcing his disciples to invent the idea of the resurrection to cover up the catastrophe.

· The cross is God’s judgment on Jesus, demonstrating he was cursed by the Law and disqualified from having messianic status.

· The cross represents the fate of anyone who attempts to lead a life of total obedience to God.

· The cross represents the greatest love anyone can have for another, giving Jesus’ followers an example and inspiration to imitate.

· The cross demonstrates that God is a sadistic tyrant.

· The cross is meaningless.

Instead, incarnational theology speaks of God, out of his sacrificial love for us, subjecting himself to evil, pain, and suffering on our behalf. Dorothy Sayers explains:

It is only with the confident assertion of the creative divinity of the Son that the doctrine of the Incarnation becomes a real revelation of the structure of the world. And here Christianity has its enormous advantage over every other religion in the world. It is the only religion which gives value to evil and suffering. It affirms—not, like Christian Science, that evil has no real existence, nor yet, like Buddhism, that good consists in a refusal to experience evil—but that perfection is attained through the active and positive effort to wrench a real good out of a real evil.

Remove or deny the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Christian faith will unravel, lose its shape, and become of no significance. Instead, the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and she became the mother of God the Son, the first man born without sin since the creation of Adam.