Miracle Baby – Jesus the Christ

 Luke 1:34-38 (ESV)

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

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. 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. For nothing will be impossible with God.” 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.

 

Explanation

It is easy to become too familiar with certain Bible stories, and the stories around Jesus’ conception and birth certainly rank in that category. In this passage, Mary isn’t just finding she’s going to have a baby under the most unusual circumstances. God is going to fulfill His greatest prophecy. Israel’s messiah is to be born. She, of course, is confused about the mechanics of the promise, as she knows where babies come from. The angel, Gabriel, starts with an explanation that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to her. A well-defined doctrine of the Holy Spirit is still years away. But Gabriel doesn’t bother with a complicated theological discussion. He simply points out that Mary’s cousin Elizabeth is already six months pregnant and that nothing is impossible with God.

I read once that it was a common blessing offered to young brides that they might bear the Messiah, but the virgin birth was probably not what they had in mind. I’m inclined to believe that this might have been the case because, even though the promise of this blessing from God was miraculous and would likely cause trouble for her, she humbly submitted and accepted it for the blessing it was intended to be.

 

Application

We tend to want our lives to be calm and prosperous. Unfortunately, life is rarely like that under the best of circumstances. As believers in Jesus Christ, many of us, at least occasionally, want to be part of a great move of the Holy Spirit. As we saw yesterday and today, with the conception of John the Baptist and Jesus, great moves of God often are accompanied by unpleasant circumstances. I wonder how often we miss the opportunity to be part of such a move by the Holy Spirit because we are impatient, because we want this blessing on our own terms, or because we are unwilling to suffer inconvenience of suffering for His Name’s sake.