Let It Be

Mary, you are going to be with child in a way that no one has ever been with child before, or shall ever be afterward.

Luke 1:35 (AUTHOR’S PARAPHRASE)

There are several ways humans come into being. Adam and Eve were created directly by God. They did not come through the birth process. Today, we are the products of a relationship between our mother and father. But Jesus was uniquely born in the sense that He was born of His mother, but He had no earthly father. So Mary was asked, at the age of sixteen, to comprehend a concept, a birth process, that had never before occurred in the history of humanity. No wonder she was perplexed!

This is the glory and wonder of Christmas, that God could plant not only into the womb of this woman the Son of God, but He could plant in her heart the faith to believe the message that she received from the angel. Her response has always overwhelmed me with a sense of absolute submission that ought to be in the heart of every child of God. Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).