The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, to the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. Upon arriving, the angel said to her: "Rejoice, O highly favored daughter! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women." She was deeply troubled by his words, and wondered what his greeting meant.

The angel went on to say to her: "Do not fear, Mary. You have found favor with God. You shall conceive and bear a son and give him the name Jesus. Great will be his dignity and he will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father. he will rule over the house of Jacob forever and his reign will be without end."

Mary said to the angel, "How can this be since I do not know man?" The angel answered her: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; hence, the holy offspring to be born will be called Son of God. Know that Elizabeth your kinswoman has conceived a son in her old age; she who was thought to be sterile is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible with God."

Mary said: "I am the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say." With that the angel left her. (Luke 1:26- 38)

When I was teaching Scripture, sometimes I would go into the classroom and ask myself, "How can I start with a kind of surprise," a kind of catching people off-guard. Sometimes in classes when we would come to this particular passage of Luke's gospel, I would go into class and say, "I have a surprise for you. We're going to have a little examination, a little exercise this morning. Please open your Bibles to this passage and take out a piece of paper and put down what you consider the most important verses in this particular passage."

It's always interesting to read the answers. Sometimes the students will put down, "I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done unto me as you say." And if you ask them, their answer is, "Well, it is because of Mary's `yes' that the sin of Adam is reversed. It is because of Mary's `yes' that she is the ideal of the church, the ideal of the perfect disciple, one who is always obedient, one who is always open, one who is always responsive."

And you'd have to tell them, "Everything you say is correct." Some students would take the passage, "Rejoice, O highly favored daughter! The Lord is with you, blessed are you among women." And you would ask them, "Why did you pick that particular verse?" "Because it shows the importance of Mary. It elevates Mary." And every once in a while one student or another would say, by elevating Mary, it elevates women. And of course you cannot discredit their response. It is correct. But their not the most important verses in this particular passage. They all emphasize Mary. And while I don't mean to put Mary down, the important thing about Mary is that she always points to Jesus, and we must not stop short. Because the passage is not so much about Mary as it is about the Incarnation. And if you were to ask me what are the most important verses of this particular passage, I would say verses 34 and 35. "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Hence the holy offspring to be born of you will be called the Son of God." In other words, Mary and the whole event look toward Jesus.

And it has often caused theologians a great deal of perplexity, a great deal of thought. Mary has no misapprehensions. She has no misunderstandings. She understands the angel perfectly. Some scholars have said, "Well, Mary was only 13, that was the normal age for betrothal in Jewish society at the time, and she really doesn't understand what the angel is telling her." But she understands perfectly that the angel is talking about pregnancy. The angel is talking about motherhood. The angel is talking about an embryo in the womb. And we know that Mary understands perfectly well what the angel is talking about when she says, "How can this be? I do not know man? I have no relations with a man. I've not had intercourse with a man. I haven't had any kind of a relationship that would result in a pregnancy. I'm a virgin. How can this be?" So Mary is perfectly aware of what the angel is saying.

On the other hand, some scripture scholars say, after Christianity had started and it came to be considered that it was ideal that Jesus be the Son of God, that Christian scholars sort of pushed in to their religion a concept of a God-born man. So it's a later belief, shoved into an earlier belief. And of course to explain that away they try to point out that there are many passages in pagan literature where you have sons born of pagan gods of virgins, and yet when you go to look you find not a one. There is no parallel in all of pagan literature to this event that Luke describes.

Others will say, "Well, the Jews had a concept. Go back to the book of Isaiah where Isaiah says, "The virgin will conceive and bear a child." The prophecy to Ahaz. And yet the Jews did not understand that passage in Ahaz as a virgin birth, as a real birth. And so what we come across is the fact that this idea of a virgin birth is totally unique to Christianity.

Another thing we come across is that the concept of virgin birth is much earlier in the church than many theologians, many scholars, even many Catholics are willing to grant. The very concept, the very idea, the very belief that a virgin would bear a child and that that virgin is Mary is as old as Christianity itself. It starts with Christianity. It is unique to Christianity. And one of the things we can notice is that it is a great miracle. The miracle of Elizabeth, an old woman beyond the natural time of childbearing, that she should be six months pregnant when the angel announces to Mary that she is to be the mother of Jesus, Elizabeth's pregnancy is a miracle. Mary's pregnancy is an even greater miracle. Because never in the history of humankind, before or since, has a virgin conceived and born a child without a natural human father. It has never happened before. It has never happened in our age. There has always been a human father. Even when you take into account the modern convenience that some people think is available, artificial insemination. There had to be some male that contributed the seed. And nothing of the kind takes place here.

That is what is so unique. And what we have here in Luke is not so much a passage about Mary; we're dealing with a passage about Jesus. We're dealing with Christology.

What is it that we're dealing with that is about Jesus here? We are dealing with two aspects of Jesus: his human nature, and his divine nature. His human nature comes from Mary. His divine nature comes from God. How does that happen? That is the mystery of the Incarnation. That's the mystery and that's the real miracle of the passage: the Incarnation.

I suppose you could say that another aspect of the real miracle is the fact that, why should God do it in the first place? Why should God feel so compelled to send His Son? Why should God feel so compelled to right the wrong of humanity that we all inherit in the person of Adam? There's the miracle.

In other words, you might put it this way: Why should God love us? Why should God redeem us? Why should God want us to share his life? That's an aspect of the miracle, that's an aspect of the Incarnation.

When theologians, when even we begin to think about these mysteries of our faith, we never clear away the mystery, we never will in this life. But what we do is define where the mystery is, what the mystery is, and what its implication is for our faith.

God is the father of Jesus, but not in the sense that Mary is the mother of Jesus. We are told what happens, but we are never told in this passage, or in any other passage, or in any theological treatise on this passage or the incarnation, how God is the father of Jesus. What we are told is that God is the father of Jesus, and in that respect his divine nature comes from God; his human nature comes from Mary. And another aspect of the great mystery of the Incarnation is, how can two such natures, so diametrically opposite, be combined into one person? And again we come to the mystery.

When I was taking theology, one of the students said once to the dogma professor, "Father Athanasius, I don't understand all of this at all." And Father Athanasius, who had a kind of cleft palate and spoke in a funny way and very fast and rapid, he said, "Young man, you don't have to understand it, just memorize it." In the mysteries of faith, we will never understand them, but we must know what the mysteries are. And we are presented here today with the greatest mystery of our faith.

Chesterton had a little limerick: "How odd of God / To choose the Jews." I would amend Chesterton to say, "How odd of God that he should love you and me." How odd of God that he should send his son to share our nature, that we might God's nature. How odd of God to love us so immensely when we don't often love him. How odd of God to love when we often don't love. It's a terrible mystery, a deep mystery, the Incarnation, but it is one of the marvelous mysteries of our faith. And Mary's greatness is the fact that she is there to make it possible. And yet in a sense we are all Mary's--you and I--because Jesus has to be born in the heart, in the person of each one of us. And you might say that God comes to us and says to us individually, "I want to be in you. I want to be incarnate in you." And we hope that our answer with Mary will be, "I am the servant of the Lord. Be it done unto me as you have said."