Advent Trail December 14th - Luke 1:34-35

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:34-35)

Mary doesn’t question the angel’s announcement that she will have a child who is both the Son of the Most High God and the promised Messiah whose kingdom will never end. Rather she is perplexed by the physical impossibility of it, knowing as she does that she is a virgin. It’s a delicate question which she asks, but a good and important one.

Gabriel’s reverent answer made clear that Mary would indeed bear a child without the intervention of a man. Instead, “the Holy Spirit will come upon you... and overshadow you”. The activity of the Holy Spirit is emphasised by Luke throughout the Christmas story (Luke 1:41; 1:67; 2:25-27) and supremely so here. The conception of Jesus would come about through the holy and powerful presence of God in her and by the Spirit’s creative power. Matthew makes the same statement, saying Mary “was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit” (Matt.1:18).

This reply does more than answer Mary’s question of how her pregnancy would be possible – it also draws out the full significance of Jesus’s divine conception. Because of this, the child to be born to her would be “holy, the Son of God”. We should not miss this explanation of what the Son of God means – and of who Jesus truly is.