Luke 1:35-37 “‘How will this be,’ Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon 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. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.’”

Sometime early in the fall of 1980 I was introduced to the woman I married. Except at that time she was dating one of my classmates. Each year of high school she dated one of my best friends, until my senior year. Then she dated me. I didn’t know it when we first met three years earlier, but that introduction would change my life.

Sometime in the year 5 or 6 B.C. the angel Gabriel introduced himself to a teenager named Mary. He had been sent by God to introduce her to the son to whom she would give birth nine months later. These words conclude that introduction. The Son God introduces through Gabriel changed her life like no one else ever had. He changed the whole world.

Here, the angel introduces to Mary the agency, the power or means, by which she could conceive this child and give him birth. It is just one of the places in the Bible that tell us Jesus was born of a woman who remained a virgin until the day of his birth.

The skeptics, of course, find this ridiculous. They propose one of two explanations. Either this is an example of ancient ignorance about where babies come from, or this is an example of out and out myth-making, a fictionalized story intended to surround the person of Jesus with additional honor or mystery, because maybe that would help to promote the Christian brand.

But Mary’s own question shows that she understood this was not the way women were supposed to become pregnant and give birth. And if there really is a God, then the one who created all life out of non-living material is not even slightly challenged to enable a woman to conceive without involving a man.

For those who still aren’t satisfied, we might ask the question, “If you were God, and you intended to become a part of your own creation in order to save it, how would you do it?” The answer in any case is going to have to involve something supernatural, isn’t it? It may as well be this way as any other.

And by choosing this way, this agency, for becoming a part of our world, God is introducing us to another facet of his love. We are so dear to him, so precious, that he would not refuse to join himself to our broken and miserable little family, if it means that he could reconcile our relationship and make us his own once again.

Today we celebrate this birth, this Son, to whom God has introduced us. Now that we have met him, he will change our lives.