Thursday, December 7, 2006
A GREAT AND MIGHTY WONDER
"I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost." So we confess in the Creed. Ponder this amazing miracle! God's eternal Son was conceived in the womb of a lowly virgin girl living in the out-of-the-way village of Galilee 2000 years ago. Is this not a wonder? Even apart from the wonderful purpose of Jesus' conception, just the fact of it happening is reason to lift our hearts in praise to our God. "Praise Him for His acts of power; praise Him for His surpassing greatness, praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet, with harp and lyre, with tambourine and dancing, with the strings and flute, with the clash of cymbals" (Psalm 150).
At this season we praise Him as we think about the Christmas miracle. God sent His angel to announce that the Holy Spirit would come upon Mary and the power of the Highest overshadow her. The same God who created the world in the beginning -- who formed the first man from the dust and the first woman from a rib of the first man -- He used His creative power to cause a unique human life to begin forming in the womb of a woman who had never been with a man. Is that not a wonder?
In our preparations for Christmas may let us not be distracted by unbelieving skeptics who say: "This goes against everything we know about biology. People living in olden days were naíve enough to believe a baby could be born without a human father but I can't be expected to accept miracles of the Bible as factual." No rather, let us recognize in humble faith how the virgin birth of Christ is a grand example of our Lord choosing "the foolish things of the world to shame the wise" (1 Corinthians 1:27). The same God who made the world in 6 days -- and kept Jonah alive in the stomach of a fish for 3 days -- and commanded the waters of the Red Sea to part and form a walled-in highway -- caused His Son to be conceived in a virgin's womb for our salvation. Praise Him!
