St. Luke 1: 26 – 38

Dec. 21, 2021

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,

27To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

28And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

29And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

30And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.

31And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.

32He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:

33And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

34Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

35And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

36And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.

37For with God nothing shall be impossible.

38And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

Everyone loves that song, “Mary Did You Know”, that we hear every Christmas. It’s a pretty silly question – of course she knew! The angel Gabriel told her. But what she might not have known, at that time anyway, was that Elizabeth was the Old Covenant and Mary was the New Covenant. The John in Elizabeth’s womb would prepare the way for the Jesus in Mary’s womb. The two are tied together as the Old Testament and the New Testament are tied together. Each one points to the other and each is complete because of the other.

Have you ever wondered about verse 35 which contains this phrase, “that holy thing which shall be born of thee“. Gabriel called Jesus ‘the holy thing”. Thing! That doesn’t sound very nice at all! It’s interesting that the two Bible study books I use don’t address that phrase. It bothered me for a really long time; Gabriel knew Jesus was Emmanuel and Son of the Father – why would he refer to Him as ‘the holy thing’? It dawned on me one day that there is no single word that describes Who Jesus is. Jesus is unique. No one before and no one after, is Jesus. Jesus was a baby; Jesus was male – but neither of those words describes the uniqueness of the Christ because He was more than a baby and more than male. The is no word for Him

So, I came to grips with Gabriel and forgave him for saying ‘the holy thing’ – there was no other way to describe what the Holy Spirit had placed in Mary’s womb.

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