"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35)

What amazing words these must have been to Mary, a young woman, when she first heard them. Just minutes before she had probably been engaged in some mundane task of daily life in her mother's home, perhaps grinding flour or baking bread, maybe weaving or spinning wool into yarn. If she was like most young women who are shortly to be married, her mind would have been turned to her future life with Joseph, what their home would be like, the children they would have and the life that they would lead together. Happy images of the future would have filled her thoughts. She would have had her hopes, dreams and expectations--images of how her life would be as the future wife of Joseph.

Suddenly with the appearance of the angel Gabriel, her visions of the future contained a new and dramatically different element. The angel told her that she was highly favored and blessed among women, that the Lord was with her and that she would soon conceive and bring forth a son whose name would be Jesus. This child would be given the throne of Mary's ancient forebear, King David, and reign forever.

Mary voiced the question of how this would take place. She knew the order of natural conception and knew that the angel's message did not fit into this order. In explanation the angel Gabriel told her of the greatest miracle of all time saying, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God."

We are called to believe that miracles do occur. Some people are troubled by the idea of miracles based on their picture of cause and effect in this world. They have accepted that the only causes are natural ones, the laws of physics and so on. For such a person the idea of Jesus being born without a natural father is fantastic beyond belief.

But we are called to believe that miracles have and do occur. There are forces that attack this belief. We have grown up in a culture that has a strong sense of natural order. Science today is capable of explaining so many events that previously were mysteries. It is capable of explaining them by means of fundamental laws of nature. For some this sense of natural law can become so strong that the Lord's active presence within creation vanishes. For some there is no Divine intervention within this system. All is fixed and moves along with changes taking place by mere random accident. But it could be noted that according to natural law most changes result in more chaos, not less chaos. Changes tend toward the break down of a higher order into a lower one.

Think of the example of a person quickly typing out a document on a computer. You would expect that errors would be introduced into the typing. What is the likelihood that the errors would improve the original document? It’s possible, but rather unexpected. But the argument for pure natural evolution is that given enough time and the forces of natural selection life as we now know it has developed. Asserting that human life came about purely by random accidents starting with the genetic code of the most primitive life millions of years ago seems akin to saying that given enough time and enough typed copies a simple child’s nursery rhyme could evolve into a Shakespearean play without any plan or higher thought being involved.

We are called to believe that miracles do occur. However, the Writings for the New Church have taught us that we are not to expect to see the miracles of the Old and New Testaments performed today in the same way they were performed in the time those books were written. We read:

The reason miracles are not done at this day, as before, is that miracles compel, and take away free will in spiritual things; and from being spiritual, they make a person natural. All in the Christian world . . . can become spiritual; and they become spiritual solely from the Lord through the Word; and the faculty for this would perish if they were brought to believe through miracles. (True Christian Religion 501)

Partially based on statements such as this, a person can come to a pattern of thinking that does not believe in the Lord’s ability to affect things for good in a miraculous way even today. A person could believe in God, but still tend to view the progression of his or her life as following laws of a machine-like system. Anything that does not fit into this fixed system is believed to be a miracle that would take away spiritual freedom--the very freedom that the Lord was born into the world to reestablish.

Perhaps, though, it is too easy for us to become too limited in our view. So limited that we block out a sight of the miracles that can occur within our own lives without taking away our spiritual freedom. Perhaps it is too easy for this limited point of view to block out a sense of the Lord's presence, a sense of the Holy Spirit's presence. How does the Lord reach out to touch our lives?

What of Mary's life? The events surrounding the first Christmas were a major intervention within her life. The same is true of her husband to be, Joseph. Both of them could have denied the possibility of a miraculous conception and this state of denial would have been far more damaging than that of Zacharias's. Could the Lord's birth ever have taken place if Mary was not willing to accept the angel's words? Her firstborn was to have a continuing effect throughout her whole life. His presence was not without many events that brought a sense of awe and wonder to both Mary and Joseph. We know of at least one event that showed that raising Jesus was not always easy. At age 12, they spent three anxious days searching for Him, only to find Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of teachers, listening and asking questions.

In addition to the way in which Jesus' birth and life intervened in Joseph and Mary's life, think of the way His presence affected the disciples. Many of them were happily going about their daily jobs when they were called to leave all behind and follow Him. While this intervention sometimes involved something of the miraculous, it also involved an element of free will. Just as Joseph and Mary could have resisted the words of the angel announcing that the Lord would be born, so also the disciples could have heard the Lord call them to follow and shook their heads and returned to their work. There were many, many others who were influenced in this same way. Many others who heard the Lord's words calling to them and had their lives profoundly influenced by what He said.

The Lord comes to each of us in our lives many times each day. While we may not have anything occur in our lives that an objective observer would call miraculous, it is not true that our lives will follow some pre-established route, set by our inborn nature and directed by compelling experience of the natural world. The Lord's first birth represents the way in which He comes in any age to anyone who will receive Him. Just as the words of the angel Gabriel would have been a dramatic intervention within the happy normalcy of the future that Mary would have envisioned, so also the Lord can come to us announcing the conception of a future for us that is far different from the one our natural mind would envision. The Lord comes to us offering and promising a far different set of reactions to daily events from the ones we presently have--a different perspective, a far greater patience in some areas and a stronger resolve and commitment in others. He comes to us bringing light to areas of thoughts that we had resigned ourselves to being in deep darkness and bringing warmth to much that we might otherwise have done from need or duty.

The angel Gabriel was sent to a virgin, whose name was Mary. Ancient prophecies had promised that the Messiah would be born as the child of a young woman. Several hundred years after this prophecy was given, a Greek version of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, introduced a new element of the miraculous by using a word in this prophecy that was not the general one for a young woman, but rather the distinctive Greek term for "virgin." When the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, the gospel of Matthew records that he quoted this prophecy according to the way it is presented in the Septuagint. The Writings for the New Church make it quite clear that this seemingly added idea is correct and even essential in our understanding of the Lord's advent.

There are two distinct reasons for the importance of a belief in the virgin birth. One reason has to do with the essential need for Jesus to be born with a natural mother but without a natural father if He was going to become our Savior and Redeemer. It was crucial for the work of Jesus that He not derive from His birth any of the internal evils that are passed on through the soul provided by the natural father in any natural conception. His soul and life came directly from the infinite God. His developing mind and life were the ever more perfect manifestation in human form of the Father and creator, our Lord and God. But it was important that He take on a natural mind at first empty of any experience and knowledge as you and I were born with. It was important that He take on the hereditary inclinations to evil that birth to a natural mother brought to His life.

The second reason for believing in the virgin birth exists because of the representation of the term virgin and what this says about how the Lord comes to us in our lives. We are told that a virgin represents someone who willing to have his or her life affected by truth. In this story, Mary represents a state of mind in each of our lives that is not controlled by self interest nor committed to a determined course of action. It is a state of mind that is open to new possibilities.

The Lord comes to us to each of us bringing the promise of a new conception of life just as the angel Gabriel came to the virgin Mary. He comes promising a rebirth or regeneration of life that is radically different from the one we come by naturally. It is not to the hustle and bustle of established life that He appears, but rather to those states of mind that, like the virgin Mary, look forward to something new and different and most importantly are willing to receive the conception of this new life. The life that comes to us naturally, apart from any presence of the Lord, is like a child conceived of a human father and mother. Without the Lord's presence, this life cannot have any other basis than self-interest and worldly concern. Experience may teach us to broaden this self-interest and to temper these concerns, but apart from the Lord's advent within our lives they will never rise above this level. The Lord is born within each of our lives within the states of mind that are willing to be affected by what the Word teaches--by the states of mind that are willing to rise above the prompting of our natural inclinations to be self-serving and natural in our interests, thoughts and actions. He is born within the states of mind that are willing to turn outward to recognize and serve the needs of those around us. He is born within the states of mind that are willing to recognize that natural things exist to serve the needs of mankind and creation as a whole and have their proper uses as well as their abuses.

Our preparation for the celebration of Christmas, more than any other event of the season, tends to turn people outward to others. It is a time that can help us to recognize the community of caring people that we live in. And it is a time that can remind us that many are in need--there are many people who can use our help. This help may be a matter of providing food, clothing and shelter for those have not been able to or have not yet come to be provident enough to provide them for themselves. It can be a matter of giving a hand to someone who could use some help with a job, sharing some burden with them. Christmas is a time when we give gifts that symbolize and love and friendship for others. The most lasting gifts are those that we give when we recognize the spiritual needs of others—when we recognize that, by our words and actions, we can help the Lord bring loving warmth to another person's life. We, by our words and actions, can bring the light of greater understanding to another person's life. We have the capability of helping others receive far greater blessings in life than they might otherwise. Our preparation for and celebration of Christmas can remind us of how a truly Christian life is one of wisely giving and of serving. The state of mind that receives this reminder is the one imaged by the virgin, Mary.

The Lord comes to each of us in our lives, just as the angel Gabriel came to Mary. He comes telling of events that can take place, if we are willing, which far exceed anything we might picture ourselves. He promises us a new life, born within our own, but not taking its source from us. He promises the presence of the Holy Spirit within this new life. He comes with a miraculous intervention in the natural course of events. The words of the angel Gabriel to Mary are also words to us with the promise of a new life that will profoundly affect what we care about, think and do each day throughout the year. These words are the promise of a new life for each of us.

After the close of this service you are invited to take the sacrament of the Holy Supper. This act of worship represents our desire to receive the Lord’s gifts of love and wisdom within our lives, represented by our eating of the bread and drinking of the wine. There is a powerful reminder of the words of the angel Gabriel in The True Christian Religion description of this sacrament

...the Holy Supper for those who approach it worthily is a kind of guarantee and seal put on their adoption as sons of God ... the Lord is then present and introduces into heaven those who are born of Him, that is, who are regenerated. (True Christian Religion 728)

As the angel Gabriel said to Mary, so the Lord would say to us, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God."

(References: Arcana Coelestia 1573 [1-8]; Isaiah 7:1-15; Luke 1:26-38)

1104. And the merchants of the earth have waxed rich through the power of her delicacies.- That this signifies instruction in those things pertaining to heaven and the church, which derive their desirableness and delight from the love of ruling by the holy things of the church as means, and also from the love of possessing the world in the same way, is evident from the signification of merchants, as denoting those who acquire knowledges (cognitiones) of good and truth from the Word, that is those who either teach or learn those knowledges. For in the particular or natural sense, he is called a merchant, who buys and sells merchandize, and buying and selling signify to acquire and to communicate, or in the spiritual sense, to learn and to teach; while by merchandize are signified knowledges (cognitiones) of good and truth from the Word. That such things are signified by trading, may be seen above (n. 840).

Merchants of the earth signify instruction in those things that belong to the church, because to teach is to instruct, and to be taught or to learn is to be instructed, and the term instruction may be used of either; and since the spiritual sense of the Word does not refer to persons, therefore a merchant signifies instruction, and the natural sense from the spiritual signifies those who instruct, and who are instructed. For the spiritual sense is concerned with goods and truths without reference to persons, while the natural sense from the spiritual deals with the persons with whom those goods and truths are. That earth (terra) signifies the church has been frequently proved from the Word. [The statement above is also evident] from the signification of the power of her delicacies, as denoting those things of the church which are called knowledges (cognitiones), and are said to be holy, which, nevertheless, take all their quality from the love of ruling, both over heaven and over the world. Such knowledges, which they call holy things of the church, are those that are meant by the power of her delicacies, which are also enumerated below (verses 11-15), and signify such things. They are called the power of her delicacies, because they are delightful, since everything springing from the love of self and from the love of the world is delightful; for no one from his natural man and from his body is sensible of any other delight, therefore also when those loves are regarded as ends, then the means, which favour them, are devised, these means being delightful, because they have reference to the ends.

Now because the heads and primates of that religion which is meant by Babylon regard those loves as ends, therefore they also engage their thoughts with the means that favour them, all of which are delightful to them, as will be shown below. From these considerations it is evident, that by the merchants of the earth being enriched from the power of her delicacies, is signified instruction in those things of the church, that are seen to be delightful and desirable from the love of ruling by the holy things of the church as means, and from the love of possessing the world through them.

[2] Continuation concerning the Athanasian Creed.- Another point which the Athanasian doctrine teaches, is, that in the Lord there are two essences, the Divine and the Human; and in that doctrine the idea is clear that the Lord has a Divine and a Human, that is, that the Lord is God and Man; but the idea is obscure, that the Divine of the Lord is in His Human, as the soul is in the body. The clear idea, that the Lord has a Divine and a Human, is derived from these words: "The true faith is, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man; God of the substance of the Father born before the world, and man of the substance of the mother born in the world; perfect God and perfect man, consisting of a reasonable soul [and human body]; equal to the Father as to the Divine, and inferior to the Father as to the Human." Here the clear idea ends and goes no further, for what follows gives rise to an obscure idea. Such things as are connected with an obscure idea, since they do not enter the memory from enlightened thought, occupy a place in it only among the notions that do not pertain to intellectual light. These things, because they do not appear before the understanding, at the same time conceal the ideas themselves, and cannot be called forth from the memory with those pertaining to intellectual light.

The point in the doctrine involved in the obscure idea, is, that the Divine of the Lord is in His Human, as the soul is in the body; for on this subject it reads:- "Who, although he is God and man, yet they are not two, but one Christ; one altogether by unity of person; since as the reasonable soul and the body are one man, so God and Man is one Christ." The idea contained in these words is in itself undoubtedly clear, but the following words make it obscure: "One, not by conversion of the Divine essence into the Human, but by the taking of the Human essence into the Divine; one altogether, not by commingling of essence, but by unity of person."

[3] Since the clear idea prevails over the obscure idea, therefore most people, both simple and learned, think of the Lord as of an ordinary man, like themselves, and then they naturally do not think at the same time of His Divine. If they do think of the Divine, in that case they separate it in their idea from the Human, and by that means also destroy the unity of person. If they are asked, where His Divine is, they reply, according to their idea, that it is in heaven with the Father. The reason why they reply in this way and have such a notion, is, that it is repugnant to them to think that the Human is Divine, and thus together with its Divine is in heaven. They do not see that when they thus separate in thought the Divine of the Lord from His Human, they not only think contrary to their own doctrine, which teaches that the Divine of the Lord is in His Human, as the soul is in the body, and also, that there is a unity of person, that is, that they are one person, but they also undeservedly charge that doctrine with the contradiction or fallacy, that the Human of the Lord, together with the rational soul, was from the mother alone, when as a matter of fact every man's rationality depends upon the soul, which is from the Father. Such a way of thinking and such a process of division are the result of the idea of three Gods; and this gives rise to the notion that His Divine in the Human is from the Divine of the Father, who is the first person. But it was His own Divine that descended from heaven and assumed the Human; if this is not correctly apprehended, it may perhaps be supposed that His Father from whom He was begotten (ex quo) was not one Divine, but a threefold, but this is impossible of belief. In a word, those who separate the Divine from His Human, and do not conceive the Divine in His Human as the soul is in the body, and that they are one person, may come into monstrous ideas concerning the Lord, even into an idea [of Him] as of a man separated from his soul. Take heed, therefore, lest you think of the Lord as of a man like yourself, but think of the Lord as of Man who is God (de homine qui Deus).

[4] Hearken, reader! When perusing these pages, you may possibly imagine that you have never separated in thought the Divine of the Lord from His Human, nor the Human from the Divine; but consult your own thought, I beseech you, as to whether you have ever considered, when thinking of the Lord, that the Divine of the Lord is in His Human as the soul in the body. Have you not rather thought, in fact, if willing to admit it, do you not think of His Human as separate, and of His Divine as separate? And when thinking of His Human, do you not think of it as like the human of another man; and in your idea is not the Divine with the Father? I have questioned very many in this way, even the rulers of the church, and they have all said that such is the case. And when I have said that it is nevertheless taught in the Athanasian Creed, which is the very doctrine of their church concerning God and the Lord, that the Divine of the Lord is in His Human as the soul in the body, they have replied that they were unaware of it. And when I have repeated the following words of the doctrine: "Our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, although He be God and man, yet they are not two but one Christ; one altogether by unity of person; since as the reasonable soul and body are one man, so God and man is one Christ," they have remained silent, and have afterwards confessed that they had not taken note of these words, being annoyed with themselves for having so examined their own doctrine so carelessly. Some of them then gave up their notion of the mystic union of the Divine of the Father with the Human of the Lord.

[5] That the Divine is in the Human of the Lord, as the soul in the body, is taught and proved in the Word in Matthew and Luke. In Matthew as follows:

Mary being betrothed to Joseph, "before they came together, was found with child of the Holy Spirit." And an angel said to Joseph in a dream, "Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy bride, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born Son; and he called his name Jesus" (1:18, 20, 25).

And in Luke: The angel said to Mary,

"Behold thou shalt conceive in the womb, and shalt bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. Mary said unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man. The angel answered and said: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, wherefore the Holy Thing which is born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (1:31, 34, 35).

It is evident from these words that the Divine was in the Lord from conception, and that it was His life from the Father, which life is the soul.

These remarks will suffice for the present; more shall be said in the following pages, and it shall be shown that even those things contained in the Athanasian doctrine, which convey an obscure idea of the Lord, are in agreement with the truth, when the trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is thought and believed to be in the Lord as in one person. Without such thought and belief it may be said that Christians, differently from all peoples and nations in the whole world, that possess rationality, worship three Gods; as, in fact, such peoples declare, although the Christian world both ought to and might surpass all others in the clearness of their doctrine and belief, that God is one both in essence and person.