"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 become rich from the abundance of her luxuries, signifies instruction in the things of heaven and the church, which draw their delightfulness and desirableness from the love of having dominion by the holy things of the church as means, and also from the love of possessing the world by the same means. This is evident from the signification of "merchants," as being those who acquire the knowledges of good and truth from the Word, that is, who either teach or learn them; for in the proper or natural sense he is called a merchant who buys and sells merchandise, and to buy and to sell signify to acquire and communicate, thus in the spiritual sense to learn and to teach; and "merchandise" signifies the knowledges of good and truth from the Word. (That this is the signification of "trading," see above, n. 840.) "The merchants of the earth" signify instruction in the things of the church, because to teach is to instruct, and to be taught or to learn is to be instructed, and the term instruction is applicable to both; and as the spiritual sense of the Word is abstracted from persons, "merchant" signifies instruction, and the natural sense from the spiritual signifies those who instruct and who are instructed; for the spiritual sense has respect to goods and truths abstracted from persons, while the natural sense from the spiritual has respect to the persons in whom are these goods and truths. That "the earth" signifies the church has often been confirmed above from the Word. The above is evident also from the signification of "the abundance of her luxuries," as being the things of the church that are called knowledges, and that are said to be holy, and yet derive all that they are from the love of having dominion both over heaven and over the world. Such knowledges, which they call the holy things of the church, are what are meant by "the abundance of her luxuries" which are enumerated below (verses 11-15), and by which such things are signified. They are called "the abundance of luxuries" because they are delightful, for all things that flow forth from the love of self and from the love of the world are delightful, for from his natural man or from his body everyone feels no other delight. When, therefore, these loves are ends, such means as favor them are devised; and these means are delightful because they belong to the ends. And because these loves are ends with those who are the heads and the primates in that religious persuasion that is meant by "Babylon," they devise the means that favor them, all of which are delightful (as will be shown below). From all this it can be seen that "the merchants of the earth have become rich from the abundance of her luxuries" signifies instruction in those things of the church that draw their delightfulness and desirableness from the love of having dominion by the holy things of the church as means, and from the love of possessing the world by the same means.

(Continuation respecting the Athanasian Faith)

[2] Another thing that the Athanasian doctrine teaches is that there are two essences in the Lord, the Divine and the Human essence; and in this there is a clear idea that the Lord has the Divine and the Human, that is, that the Lord is God and Man, but an obscure idea that the Divine of the Lord is in His Human as the soul is in the body. The clear idea that the Lord has the Divine and the Human is drawn 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, begotten 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 a human body; equal to the Father as to the Divine, and inferior to the Father as to the Human." Here the clear idea stops and goes no farther, because it becomes from what follows an obscure idea, and what pertains to an obscure idea, since it does not enter the memory from thought from light, gains no other place there than among things not of light; and as these do not appear before the understanding they are hidden, and cannot be called forth from the memory in connection with things that belong to the light. In that doctrine the point that is in an obscure idea is that the Lord's Divine is in His Human as the soul is in the body; for on this it is said, "Who, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ; One altogether by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and the body is one man, so God and Man is one Christ." The idea in this is indeed in itself clear, and yet it becomes obscure by what follows, "one, not by conversion of the Divine essence into the Human, but by a taking of the Human essence into the Divine; one altogether, not by confusion of essence but by unity of Person. "

[3] As a clear idea prevails over an obscure idea, so most people, both simple and learned, think of the Lord as they do of an ordinary man like themselves, and not at the same time of His Divine; or if they think of the Divine they separate it in their idea from the Human, and thereby weaken the unity of Person. And if they are asked where His Divine is, they answer according to their idea, In heaven with the Father. They thus say and think because they have an aversion to thinking that the Human is Divine, and is in heaven united with its Divine, not knowing that when they thus separate in thought the Lord's Divine from His Human they not only think contrary to their doctrine, which teaches that the Lord's Divine is in His Human as the soul in the body, and that there is a unity of Person, that is, that they constitute one Person, but they also charge that doctrine undeservedly with the contradiction or fallacy that the Lord's Human with its rational soul was from the mother alone, when in fact every man is rational from the soul, which is from the father. But that there is such a thought and such a separation is a result of the idea of three gods, according to which His Divine in the Human is from the Divine of the Father, who is the first Person, although it is His own Divine which descended from heaven and took on the Human. If man does not rightly perceive this it might perhaps be supposed that the Father, who is the source, is not one Divine but threefold; and yet this cannot be accepted with any faith. In a word, those who separate the Divine from His Human, and do not think that the Divine is in His Human as the soul is in the body, and that the two are one Person, may fall into strange ideas about the Lord, even into an idea like that of a man separated from his soul. Take heed, therefore, not to think of the Lord as a man like yourself, but think of the Lord as Man who is God. God.

[4] Listen, my reader: You may think when you read all this that you have never separated in thought the Lord's Divine from His Human, nor in consequence His Human from His Divine; but give attention, I pray you, to your thought when you have directed it to the Lord, and see whether you have ever thought that the Lord's Divine is in His Human as the soul is in the body; and whether you have not thought instead, and even, if you please, are not now thinking, of His Human separately and of His Divine separately? And when you are thinking of His Human is it not in your thought like the human of any other man; and when you are thinking of His Divine, is it not, in your thought, with the Father? I have questioned very many about this, even primates of the church, and they have all answered that it is so; and when I have said that it is according to the doctrine in the Athanasian Faith, which is the very doctrine of their church respecting God and respecting the Lord, that the Lord's Divine is in his Human as the soul is in the body, they have replied that they did not know it; and when I recited these words of the doctrine: "Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two but one Christ; one altogether by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and body is one man, so God and Man is one Christ," they were silent, but afterwards confessed that they had not observed these words, and were indignant that they had passed over their own doctrine with eyes so closed; and some of them abandoned their mystical union of the Divine of the Father with the Lord's Human.

[5] That the Divine is in the Lord's Human as the soul is in the body the Word teaches and testifies in Matthew and in Luke. In Matthew:

When Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. And an angel said to Joseph in a dream, Fear not to take Mary thy bride, for that which is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit. And Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus (Matthew 1:18, 20, 25).

And in Luke:

The angel said to Mary, Behold thou shalt conceive in the womb, and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. Mary said to the angel, How shall this be, since I know not a man? The angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore that Holy One that is born of thee shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:31-32, 34-35).

All this makes clear that the Divine was in the Lord from conception, and that the Divine was His life from the Father, which life is the soul. This will suffice for the time. More will be said on this subject in what follows, where it will be shown that even the things in the Athanasian doctrine that produce an obscure idea of the Lord are in harmony with the truth when the Trinity, that is, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is thought and believed to be in the Lord as in one Person. Without this thought and belief it may be said, and in fact it is said, that Christians, differently from all other peoples and nations in the whole globe that have rationality, worship three Gods; and yet the Christian world might surpass and ought to surpass all others in the clearness of the doctrine and belief that God is one both in essence and in Person.