“For with God nothing will be impossible."  Then Mary said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.  (Luke 1:37-38 NKJ)

 

“For with God nothing will be impossible.”  These are the words of Gabriel to Mary.  In the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, we have a godly woman called Elizabeth, well beyond her years to conceive.  Miraculously she has a baby boy whom she calls John. Then there is the young virtuous teen named Mary who knew no man, yet becomes pregnant.

In a supernatural way, there are angelic visitations to many ordinary people like Zechariah, Mary, Joseph and the shepherds.  The wise men come from distant lands guided by the star.

 

The Christmas story is riddled with impossible situations becoming possible.  Would it not have been easier to believe if Elizabeth was younger and able to conceive or else with help from some modern medical faculty? And if Mary was a little older and was officially married to Joseph and was pregnant by him.  Moreover, perhaps it was not an angel but a clairvoyant who made prediction to Zechariah. What if the shepherds heard some recordings of angelic voices and thought these were angels or that the magi had a GPS system navigating them through the barren desert. To top it all, would it not have been better for baby Jesus to be born in a plain and ordinary way like most of us. All of these would have been easier in our mindset to believe without any problems whatsoever.  The truth is Jesus is no ordinary person. Everything about our Lord is extraordinary! Impossible though it may sound, the greatest possibility is that God can save mankind.

 

As we approach Christmas, never forget that with God nothing is impossible. It must shake our comfortable, dried up faith to acknowledge that God can do anything. It is a reminder that nothing or nobody is beyond God’s possibilities of salvation, grace or miracle. This must bring us to confront the ultimate solution – Jesus Christ the Lord.  We could reject or accept Him.  May our response to God be as Mary’s: "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word."