Today we venture out on a six-part series related to Christmas, answering your hard questions about the conception and the birth and the childhood of Jesus. And we begin today talking about the miraculous conception. A question from a listener named Kelly who writes this, "Pastor John, hello. Every Christmas I'm left wondering about the angel that came to Mary and informed her that she would have a child by the Holy Spirit.

She wondered how it would be, and I know nothing is impossible for God. So here's my question. Did God become a fertilized embryo which was implanted into Mary's womb, or did Jesus somehow combine with Mary's natural egg to create the God-man? Are we given any biblical clues here as to how this happened biologically?" Let's read the most important section in the Gospel of Luke about the conception of Christ in Mary's womb and see how much God has revealed to us.

Let me read it. This is Luke 1, 30 to 38. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son. And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.

I think this is as close as we get to the actual description of the event of the incarnation of the divine nature in some way uniting with the human nature in the womb of Mary. We know from numerous texts in the New Testament that Jesus was God, very God, had a divine nature.

He had a real divine nature, like Colossians 2.9. In his body, there was fullness of deity. We know that Jesus Christ also had a human nature, because Paul says there is one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. So he was a mediator between God and man because he was a man.

So we know that Jesus was a God-man. There were two natures, a divine nature and a human nature in this one person, Jesus Christ. Now in this passage in Luke 2, the angel says to Mary in verse 31, "Behold, you will conceive in your womb." Now the natural way to take this is that Mary provides her ordinary part of the conception process, her egg, and God miraculously in some way—we do not and probably never can understand—provides the divine nature of Jesus, of Christ, the Son of God.

Because when she asks how this can be, since she's a virgin, the angel says, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the Most High, the power of the Most High, will overshadow you, and therefore the child to be born will be called Holy, Son of God." In other words, the angel veils the mysterious process in metaphorical language.

The Most High will overshadow you, like the Shekinah glory. One of the reasons that I think we should assume Mary conceived with her own normal egg is that the same word for "conceived" is used in verse 36 when the angel says, "Behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son." And this is the same word, and the word "also" so that there's no reason to think anything different than Mary conceived.

She didn't become pregnant through Joseph. She became pregnant through the Holy Spirit in some way that we simply cannot fathom. So I don't think we should go much farther than that in detailing any of the mechanics of the miraculous conception, and I would give Kelly and the rest of us a caution here and a happy exhortation.

The caution is that we beware of the temptation and the mindset of being excessively fascinated with non-essential matters. I have met people—and I'm not saying, Kelly, that you're this kind of person at all, but I've met people like this, I had them in my church for years—I have met people over the years who seem to be continually gravitating toward the margins of what is important rather than gravitating toward the center of what is important.

They love to speculate about things that we cannot know and that are not essential to know, but these marginal things seem to hold an amazing fascination and attraction for them. I think that is spiritually dangerous for the soul to be so preoccupied with marginal matters while the joy and energy and passion for the center and the glorious main realities often goes languishing.

So that's my caution. Now here's my happy concluding exhortation. We are in the presence here in Luke 2, in the presence of one of the greatest mysteries and wonders of the universe. The Creator of the universe, who is of a completely different dimension and reality than what he made, in a way that is scarcely conceivable to us, is united in one person, Jesus Christ, with a divine and human nature for the central purpose of being able to die.

God cannot die. God cannot die. But Jesus Christ, the God-man, can die. This is the most spectacular fact in the universe, I think, more spectacular than creation itself, that God would clothe himself with humanity for the express purpose of dying so that rebellious people, people who are in rebellion against him, might live with him in joy forever.

Listen to Hebrews 2.14, "Since the children," that's us, human beings, "Since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of that same nature, flesh and blood, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were held in lifelong slavery." Amazing.

"He took on our nature so he could die." So let us stay close to the glorious center. God took on human nature so that he might die to destroy our enemies, deliver us from slavery to sin, give us eternal life with him forever. Yes, this is worthy of much meditation this Christmas and every Christmas.

Wow, what a miracle. What a grace. What a gift. Thank you, Pastor John, for stirring our worship on these central things when it comes to the coming of Jesus. And, Kelly, thank you for the question. There are some biological mysteries here that we will never understand on this side of eternity, and even more mysterious to me are the divine mysteries at play in the incarnation as well.

For the fully divine Son and creator of the universe to incarnate as a baby in a barn in Bethlehem, what divine attributes did he lay aside, if any? On Monday, we're going to pick up this next question as we march through some hard questions on our way to Christmas, and that's the next one.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. As always, thanks for listening to the podcast and have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you on Monday. Bye. 1. What is the most difficult thing you've ever experienced?