Luke 1:26-38 (NIV) 26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” 29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” 34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. 37 For nothing is impossible with God.” 38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.
Nothing is impossible with God. Do you believe that? Perhaps a better way for us to phrase it is this: God makes the impossible possible.
When the angel spoke to Mary, Mary was faced with an impossible physical situation. Virgins didn’t have babies. That was impossible. This impossible situation would be possible because the Holy Spirit would get involved. Verse 35 of our text tells us that the Holy Spirit would overshadow Mary, that the Holy Spirit would be at work in her body to accomplish something impossible. The Holy Spirit would cause something that Mary couldn’t control or take credit for. What would happen in her physical body would be a Divine work, a Divine miracle.
Are you facing an impossible physical situation? Look at Luke 1:30 again. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. An earthly impossibility began with God’s favor and would take place as the Holy Spirit would overshadow Mary’s physical body because she also exercised faith. When the angel told Mary how it was all going to work and who Jesus would be and what He would accomplish, Mary believed it all. She said, “May it be to me as you have said.”
Mary was the candidate for a miracle because she had the favor of God, but she wouldn’t have been the recipient of the miracle without exercising faith in God’s plan.
If you are in Christ YOU are also FAVORED by God. The grace of God, the favor of God has been poured out on your life, and you are in a great spot to be the recipient of a Divine miracle, a Divine touch on your physical body. Proverbs 8:35 says, “For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD.”
We don’t have to beg for God’s favor. He has given it to us in Christ Jesus. When we accept Jesus, when we are saved, we walk in the favor of God. We have a relationship with the God who can overshadow our physical bodies and do the impossible any time He wants to. If we need more of something in our physical bodies, He can give it to us. If we need something to be removed from our physical bodies, He can take it away, even if we have been told that doing so is impossible.
Our job is to believe. Our job is to exercise faith. Our job is to cooperate with the plan of God.
Mary also faced an impossible relational situation. This news would have big implications for her relationship with Joseph. They were engaged. She was pregnant. Let’s be honest, no man would believe her story. If they were going to stay together, God was going to have to be involved in a Divine way because the miracle of the virgin birth was going to complicate her relationship with her fiance’. Mary’s had experienced Divine intervention in her body. Her relationship would also need help from above. Listen, as God makes the impossible possible, He can also make the unbelievable, believable. Just as He worked to reassure Mary through the angel’s words, He would bring reassurance to Joseph. He didn’t put it on Mary to convince Joseph of God’s plans. Mary didn’t have to try to explain what was happening or to work to get Joseph to believe her. God sent an angel to Joseph, in a dream, to explain the whole thing in Matthew 1:20-25, and when Joseph woke up from the dream, he did what the angel told him to do and all was well between Mary and Joseph.
Finally, Mary faced an impossible spiritual situation.
Jesus came because you and I, like Mary, were faced with an impossibility of gaining spiritual life on our own. Mary was likely a good, little Jewish girl. She was probably pure in heart when it came to her desire to do the right thing. But even her rule-following good works wouldn’t take care of the fact that she was born a sinner, just like we all are. There is no amount of rule-keeping that will make us presentable to God. There is no number of hoops we can jump through or good works we can perform that will take care of our sin. Only the blood of Jesus Christ purifies us from all sin. Only by exercising faith in Jesus, by believing He was God and believing He came to not only show us how to live, but to do what we couldn’t do for ourselves when it came to having our sins wiped clean, only then does an impossible situation become possible. We can have peace with God through Jesus Christ. There is no human way possible, but God has made the impossible, possible through the incarnation, life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
Have you invited God into your impossibility this Christmas? When we pray, God works. When we pray, God may do a miracle in our situation—or He may do a miracle in us that enables us to go on with resolve and confidence that His plans are always best. This I know for sure: God will work in impossible ways in the lives of those who trust Him. When God shows you His favor, show Him your faith. When God reveals His plan, give Him your obedience. And when God doesn’t answer your prayer the way you want in the moment, give Him your allegiance. He is working something Divine that will prove once again that with God, all things are possible.
