Most people when they use the word incarnation, I would dare say they think of Christmas. But actually today is the day that the church celebrates the moment, nine months before Christmas, when the child Jesus began to form in the womb of his mother.
Actually it was a three step process,as we understand it.
The annunciation by the angel.
The acceptance of the invitation by Mary.
The overshadowing by the Holy Spirit, and entrance of the Son into Mary.
God who exists outside time and space, beyond the observable universe, for the first time in history, with the permission of Mary, freely chooses to enter our world. God no longer watches our life as an observer. God will now experience human life from the very first moment of conception.
Today is a time to celebrate the miracle that is human life. As day by day, cells multiply, and differentiate, and those 23 pairs of chromosomes, together with their soul, begin to shape the unique person.
I think back on every baby who came to our house as a foster child. No two were alike. There is no such thing as normal. We gave each the same love and care and yet from before they could crawl, their individual personalities would emerge.
We love to try and reduce the human being, even our universe to what we can observe and measure. And I suppose if someone wanted to believe that if we can measure it it doesn't exist, then they have the right. But as for me I have only to hold a baby and I know that there is so much more than we can ever understand.
A special prayer for my adoptive parents, John and Marcia Ball. They saw what the doctors of the time could not see, and believed in the impossible.
And a prayer for my biological parents whoever and wherever they are. I know that I was an "unwanted pregnancy" to a 16 year old girl in 1960, but she had the courage give birth to me then give me up for adoption.
For every woman who today will find out that she is pregnant, for every man who will find out that he is a father, may they understand the miracle that they have received.
