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.
This is the answer to Mary’s question about the mechanics of how she can get pregnant without the intervention of a man. All we can tell is that it is a God-kind of matter. The language of the angel’s answer does not tell us anything. No DNA transfer information. No complex biological explanations. Instead, God’s Spirit will be with her and God’s power will cast a shadow, as it were. It is a God thing. The direct intervention of God is the answer given. And I guess if God wants to make something unique happen, He can. Believe it or not, Mary is satisfied with this answer. She must have gotten the memo which said, that when God gets involved, there are no limits to what He can do. Mary does not put God in a human sized box. She realizes that God can and does do things that are outside our limited understanding. So often we put God is such a small box. We limit God’s activities to what we can imagine God doing, and no more. Some places in the world today, God does miraculous physical healings. Those people have a greater understanding of God than we often do. They are not hindered by the narrow scientific understanding that we in the West have drilled into our heads in our education. We limit God to what we can verify by repeated experiments. So when we need a miracle, our understanding of the workings of the universe cloud out the possibility of God’s supernatural intervention. We think God has to use doctors in order to bring healing. But God is not limited. He is infinite. Mary understood this. When the angel said God was involved, that was enough for her to be able to believe. Is God’s presence enough for you to be able to believe?
The Arnold Journey 