Incarnation & Passion
Vol. 57 No. 17 Passion Sunday (Lent 5) March 22, 2026
This coming Wednesday, on the Feast of the Annunciation, we commemorate the conception of Christ—an event in history—and we celebrate the Incarnation of the Son of God—a reality that endures forever. It is a day that invites us to consider not only what happened in Nazareth long ago, but what it means for us now.
First, the event itself. According to the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, without a human father. However extraordinary this may seem, it presents no real difficulty of belief. If God is the Creator of all things, by the mere word of his command, he is surely able to bring about such a conception. The deeper question is why he would do so, and what it reveals about his purpose.
To understand that, we must see this event within the wider pattern of Scripture. From its beginning, the story of redemption is marked by God’s gift of life where life seems impossible. Abraham and Sarah, old and childless, are promised a son. Sarah laughs at the promise—but her laughter becomes joy when Isaac is born, a sign that God brings life out of barrenness. This pattern repeats itself. Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah bear children through God’s intervention. In the time of the Judges, after the announcement by an angel, a barren woman gives birth to Samson; Hannah receives Samuel after long years of waiting. Again and again, God teaches his people that life comes not by human strength, but by his promise. The prophets take up the same theme. Isaiah (54:1ff) calls the barren woman to sing, for God will bring forth new life where there was none. It is an image of restoration—life from death, hope from desolation.
Yet all these belong to the realm of nature restored. God overcomes barrenness, but within the ordinary pattern of human generation, by union of a man and woman. In the opening of Luke’s Gospel, something greater appears. First there is the account of the angel’s announcement (like Samson), and the conception and birth of John the Baptist to aged parents (like Abraham and Sarah) – the pattern familiar from the Old Testament; but woven into this account there is another announcement: the angel Gabriel sent to a virgin in Nazareth. The pattern is familiar—an angel, a promise—but the difference is decisive. Mary is not barren but a virgin; the child is conceived not by restored nature, but by the Holy Ghost. Here the pattern is not only fulfilled but surpassed. God does not merely repair nature; he brings about something new. The Son of God takes human nature from Mary and unites it to himself. The Word becomes flesh. This is the Incarnation: not only an event, but an abiding reality. The Son of God becomes man and remains so forever.
And this brings us to the heart of the feast. The Annunciation falls nine months before Christmas, but also near Easter, the commemoration of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection. This is no accident. For the human nature he assumes from Mary is the very nature in which he suffers, dies, and rises again. The promise glimpsed in Isaac—life given as from the dead—finds its fulfillment in Christ, “raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25). This is the “wonderful exchange”: the Son of God becomes the Son of Man, that the children of men might become the children of God. In his Incarnation, he shares the human condition; in his Passion and Resurrection, he rescues it from sin and death, and brings it home to the Father in glory “that where he is, there we may be also”, in the Father’s love and favor.
And so the Annunciation is not only about Mary’s “yes,” or about a hidden moment in Nazareth. It is about the beginning of our redemption. It is about the grace in which we now stand—a new dispensation in which God has come near, has taken our nature, and has opened the way for us to share in his undying life. As we hear again the angel’s greeting and Mary’s faithful response, we are invited to receive anew the mystery they reveal: that God is with us—not only beside us, but within our very nature—and that, in Christ, we are called to share in the life of God himself.
The angel greeted Mary thus: “Hail, thou that art highly favored; the Lord is with thee”. Her aged cousin Elizabeth adds: “blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of the womb”. We with Mary may well respond in the obedience of faith: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word”.