Imagine if you were a young lady, relatively unimportant, or so you thought, minding your own business. Now imagine being visited by a creature whose very presence is flabbergasting and their greeting is weird beyond words. Such stuff is saved for the mighty or the holy. One might be excused for thinking last night's hummus might have been a bit off or the wheat in the flatbread might have had a wee bit of spoilage...it seemed alright, but there is a sentient being in the room who is most definitely NOT human and who is making reference to a favoured one who has the LORD God with them. And if this vision IS NOT part of a bad digestive incident, then one might be a little freaked out.
To make matters worse, this being tells you not to be afraid, but that you, no idiot and educated enough to know how biology works, are pregnant. One might be forgiven for thinking the celestial being might not have all their marbles at that point, because, as I noted, you know how biology works and are fairly certain you did not sleep through THAT. But no, this being says that this is truly the case and that your post-menopausal cousin, who had been trying with her husband for years to have a child, is now pregnant as well.
And then this being (who introduced themself to be named Gabriel, by the way), clinches it by affirming that yes, normally this is impossible, but sums it up by saying, "Nothing is impossible for God."
Many of us would do any or all of the following:
Run screaming from the house.
Check one's self into the nearest asylum.
Convinced one's self that it was a VERY vivid dream.
Told the being to get out before one called the local authorities.
Laughed hysterically.
To her credit, Mary of Nazareth said, "Okay, sure. I believe it. God wants this, let's have it!" According to the Gospel account appointed for today (Lk. 1.26-38), she takes no thought of the potential scandal, the difficult conversations, the possible hardship, because Gabriel shared something with her she already believed, that nothing is impossible for God. If this prediction is true, that the child would restore the Kingdom of Israel, then the other stuff can be dealt with. Was it bravery, stubbornness of purpose, or insanity? No, it is a little thing called faith, and not blind faith. A child is conceived without the agency of a male human. A post-menopausal woman in the family gets a child she desperately had wanted. Why not a little help over the bumps in the road...those are easy for God compared to disrupting the natural order. Thanks to that faith, her acceptance that nothing is impossible for God ushered in huge changes for humanity which not only reverberate today but will do so through eternity.
For nothing is impossible with God.