The Son of God

The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”
– Luke 1:35

There is a lot to unpack in this one short speech from the angel. Let’s take a look at a few parts.

The wording used at the beginning of speech, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” is the same wording that Luke uses in Acts 1:8 when Jesus says to the disciples “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” As disciples of Jesus we are called, as Mary was, to be filled with the Holy Spirit and share the good news. It is the continued embodiment of God working on earth, the Holy Spirit filling and moving us to greater love and kindness.

The presence of God in the Old Testament was of a light so bright as to be blinding. God would appear to mortals in a cloud, so as to avoid harming them. Thus, God’s light would ‘overshadow’ them. The bright light of God was hidden in the mortal form of Jesus, overshadowing the world so that all could observe the powerful grace of God without fear of harm.

The Lord said of King David “I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.” (2 Samuel 7:14). David and all of his house shall be considered adoptive children of God, who “will not take my steadfast love from him.” By the time of Jesus’ birth, though, the lineage of David had diminished. This child to be born, created by the holy power of God, would be the Son of God.

In just two sentences, the angel has brought to Mary, and us, the good news of Jesus, Son of God, who will bring the shining grace and dazzling love of God to the world and then pass that Holy Spirit on to us to continue the work.