Reflection by John Rittenhouse

At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

Luke 1:39-45

By this point in the Christmas season, most of your preparation is probably done. The tree is up and decorated, the presents have been carefully selected and wrapped, one or more holiday parties are already in the can, the cookies are baked, the instructions for assembling the bike have been read at least once, the house has been cleaned, and the Christmas specials on TV have all been watched. It's a miracle.

Well, at least it feels like one by the time it's all done. But for a real miracle we can't do much better than the conclusions drawn by Dr. Ali Binazir, a medical doctor and philosopher, who set out to answer the question ‘What are the chances of you coming into being?’ Starting out with a rough calculation of the odds of your parents meeting each other, and their meeting resulting in children (1 in 40 million), after several intermediate steps he asks ‘what are the odds that your lineage remained unbroken for the length of human existence?’ And finally delving into the pure biology of conception, Dr. Ali concludes that the odds of you, as an individual being with a soul, appearing on earth is (approximately) 1 in 10^2,685,000. By comparison, the number of atoms in the known universe is estimated at 10⁸⁰. So, in essence, the chances of you being here is more or less zero. Now that's miraculous.

But even that pales in comparison to the real miracle of Christmas. Imagine the God who created all the heavens and the earth, and brought into being mankind in His own image, loving that creation enough to allow all human beings to decide whether or not to accept His grace. And when it becomes clear that reconciliation between Creator and creation won't happen without help, God takes the extraordinary step of being born into the world He created to reconcile Himself to us so that we may be marked as Christ's own, forever.

Can you imagine God going to that much effort just to reconcile with your miraculous self? Why, it's almost enough to make one leap for joy.

Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

Revelation 21:3