Isaiah 7:13-14
13 Then Isaiah said, "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
Matthew 1: 18-25
18This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us."
24When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
This seems hard for us to wrap our minds around. We have been taught from the time we were young that 1 + 1 = 2. But the math in this equation just doesn't add up. It seems that we are missing a crucial addend. Then again that's just like God. God works through improbable people and through impossible situations. While Jesus was very much a man he was also the Immanuel--God in man's skin. So how else would he enter the world, born as a human but in a supernatural way.
There are millions of people that will scoff at the idea of immaculate conception. They will say that those of us who believe in the Nativity and the Messiah are simpletons. This is nothing new, it is nothing we haven't been told by Jesus to expect. For a moment though, pause and consider. If you are open to the idea of divine creation. If you can look at the world, the universe, and say there had to be some kind of intelligent design. If all of these little perfections seem to be too much to be a coincidence of chaos and chance, then why could the hand that set the world in motion not come to earth in an unusual way?
What makes this even more amazing, it was told it was coming, and come it did! Hallelujah.
