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• Mary did not resist the news that she would birth Jesus; as God's servant, she was solely concerned with doing what he wished.

• God was entering human history, through human flesh as Jesus Christ.
  
  
• The mystery of the Virgin Birth pales next to the mystery of the Incarnation, that God enters humanity as an infant.
  
  

• Mary's example teaches us to keep quiet, to open ourselves up, and to passively receive the word of God.
  - Illustration: Patterson tells a story from George Bernard's play Saint Joan; Joan of Arc's ability to hear God speak angers the king, and he wonders why he doesn't hear God's voice. Joan of Arc tells him that voices do come to him, but he misses them because he does not sit and listen for them.
  
  
• How can we become receptive people?
  - By asking God to make us that way.
  - By being willing to be interrupted.
  - By having an attitude of expectancy.
  
  
  

• Troubled by the exalted salutation Gabriel gave her, Mary answered that she is the Lord's servant.
  - Illustration: Patterson relates how conductor Leonard Bernstein, when asked what the hardest instrument is to play, answered "Second fiddle," because everyone tends to want to play the melody, not the harmony.

• Although she would not have planned this for her life, Mary existed to advance God, not herself—so she obeyed.
  - Illustration: Former U.S. Surgeon General Everett Koop tells of a family who had a severely handicapped child who required 37 surgeries; although the family describes this as the worst thing they have been through, they also describe it as the best, due to the growth it caused within the family.
  
  
• Our readiness to obey God will make it possible for us to see what he wants us to do.
  
  

• The course of all human history relied on the answer that Mary gave and the decision she made, just as the future of the world may rely on our answers to the call of God on our lives.
  - Illustration: Frederick Buechner's book of character sketches of people from the Bible portrays the angel Gabriel as fearful that Mary is too young to bear the Son of God, as he stands before the young girl with his fingers crossed behind his back.