It was a little awkward. God sent the Angel Gabriel to the town of Nazareth to tell the Virgin Mary the plan. The Holy Spirit would come upon her and she would conceive a child. He even told her the name: Jesus.
Mary questioned how she could get pregnant without “relations with a man,” but for some reason, she gave her consent: “May it be done to me according to your word.”
This is the Annunciation. Christians of all denominations accept this mysterious encounter recorded in the Gospel of Luke (1:26-38) as the beginning of the Incarnation. The Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Incarnation on March 25, nine months before Christmas.
The Annunciation has been in news lately thanks to James Talarico, the Texas Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate. Mr. Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, has made applying Christianity to contemporary politics a central part of his campaign. The Annunciation, he argued in a September interview, justifies abortion.
“To me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create,” Mr. Talarico told podcaster Joe Rogan. He further elaborated that Christian opposition to abortion is not rooted in Scripture.
In a way, he’s right. The word abortion is not used in the Bible. Further, the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes Mary as “giving her consent to the Incarnation” at the Annunciation (No. 973).
But there are nevertheless problems with the argument. God does not surprise Mary with a pregnancy and then expect her to agree to it after the fact. What Mary consents to at the Annunciation is conception, the same event that begins every human life. And while the New Testament may not mention it, abortion and infanticide are condemned in the Didache, a Christian text from the first or second century.
In Scripture, we find beautiful descriptions of life inside the womb, including in the Psalms: “You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb” (139:13; see also Is 49:1 and Jer 1:5). But perhaps the best example is a New Testament passage familiar to those who pray the mysteries of the Rosary. The Annunciation, the first joyful mystery, is followed by the Visitation. Gabriel informs Mary that her cousin Elizabeth, who “is advanced in years,” is with child. So Mary, now pregnant with Jesus, heads over to help.
When Mary arrives, Elizabeth says: “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy” (Lk 1:43-44).
The Bible is pretty clear about the dignity of the unborn.
Mr. Talarico should be applauded when he references Scripture and calls Americans to be more welcoming of immigrants. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus identifies with the immigrant by saying he was “a stranger and you welcomed me” (25:35).
“We should be deporting gang members, not small business owners. We should be hunting down human traffickers, not moms and babies,” Mr. Talarico said in an interview, drawing a stark contrast with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s use of the Bible.
But his comments on abortion are curious. Maybe Mr. Talarico has a different theory of the Texas electorate than I do, but his use of the Bible to justify abortion seems risky, even considered solely as a political tactic. It seems far more likely to anger rather than persuade voters who care deeply about Scripture.
It’s also hard to see what Mr. Talarico stands to gain politically by making a religious case for access to abortion. In recent years, most state ballot initiatives expanding access to abortion have passed. And since Americans as a whole are less and less religious, why bother making a biblical argument?
Mr. Talarico has certainly figured out that his approach to talking about religion as a political candidate attracts a lot of attention, helping him grow from a previously obscure state legislator to a national figure. Unfortunately, when it comes to abortion, he is using his facility in discussing religion to defend his party’s pre-existing position rather than to help Americans with sincere religious disagreements about abortion policy have better conversations with each other.
Still, some traditions are too sacred to be politicized. The Annunciation is one of them.
It marks the beginning of a precious, intimate relationship between Jesus and his mom. Before he took his first breath, Jesus grew inside of Mary. He was nourished by what she ate. Maybe he even gave her morning sickness and heartburn.
Mary felt Jesus kicking inside of her. As he got bigger, so did she. Mary would have had a harder time getting up from bed or from a chair. She may have found herself often out of breath. She waddled.
Mary knew Jesus first in the way that my wife knew our children first. No one knows you like your mother does because your mother carried you inside of her. The Annunciation is not about politics or abortion. It is about a brave young woman who agreed to cooperate with the will of God. And through her yes, the almighty has done great things for all of us.
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