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Here follows an imagined conversation at a walk-in clinic in ancient Israel. Into the room walks an aged doctor. His lips roll in as if blowing a trumpet. He shakes his head in disbelief. A nervous teenage girl awaits his word.

"Well, little Miss Mary, you were right. Your test came back positive. We checked your hormone levels. No question about it. You're having a baby.

"‘How can this be?' you ask. I don't know, Mary. I really don't know. I've never seen it before, a virgin getting pregnant. We've checked our medical books, talked to the brightest minds at the research hospitals … and nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm at a complete loss for words. I just don't know what to tell you."

Mary leaves the clinic, puzzled by this contradiction. What happened to the rules of logic? What is making this faulty syllogism show up positive? How can this be, since I am a virgin (Luke 1:34)?

And then something happens on the way home. She meets a stranger who supplies another premise for her non sequitur pregnancy: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Luke 1:35).

Suddenly she stops.

Oh, so that's what it is…the nausea…the fatigue… God is up to something again.

In no time at all, logic makes way for wonder. ‘How can it be?' becomes ‘Let it be', a question reworded into obedience. A young mother smiles. The stranger smiles.

What happens next is the origin of the Christmas season. Lights go up in the cosmos. Wise men go shopping for that perfect gift. Angel choirs begin to practice their cantatas. The greeting card industry carts out its new line of well wishes.

A lot of years have passed since that first Christmas. But every so often, you and I return to the profound mystery at the center. Mary's question is still asked, "How can this be?" How can Immensity be "cloistered in a womb"? Even more wonderfully, Mary's submission is still re-enacted. You and I have our own moments of saying to God, "Let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38).

Behind the festivity of our continual celebrations – decorating trees, hanging wreaths, giving gifts and singing carols - is this mystery of God with us. Hard to understand, isn't it? But that's okay. It need not be fully understood.

As G. K. Chesterton says, "To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits."

So stretch yourself out this Christmas season. Stoke up the fire. Pour the eggnog. Drink in Handel's Messiah. Become a poet. Get your head into the heavens.