We Believe: Was Incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was Made Man
Each Sunday, the Church rises and speaks the truth that forms and sustains her by reciting the Nicene Creed. We stand with Christians throughout the world and across the centuries and say, “We believe…” We confess not only with our mouths but also with our lives what the Church has always held to be true.
This particular line, “was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man,” may be easy to pass over, nestled as it is in the longer story of the Creed. But it is no small statement. This is a mystery so great, so holy, so unlike anything the world had ever known, that time itself is split around it. It is the truth of the Incarnation. The moment when God came to dwell among us, not symbolically, not metaphorically, but fully and bodily, through the work of the Spirit and the humble “yes” of a young woman.
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When we say this phrase each week, we are not merely repeating doctrine. We are remembering a miracle, entering into it again, and allowing it to shape how we see the world, ourselves, and our God.
God Moves First
The Creed tells us that Jesus was “incarnate from the Holy Spirit,” reminding us that salvation does not begin with us but with God. This is not a story of humanity working its way up to the divine but of the divine stooping down in love.
It was the Holy Spirit who overshadowed Mary and brought about something entirely new, not by force, not by human striving, but by grace. Just as the Spirit hovered over the waters at the beginning of creation, so the Spirit hovers now to bring about a new creation, the Word made flesh, dwelling among us.
God takes the initiative. He always has.
In saying this part of the Creed, we remember that salvation is not something we earn. It is not the result of being holy enough, ready enough, smart enough, or pure enough. It is a gift—it is grace. God moves toward us first, even when we are not looking for him.
Through Mary
But God does not act apart from his people. He acts through them. And in the mystery of the Incarnation, he chooses to act through Mary.
Was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary…
This line does not rush past Mary as a background figure. She is not a symbol or a stand-in. She is a real woman, chosen for a real moment in history to bear the eternal Son of God into the world.
The early Church gave Mary a title that still echoes through the liturgy today: Theotokos, God-bearer. Not just the mother of Jesus in a biological sense, but the one who bore in her body the One who is both fully God and fully man. It is a title that tells us something important about Jesus, but also something profound about Mary. She is not incidental to the story. Her “yes” to God, her openness to his will, her courage to carry this mystery, this is not passive. It is active, faithful, and central to the unfolding of salvation.
And yet Mary’s greatness lies not in what she did, but in who she trusted. Mary believed the word that was spoken to her. She surrendered to the will of the Lord, even when she could not possibly understand all that would follow.
Mary makes space, literal, bodily space, for God to dwell. She models for all of us what it means to receive the Word and carry it within.
The Incarnation Is Not an Idea
It’s tempting, sometimes, to make our faith too abstract. We speak in metaphors. We lean on language that comforts us with its distance. But the Incarnation is not an idea to ponder or a spiritual principle to admire.
It is a reality. It happened.
God took on flesh.
God, in Jesus, took on Mary’s DNA, her blood, and her bone. He did not descend as a spirit or hide behind a disguise. He came through a woman’s womb, and he came to stay.
Jesus had to be carried, nursed, bathed, and soothed. He slept and woke and wept and laughed. The eternal Son of God became a real child, in a real place, to real parents.
This is the deepest scandal and the highest hope of the Christian faith: that God became human, and that in doing so, he lifted all of humanity with him.
Why It Matters
We say this line of the Creed every week, and it should never grow dull in our mouths. Because it tells us so much about who God is and what kind of life he invites us into.
Here’s what it teaches us:
1. God Has Entered Our Story
The Incarnation means that God is not watching from a distance. He has entered into the real fabric of our world, into sorrow and suffering, into laughter and labor, into all the ordinary things that make up our days.
This means we are never alone. There is no place, no season, no sorrow, no weakness that God has not entered.
We do not have to climb up to him. He has come to us.
2. Your Ordinary Life Can Hold the Holy
Mary was not powerful. She wasn’t wealthy. She wasn’t known by the world. But she listened. She believed. She said “yes.”
And in her “yes,” she became the first home of God incarnate.
This should comfort us deeply because it means that God still comes in quiet places, in homes with unfinished laundry and scraped knees, in the corners of our days that feel small or unimportant.
The Incarnation says: These are the very places where I will dwell.
3. Faith Is Embodied
When God took on a body, he made all of life matter, not just the spiritual parts. Not just our thoughts or beliefs, but also our eating, sleeping, working, and praying.
Faith is not something we feel on Sundays. It is something we live. It is lighting a candle in Advent, setting the table with care, planting rosemary, picking up a child, or bringing a meal to someone in need.
Jesus came as a body so that he could redeem bodies. And now, we follow him with our whole selves, not just with our minds, but with our hands and feet and hearts.
When We Say the Creed
So when you stand this Sunday, perhaps with a child on your hip or a bulletin in your hand, and you say the words:
Was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary…
Pause.
Let yourself feel the weight of it.
God came. Not because we were ready. But because He loved us. And He came not to a palace, but to Mary.
This is the story we enter each week. It is the mystery we are shaped by. And it is the truth that tells us who we are:
A people loved by God.
A people visited by grace.
A people still called to carry Christ into the world.
Image: Madonna with Child and Angels by Giovanna Batista Salvi da Sassoferrato (1674), courtesy of Zephirx from pixabay and Canva. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
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