Written ~ 12-20-2023
Luke 1:26-34
26 “…God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.
28 Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.
30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “…for you have found favor with God! 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name Him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His ancestor David. 33 And He will reign over Israel forever; His Kingdom will never end!”
34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
During the Christmas Season many of us begin to reflect on the miraculous birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We marvel over the fact that this young woman named Mary was chosen by God to birth His Son.
When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, I can only imagine how stunned she must have been. Mary had no warning of any kind, just a sudden appearance of a heavenly being. The first thing he says is, “Greetings!” Or in other words, “Hi there!” Would your mouth drop open in surprise? I know mine would! After his greeting he says to her, “…favored woman, the Lord is with you!”
“Confused and disturbed” is the description of Mary’s first reaction. In The Message Bible it says, “…she was thoroughly shaken…” in another version it says she was, “…greatly perplexed…” Mary had no idea what the angel could’ve meant when he said she was favored by God.
But after this noted confusion thus begins the unfolding of a story that is too marvelous to fully understand. Mary is told she will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and not just any little boy, but the Son of God. Wow!
We don’t really know too much about Mary except that she had found favor with God and that the Lord was with her. For her to be chosen by God for the great honor of being the mother of Jesus, you would think there would be more written about her so we could get more of a sense as to why she was chosen. This is what I think… any one of us who are chosen by God to do His will and to do His work may never know the reason why we were chosen. You may be asked to do something well out of your comfort zone, but when you accept what God is asking of you, it becomes quite evident He is the working through you. He has a purpose and the fulfillment of His purpose was found in you. That’s how I see Mary. When the angel says to her, “…favored woman…the Lord is with you…” this tells me she was a humble, God fearing woman. She had a servant’s heart and loved the Lord. What God saw in her was the perfect vessel to be used for His purpose. In this case, the purpose was to give birth to His Son and to be the mother of Heaven’s Perfect Lamb.
When we are given the opportunity to serve the Lord in an incredible way, it’s probably best not to question with, “What? Why? How? Are You sure?” And that’s pretty much exactly what Mary did. After being told she was to become pregnant and give birth to the Son of God, the first thing she uttered was, “But how…?”
A lot of us may not have the confidence to do what God is asking us to do. We can always think of things that question our ability to be used by God. We just may not see ourselves how God sees us. Doubt and fear can enter in and we question God. We begin to give Him the list of reasons why we can’t do what He’s asking us to do. And Mary had a pretty good reason to question, right? “But how can this happen? I am a virgin!” Her mind must have been absolutely blown! This was an impossibility to the highest degree! I can imagine that she was pacing her floor, hand over her mouth, saying to herself, something like, “What in the world? How can this be happening? The God of the universe wants me to do what?” Even though we don’t read about any of that kind of internal dialogue, it’s definitely what I would be thinking!
When we see Mary’s confused and disturbed reaction when seeing an angel and hearing him speak to her, he says, “Do not be afraid…” When you and I are given a purposeful task from the Lord, it is a good idea to heed the advice of the angel Gabriel and not be afraid when the Almighty God calls on us to do His Will. His reason is always going to be perfect, we may only see the impossibility, but with God all things are possible.
Mary was just told that she was going to be the mother of Jesus, the Messiah, the King above all kings, the ruler of Heaven, and He would have a Kingdom that would never end. I think the astonishment of being told she would become pregnant, as a virgin, would be enough news for one day, but Gabriel told her everything this little boy would become. Incredible!
Here’s a little sidebar I thought was an interesting tidbit… Luke’s Gospel is the only one of the four that mentions what happened between Mary and the angel Gabriel. Luke barely mentions Joseph the man Mary was engaged to. Then in Matthew’s Gospel, he barely mentions Mary, but goes on to write about how an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him everything is going to be OK, to go ahead and take Mary as his wife. The angel explained the pregnancy and who the baby would grow up to be. Mark’s Gospel doesn’t even mention the birth of Christ, either does John’s Gospel! So, why do I bring that up? Well, all of us have a story to tell, we all have different experiences. We encounter the Lord in different ways, none of them wrong or incomplete, just different. We’ll all be used by the Lord in different ways and each way gives glory and honor to the Almighty God!
Even if we ask, “But how?” God in His infinite wisdom and power will make it so…
~AMEN~