Listening to an Angel

When Mary first appears in the pages of Scripture, she is in the presence of a magnificent angel. Four times in Scripture the angel Gabriel leaves the heavenly presence of God to come to men and women uniquely chosen and blessed by God — and he always brings a message of hope! He came twice to the prophet Daniel to assure him in the dark days of Israel's captivity that the Lord God had not forgotten his people or his promises to bless them (Daniel 8:15-16; 9:21). Five hundred years later Gabriel appeared to an old priest as he served in the temple (Luke 1:19). The angel told Zechariah that God had not forgotten his people. God's plan was right on schedule. Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth, would have a son who would prepare the way for the Messiah, the Lord himself.

   Now six months after the announcement to Zechariah, Gabriel is sent by God again to a little town in Palestine. He

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comes to announce to a teenage girl that she has been chosen by God to bear in her body the holy Son of God. God is coming to earth.

   I'm impressed that God did not send Gabriel to the emperor's court in Rome or to a member of one of the leading Jewish families in Jerusalem. God's blessing came to a backwater village on the fringe of the Roman Empire. First-century Nazareth was famous for only one thing — its sin. It was located just four miles from the Roman garrison at Sepphoris. When the boys in the army got a few days leave and some bonus pay, they went to Nazareth, where they could find cheap wine and cheaper women. It was probably Nazareth's "red-light" reputation that led a critic of Christianity two and a half centuries after Jesus' birth to accuse Mary of having a child "by a certain soldier named Panthera."¹

   In Nazareth Gabriel speaks to a young woman. Mary is probably only thirteen or fourteen years old, the customary age for betrothal and marriage in rural Jewish areas. I remember looking at my own daughter not that many years ago and being shocked to realize how young Mary was when the angel's brilliance surrounded her. Gabriel's first words are startling: "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you" (Luke 1:28). The word translated "favored" means to receive grace.² Later Gabriel will add, "Mary, you have found favor with God" (v. 30), or "you have become the recipient of God's grace."

   We have been under the impression that Mary was chosen by God to bear his Son because of something righteous in Mary. Gabriel makes it clear, however, that Mary was chosen by God as an act of grace. Mary's blessedness derived from God's grace, not from some inherent goodness of her own. Mary will confirm with her own testimony that she, like every other human being, needed a Savior.

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   Even Mary's response to the angel's greeting demonstrates her humility and sense of unease. Luke writes, "Mary was greatly troubled" — not at the angel's presence but at the angel's words (v. 29). When the angel says, "You, Mary, are greatly favored with the grace of God," her response in essence is "Why me? I have nothing good in myself to offer God. Why would he choose me?"

   Gabriel senses Mary's surprise and concern and reassures her, "Do not be afraid, Mary." Then he makes an incredible announcement: "You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end" (Luke 1:31-33). The emphasis of Gabriel's message was on the child, not on Mary. Mary was the vessel chosen by God to bear his Son, and therefore she was greatly blessed. But far overshadowing Mary was the character of the child she would bear. This child would be all that the Old Testament prophets said he would be. He would reign as the greatest king Israel had ever seen, a greater and mightier man than even King David. David reigned for forty years and then died. In the last years of his reign one son after another rose in rebellion to claim the kingdom as his own. But Mary's child will reign forever. His kingdom will never languish under the limitations of earthly kingdoms.

   But this promised son would be much more than a great man; he would be called the Son of the Most High. In the Jewish mind, to say that a person was "the son" of someone meant that the person shared the same inherent nature as the one called father. When Jesus told some hardhearted critics that they were "of their father, the devil," he was pointing out that they possessed a fallen, rebellious nature exactly like Satan's

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(John 8:44). When Gabriel said that Jesus would be "the Son of the Most High," it meant that Mary's child would have the nature of God himself. This son would be deity — God in human flesh.

   Because Mary's son would be God among us, he could be the one who finally would release humanity from sin's strangle-hold. The boy's name was to be Jesus, a contraction of the Hebrew name Yehoshua (or Joshua), which meant "the Lord saves." The name summarized the whole purpose of the child's birth. God was coming to earth to rescue his people.

   Mary had no trouble understanding who this child would be. He would be the promised Messiah, God's unique Son, Immanuel — God with us. Mary's only question was how it would be accomplished. "How will this be . . . since I am a virgin?" (Luke 1:34). Mary's question was not one of doubt or unbelief. She believed what the angel said. She just wanted to know how the promise would be fulfilled. Mary's testimony before an angel of God was that she had never been sexually intimate with Joseph or with any other man. The only way Mary could imagine that she could bear a child was through a sexual encounter with a man. But Gabriel's answer to her question opened a whole new possibility. "The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God' "(v. 35).

   How is it that Mary as a virgin conceived a child? How did the eternal God become a human being? The Bible's answer is that it was a miraculous work of God — God did it! Jesus was conceived in Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit..

   As confirmation of his message, Gabriel tells Mary about Elizabeth, Mary's relative,³ a woman more than sixty years old who had been unable to bear children but who now is in the sixth month of her pregnancy. As unbelievable as it seemed,

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Elizabeth had conceived in her old age, and Mary would conceive too. But the conception in Mary would be far more miraculous than the one in Elizabeth. Mary would conceive a child by the power of the Holy Spirit.

   Then Gabriel adds a stunning promise: "For nothing is impossible with God." A literal translation of that sentence reads, "For no word from God will be empty of power." Gabriel was assuring Mary that God will do everything he promises to do. Gabriel's theme is the same as it was when he spoke to Daniel and to Zechariah: God keeps his promises.

   Can you imagine what thoughts must have gone through Mary's mind as she listened to Gabriel's announcement about the child she would conceive? We normally rush from the angel's declaration directly to Mary's acceptance, and we think that her submission to the will of God came easily. But we know from other passages of Scripture that Mary was a very reflective person. Even in this passage, Mary "wondered" over the angel's greeting (v. 29). She was the kind of person who observed carefully. She took in all the facts and then thought deeply about the significance of those facts in her life. As Mary listened to the angel she must have wrestled with the consequences that would come in her life if she accepted God's call.

   I teach a class for Spring Arbor College called Biblical Perspectives. The students are in an off-campus degree completion program, and most of them have had very little exposure to the Bible. We were discussing Mary's encounter with the angel Gabriel one evening, and I asked the class what concerns must have lingered in Mary's mind as she heard Gabriel's words. One student said, "How could she have any doubts or questions? She was hearing this from an angel!" Unfortunately that's how most of us respond to the story. We read Mary's words in verse 38 and think they came easily: " 'I am the Lord's servant,' Mary answered. 'May it be to me as

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you have said.' " But as the class thought more deeply about the cost of Mary's submission to God, several observations emerged. Mary's willing acceptance of the will of God began with a song in her heart, but it ended with a sword in her own soul. The joy of holding a beautiful baby led ultimately to the foot of a cross.

   One young woman in the class very perceptively noted that the angel came only to Mary. His announcement wasn't written in the sky over Nazareth for all the people to read. The student's comment was "Imagine trying to explain this to your family!" Mary would live her whole life under a cloud of suspicion from her family and neighbors. Even Jesus was accused of being conceived immorally. When Jesus exposed the evil intentions of some of his accusers, they shot back at him, "We are not illegitimate children" (John 8:41).

   Mary had no guarantee that her beloved Joseph would understand or even believe her story of a miraculous conception. Mary had to face the man she loved and tell him that she was pregnant — and Joseph knew he wasn't the father. Embedded in Mary's decision to be fully submissive to the call of God was her willingness to suffer ridicule and contempt and loneliness. God certainly didn't force this choice on Mary; she willingly embraced what God had for her. But the decision was made with no assurance that anyone except God would ever fully understand.

Making It Personal

Mary was willing to pay a high price in order to submit to the call of God. All the rest of the events in her life, her place in Scripture and her place in God's plan can be traced back to this one momentous decision to be the servant, the bondslave, of the Lord. It's at this point that Mary speaks so powerfully to us. Obedience to God always costs.

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   The young woman or young man who determines to live a life of purity before the Lord may pay the price of popularity on campus. Obedience to God's Word may cost you your boyfriend or girlfriend or best friend, and you may never be able to explain. The businessperson who decides to live according to biblical priorities instead of the world's priorities may pay the price in lost promotions or a lower salary. The missionary who labors in a faraway culture may pay a heavy price in loneliness and lack of prestige or affirmation, and in addition may have very few tangible "results" to point to at the end of years of struggle. Mary put her reputation on the line in order to obey God.

   Opportunities for radical obedience to God can come to us at any time in our lives and in an infinite variety of circumstances. Chris Hall is an optometrist who runs an eye clinic in one of the roughest neighborhoods in our city. He does it not because it earns him money but because the people in that area need the service that he provides. Does he gain great acclaim for his sacrifice? Very few people even know about this work. Could he earn more money operating his more suburban clinic full time? Of course. But he quietly offers up his work as an act of sacrifice to the Lord.

   My parents, Paul and Mary Connelly, spent the first full year of their retirement in a mission hospital in the Ivory Coast. They could have stayed close to home and family and saved the money they spent on their mission work, but the Lord put a burden on their hearts and they responded. Dick Adomat spends several hours a week at our local county jail working as a chaplain to prisoners. Dick could find plenty of things — good things — to do with those hours, but as he listened one Sunday morning to a challenge about prison ministry, God put a call on his life. And Dick responded obediently. Ron and Leslie Radke and their young son, Nathan, left the comfort and

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security of their home and family to go to the Aka Pygmies in the African nation of Congo. Years of theological and linguistic training, hard months of support raising and the incredible loneliness of life in an isolated village setting have been invested in hopes of bringing the Scriptures to the Aka in their own language.

   Whatever God's call to obedience costs in your life and my life, Mary stands as proof that submission to God is worth it. For two thousand years believing men and women have seen in Mary a woman who trusted God and who as a result was greatly blessed by God's grace. Mary had the privilege that no other woman in human history had. She was the chosen vessel through whom God the Son became human. Her exaltation, however, only came after her willing heart said, "I am the Lord's servant. Whatever it costs, wherever it takes me, I will do it."

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