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MARY COLLABORATES WITH GOD!

When was the last time you were surprised by anything? I’m not talking about being mildly surprised as in being “mildly surprised” by a 60th birthday party which you halfway suspected was being planned by someone close to you. Nor am I talking about being surprised by some drunk driver who abruptly interrupts our life. On our congested roadways where one out of every ten drivers is an accident waiting to happen, tragic accidents ought not to surprise us. No, I’m talking about being really surprised as in “almost too shocked to respond properly.”
Of course, by the time we’ve blown our 50 birthday candles, and most of us have, we’ve seen just about everything. In our age-ripened cynicism we tend to agree with Solomon’s conclusion that “there is nothing new under the sun.” So when we’re asked “When was the last time you were surprised by anything?”, we respond by saying, “Gee, I don’t know.”
But, if the Bible teaches us anything, it teaches us that God is a God of surprises. In the Old Testament, he surprised Abraham and Sarah by giving them a child in their old age. He surprised Joseph by elevating him to the most powerful position in Egypt other than that of Pharaoh. And he surprised Moses by pulling him out of obscurity and giving him the job of leading Israel out of Egypt to the land of milk and honey.
In the New Testament, he surprised Zechariah and Elizabeth just as he had surprised Abraham and Sarah. Then, he surprised a young girl in an obscure village, by making a birth announcement nine months prior to the birth of the child. It is one thing to receive a birth announcement in the mail a month or two after the birth of someone’s child, it is quite another thing to receive the announcement prior to marriage. Well, at least in Mary’s day, it was quite another thing. We read of the announcement in Luke 1:26 - 38.
In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 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.”
“ How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
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. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.”
“ I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.
It is clear to me that in the white space between vv. 25 and 26 the angel Gabriel was enrolled in a class on how to be more “sensitive” to mere humans. A course in “Sensitivity Training.” Or maybe it was an “anger management” program. In either case, he didn’t register for either of these two classes because it was his idea, he registered because it was demanded of him by his employer.
Think about it! When Mary was “greatly troubled” by Gabriel’s greeting, he patiently spelled things out for her. And when she questioned him as to “how” she, a virgin, could be with child, he again spelled things out for her. He even shared the touching story of Elizabeth with her so as to reassure the poor girl that all things are possible with God.
Earlier however, about six to seven months earlier, when Zechariah, the husband of Elizabeth asked,
“ How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”
Gabriel answered,
“ I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at the proper time.”
Whew! It was just a simple question by someone who was practically out of sexual ammunition and was rightly wondering “how-in-the-world” it could possibly happen. In response, Grouchy Old Gabriel went ballistic on him. So, it is clear to me that Gabriel must have been ordered to take some touchy-feely class prior to making another birth announcement!
The next thing that is clear to me is that while we tend to think of Mary as being immediately receptive to this divine intrusion into her ho-hum life, she was actually quite suspicious. I like the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases Gabriel’s greeting. It’s a bit much, but his paraphrase has merit. He writes,
“ Good morning!
You’re beautiful with God’s beauty,
Beautiful inside and out!
God be with you.”
Ladies, if some guy, maybe your boss, your husband, or someone here at church that you work with in some ministry, came up to you and greeted you with such a smooth line, how would you respond? I think you’d say, “Look Buster, whatever favor you want done for you this morning, you better go find someone else!” Or, at the very least, you’d think, “What does this sweet-talking guy want from me this time?”
In Mary’s case, I believe she was rightly troubled. She may have been troubled in the sense that she couldn’t see how the words “highly favored” applied to her. After all, she was an unknown girl in a no account village. A village that was no where to be found in the pages of the Old Testament.
Or maybe she was troubled because she was pretty well-acquainted with the Old Testament. She knew, for example, that Moses was highly favored by God and that certainly didn’t mean a troubled-free life.
The same could be said of King David, for he was highly favored by God and yet had his share of sorrows. Granted, he brought some of them upon himself. But, Saul was not a problem of his own making. Then too, he was given the kingship of Israel when various factions in the Middle East were at each others throat. So paradoxically, being highly favored, or being chosen by God for a particular role within the Kingdom of God does not mean a life free of its share of sorrow and trouble.
Or perhaps, Mary was greatly troubled because out of nowhere she found herself in the presence of an angel. For contrary to what most people believe angels are not cute little chubby creatures. They are awesome warriors that instill fear in those they reveal themselves to, day or night!
So Mary, for whatever reasons, was troubled by Gabriel’s greeting. Gabriel sensed this and spelled out, with broad brush strokes, what this greeting meant to her. Momentarily forgetting his “sensitivity” training he gave her the whole ball of wax, the whole story in one giant gulp.
Stuck on swallowing the words, “you will be pregnant” Mary managed to stumble through the words, “Pregnant I’m a virgin! How will I become pregnant? I’ve never even slept with a man! How in the world could I be with child”
I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent . . .”
No! Not this time, here Gabriel patiently explained how all this would come about through the work of the Holy Spirit. It is interesting to note at this point that it was Dr. Luke who researched this event and wrote it down for our sake. If anyone in that day was going to be skeptical about such a birth it would have been him. And yet, he is the one who freely records in detail Gabriel’s message to Mary, that she, a virgin, would be mysteriously impregnated by the work of the Holy Spirit and that no earthly father would be involved. Dr. Luke was convinced that this is indeed what happened and if he as a physician believed it, we too ought to believe it.
In addition to answering Mary’s question, Gabriel informed her that her cousin Elizabeth, much to everyone’s surprise, was pregnant. Remembering, his “sensitivity” training, he shared this story of Elizabeth, whose pregnancy by this time would be showing, to assure Mary that with God nothing is impossible.
At this juncture in the story, Mary replied,
“ May it be to me as you have said. (Or, Let it be according to your word.)”
Mary had a choice, for she responded as though she had made a decision. She had decided that, in fact, nothing was impossible with God. But the fact that she responded as she did reminds us that God never forces his love or will on anyone. This is not a case of divine rape. Nor was it a case of resignation on Mary’s part; a case of simply accepting the inevitable. It was her decision and she made it freely.
The angel announced God’s plan and purpose to Mary, but it would not be carried out without her consent. A consent that was given when Mary replied, “May it be to me as you have said.” It was only then that the angel returned to headquarters.
In view of a world that would not understand, this was a courageous reply. For to become pregnant before her marriage was consummated would expose Mary to all the criticism and ridicule that a small town can dish out; and a small town can dish out plenty of verbal abuse when its norms have been violated.
The girls she had grown up with would turn their backs on her. Conversations would cease when she walked by only to be picked up again as she walked out of hearing range. Drawing water at the local well would become particularly difficult. If she did it early in the morning when everyone else was there she would be verbally abused, maybe even pushed around. And if she did it at noon, it would only serve to underline the loneliness of her decision.
At this time in her life, however, Mary had two things going for her. First, she knew something that others did not know about her. She knew she was innocent of infidelity. She knew the baby within her was a result of the Most High overshadowing her. She could live with herself for she knew she had been responsive to the only one who really matters – God.
In our walk with God we all need a “landmark” experience that we can return to again and again. Such an experience steadies the boat when we’re rocked by the storms that pound our life. In Mary’s case, her knowledge that the only way she became pregnant was by the overshadowing of the Most High held her steady in the face of the unkindness of a small-town.
The second thing she had going for her is seen in vv. 39 - 45. We read:
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”
In God’s grace and wisdom, Mary had somebody she could talk to about her pregnancy. She needed to tell someone; someone who would really understand and God gave her Elizabeth. Elizabeth, of course, was the perfect soul mate for Mary because she had the two qualities that made for good conversation. She was neither jealous nor suspicious of Mary!
She wasn’t jealous of Mary because she was excited and grateful about her own pregnancy. Nor was she suspicious of how Mary became pregnant because she knew that with God anything was possible. Hence, she was able to rejoice with Mary and be a listening ear for this girl who had so many things on her mind. They talked and talked and Zechariah probably threw in stories from the Old Testament. Only after talking things through with Elizabeth was Mary able to sing her song of praise!

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