Elizabeth had a cousin, a girl named Mary, who was engaged to a young man named Joseph. They lived in an out-of-the-way town called Nazareth. Joseph was descended from the great King David, though for his part he was a common laborer, a carpenter.
They were simple, honest people, dreaming and working toward a life they could live out together as husband and wife and, God willing, as a family. They probably expected to be ordinary in every way and perfectly happy for it.
But all this was interrupted in a moment when the angel of the Lord—the same one who visited Zechariah six months earlier— appeared to Mary and told her something that would alter the course of her life and her husband’s life—and, for that matter, the world itself.
The angel said to Mary, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Though the angel’s words were friendly, Mary feared for her life. What could this messenger of the great I Am possibly have to say to her?
Mary belonged to a people familiar with the Word of God. She grew up under its teachings. Since she’d been a little girl, laced throughout her lessons about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and David was the prophetic foretelling of God’s promised Messiah.
Young and old tried to imagine what his advent would lead to. Would the Lord’s salvation come in a radiant swell of angelic fury? Would deliverance take the form of a mighty army rolling over Rome with some mythic warrior-king leading the charge? Down through the generations, the people tried to imagine it.
When the angel Gabriel stood before Mary, the hypothetical gave way to the real. The ordinary stories all at once glistened under the extraordinary light of this celestial storyteller.
As she listened, there rose inside her a sense that the glory of his tale was nothing new but rather was older than time. She only needed uncommon light to see it. She had, Gabriel told her, found favor with God. She shouldn’t fear this visit or the message he brought.
It must have been strange to stand before this seraph dressed in light, strong and otherworldly, and hear him tell her not to be afraid. Perhaps it was even stranger for Mary to discover that God had formed an overall impression of her. She was known by God, and he favored her. He liked what he saw?
The angel then came to the reason for his visit. He told Mary she would conceive a son, who would rescue his people from their sins. God had already chosen his name—Jesus, which means “salvation.”
But the message of the angel did not come without consequences for Mary and Joseph. It would lead these two young people to live as fugitives for a time, fleeing from the paranoia of a ruthless and powerful Roman ruler. And on top of all that, as her belly expanded, Mary and Joseph would have to endure the suspicious looks of friends and relatives who couldn’t help questioning her purity and his character. Eventually, as an old cleric named Simeon would later predict, the anguish accompanying the consequences of this angel’s news would be like a sword that would pierce through Mary’s very soul.
All this was coming and so much more.The angel continued with his message. Mary’s boy would grow to reign over the people of God as their Savior and King. God, who had promised David so many years before that his royal line would see no end, would keep that ancient covenant by bringing an heir to Israel’s throne through this young woman.
The angel…told Mary she would conceive a son, who would rescue his people from their sins. God had already chosen his name—Jesus, which means “salvation.”
“But how can this be, since I’m still a virgin?” she asked. For her to bear this son, she must conceive. And how can a virgin conceive?
The angel explained that all the laws of nature are amendable by the one who wrote them. Mary lived in the world that was made, and the Maker of this world was the sole author of what could and would happen here. The Holy Spirit would overshadow her, and when he pulled that shadow back, this virgin would become a mother to a son. How this would happen was less important than the fact that it would. And God would be the one to do it.
Knowing his words required a shift in her understanding of how the world worked, the angel gave Mary a sign to help her believe. If Mary would only go visit her elderly cousin Elizabeth who had been barren her entire life, she would find a woman only months away from having a miracle baby of her own. Elizabeth was now six months pregnant. This, the angel told Mary, was a sign that she might understand that nothing was impossible with God.
Now it was Mary’s turn to speak. Wrapped in the vertigo of this interterrestrial conversation, she answered simply, “May it be done to me as you have said.”
What else could she say?
The angel’s message was as much about the character of the God who favored Mary as it was about what he meant to do for his people through her.
After the angel’s visit Mary set out for her cousin’s house in the hill country of Judah. Elizabeth was resting inside when she heard someone call from the doorway. The voice was familiar, but it wasn’t the familiarity that caught her interest. What grabbed her attention was how the little boy in her womb leapt at the sound of the greeting—as if he too knew her voice.
When she saw Mary, Elizabeth somehow understood that she and her cousin had something more than pregnancy in common. God was at work in the world, and for reasons higher than their understanding, the babies growing in their bellies would be at the center of it.
She pulled Mary close, embraced her, and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why am I so blessed that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Mary, when I heard your voice, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”
To hear Elizabeth frame it like that—that Mary was the mother of her Lord—solidified in Mary’s heart that all of this was really happening. But she couldn’t do anything to prepare for it. Neither could she help it along. Everything the angel had told her about was something only God could do.
The angel’s message was as much about the character of the God who favored Mary as it was about what he meant to do for his people through her.
As Mary turned over the story unfolding before her—the story with roots as deep and ancient as the world itself—a song of praise welled up inside her.
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
Behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent empty away.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
This was the song her heart sang.
Taken from The Advent of the Lamb of God by Russ Ramsey. ©2018 by Russell Brown Ramsey. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.
