A Great Surprise

 

“The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.’”

—Luke 1:28

In the past week, across this nation and around the world, thousands of young women received the news that they were pregnant. Some greeted this news with exhilaration and overwhelming joy. Others became distraught and deeply troubled by the news. Still others received the news with a quiet resignation.

Among these thousands of women learning of their pregnancies some were not married. But, none of them—not one—was a virgin. In fact, to many people it is utterly inconceivable (no pun intended) that a virgin could have a baby. Yet, that is exactly what Dr. Luke records in Luke 1:26-28:

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, 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 had heard the good news that her much older cousin Elizabeth, who had long been barren, was going to have a baby. In fact, that news sped throughout the Jewish community, passing from family members to far away family members through a communications network that would boggle our minds today.

It was a cause for celebration. God had answered Elizabeth’s prayers. She and her husband, a priest named Zachariah from the priestly tribe of Levi, had wanted children. But, so far in their many years of marriage, they had been denied this particular blessing.

Now an angel of the Lord stood before Mary. There was no question this was a heavenly being. We do not know exactly what he looked like. Artists have tried to convey a sense of awe in their paintings of this event. Someday, we will all know what angels actually look like. But, whatever this angel looked like, he was a startling and awesome figure, but one who also exuded the very love and peace of God. And, that was a good thing, because the angel had some truly startling news for this young virgin of Nazareth.

The angel began with this singular phrase: “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

What could this greeting possible mean? We will have to wait to the next blog post to see.

But, as we begin this day, surely we can agree that if an angel were ever to come to speak to us, this is exactly the kind of greeting we want to hear from the angel’s lips.

 

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