Embracing Favor

If God’s people would please
take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1, where we were last week, will be this
week and even into next week. We’ve only just begun really
to hear Luke’s unique and wide-ranging narrative. Last week we began
with the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Zacharias, an announcement
that ostensibly was about God’s provision of a long-awaited son
for Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth. But as we patiently considered
it, it was really a much grander announcement, wasn’t it? It was
really, indeed, a declaration of an answered prayer, but we
discovered that we didn’t need to presume that the angel was
speaking about Zacharias and Elizabeth’s prayer, their cry
for a child, but instead it was an answer to the national cry
of Israel with Zacharias for redemption by way of a long-promised
Messiah. Elizabeth, Zacharias’ wife, is
going to bear a son, John, who we know is John the Baptist.
The angel’s declaration included detail that This Elijah-like
figure is going to serve as the forerunner to the Messiah himself. The news couldn’t be any more
stupendous for Zacharias. Zacharias must have been internally
joyful, even in the face of rebuke for his doubt and the punishment
that he suffered because of it. But as the narrative trails off,
there at the end of verse 25, we’re treated to a brief glimpse
of an overjoyed Elizabeth, quietly basking in the reality of her
portion of the news, that she is with child, and now five months
along. But John the Baptist is only
to serve as the forerunner for the Messiah and Luke’s narrative
progresses to capture yet another magnificent announcement by the
angel Gabriel. This time to a young woman named
Mary. And this time regarding the coming
of the Messiah himself. If you’re in Luke chapter 1,
would you glance please at verse 26, and we’ll course down through
verse 38. Now in the sixth month, the angel
Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph. Of the
descendants of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her,
Hail, favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly
troubled at this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation
this might be. And the angel said to her, Do
not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And
behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and
you shall name him Jesus. He will be great. and would be
called son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him
the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house
of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. And Mary said
to the angel, how can this be since I am a virgin? The angel
answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, And for
that reason, the holy offspring should be called the son of God.
And behold, even your relative, Elizabeth, has also conceived
a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is now
in her sixth month. For nothing will be impossible
with God. And Mary said, Behold, the bond
slave of the Lord, Be it done to me according to your word.
And the angel departed from her. One of the sadder features of
the Christmas story as it goes around, as it distills down through
the years. The Christmas story, the gospel
narrative of the birth accounts. One of the sadder features is
the mistreatment that Mary herself has received. The Roman Catholic
Church especially has not only mishandled and misinterpreted
the passages related to Mary, it has also embellished and mischaracterized
her as well. The Catholic Church has taken
biblical passages, each with a God-purposed lesson of its
own, and so distorted the image of Mary that the picture painted
resembles nothing of the sweet and simple woman presented in
those narratives. Worse, though, Catholicism has
invented out of nothing more than human creativity and a thin
veneer of legend, a fictitious goddess that commands reverence
due only to God himself. And as a result, The reaction
of evangelicals, especially former Catholics, is to steer clear
even from the mention of her name, let alone a humble admiration
of her godly example. But such example is there for
us in the pages of Scripture. And rather than an overreaction
that leaves our own consideration of Mary incomplete and inaccurate,
we would take a fresh look at her calling and her example.
And if we do so objectively, I believe that we’ll find a more
favorable perspective of the birth mother of our Lord Jesus. I’ve entitled the message, Embracing
Favor, which will become clear to you as the passage unfolds. But what you have in these short
few verses is Mary’s example, really, of faith. We have a young
woman who’s suddenly met by an angel, given a wealth of revelation
and submits herself wholly and completely to the angels announced
plans. Let’s look at those if we could
this morning. First of all, Mary’s alarming
introduction. Mary’s alarming introduction,
we see it in verses 26 through 29. Luke’s narrative begins right
where it left off. Well, technically there’s a month
gap. Back in verse 24, Luke mentioned
the detail that Elizabeth secluded herself for reasons that he doesn’t
tell us, secluded herself for five months. But here at the
opening of the story pertaining to Mary, Luke mentions the sixth
month. So one month later, we’ve got
a gap. This is the detail that establishes
the fact that John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus.
You’ve heard that said before. And we quickly learn that the
same angel, Gabriel, a messenger of grace and redemption, as we
discovered last week, in contrast to Michael, who is technically
or typically an angel of wrath due to announce God’s judgment,
This angel Gabriel is sent again from God on another mission to
a city in Galilee called Nazareth and to a virgin named Mary. This would already be a direct
fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. Isaiah 9 says, there will be
no more gloom for her who is in anguish. In earlier times,
he treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with
contempt. But later on, he shall make it
glorious by way of the sea on the other side of Jordan, Galilee
of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness
will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land,
the light will shine on them. So Isaiah’s prophecy. And so Galilee was the region. Nazareth, Mary’s hometown, a
town so insignificant that it was wasn’t even mentioned throughout
the Old Testament. This is a small town country
girl. One of the things that is fading from life in Fort Collins
is that you used to be able to drive 15 minutes in any direction
and basically be in rural America. Not so much anymore. And so to
think or to understand Mary’s hometown, we’d almost have to
think of Nazareth in terms of a small town in Wyoming. about
three days away from the big city of Jerusalem, very rural,
and only about 3,000 residents, seemingly insignificant. Luke intentionally provides a
great amount of detail on this young woman. that she’s a virgin. She’s unmarried. She’s engaged
to a man whose name is Joseph, who in God’s good providence
was the descendant of David. That’s important. Because Joseph’s
marriage to Mary, once it’s completed, scripture would be fulfilled
in this regard. Jesus would be known as the son,
the direct descendant of David. Even the Pharisees, when confronted
by Jesus, had to admit that the Christ, the Messiah, would be
the descendant of David. Matthew knew it. In his gospel,
it opens with these words. Matthew 1.1, the record of the
genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David. needy sinners
when they came face to face with christ knew it because they cried
out on several occasions have mercy on us son of david the
people of jerusalem knew it because when jesus entered into the city
at his triumphal entry they cried out hosanna to the son of david
so as this angel comes in as a messenger to Mary, there was
evidently an abruptness to his appearance because verse 29 tells
us that Mary was greatly troubled, and specifically by the nature
of the angel’s greeting. The angel’s words were simple
and pleasant, but they stymied this young woman. Verse 29 says
that she kept pondering what kind of salutation this might
be. I might call that last line a
bit of classic over-translation. Salutation. That’s not a word
that we typically use, is it? And seemingly it’s used here
just to formalize this address by this angel. Mary couldn’t
make sense of the significance of this greeting. That’s all
it is. She kept pondering, meaning that
she molded over and over again and again. And the simple words that the angel
uttered were in verse 28, hail favored one. The Lord is with
you. Now those words are not too complicated. But what is their significance?
And that is what troubled young Mary. And I need to pause to
tell you that the Roman Catholic Church translates this verse
very differently. At the same relative time period,
that Protestants were pressing and producing their own Bible
translations in the prevalent languages of the day, French,
German, Spanish, English. The Roman Catholic Church had
scholars working on their own translation. Their version, called
the Douay-Rheims version, was first translated in AD 1582,
right in the middle of the Reformation. Well, that was well after Wycliffe’s
translation in 1388 and Tyndale’s translation in 1536. Catholic scholars took some significant
liberties with the New Testament text here and many other places. because they translate the sentence
not as hail favored one, the Lord is with you, but as hail
Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Now, depending
on your church background, those words hail Mary full of grace
may sound very familiar. because those words form the
opening line of the oft-repeated prayer called the Hail Mary. And I will inform those that
are not familiar with it that it is not a football terminology
for a desperation play. That prayer, together with the
Lord’s Prayer, or more simply the Our Father, They are among
Roman Catholicism’s most important prayers. A good Catholic will
utter these prayers thousands and thousands of times in their
lifetime. The second line of that prayer
is taken almost verbatim from Luke 142. These are Elizabeth’s
words upon greeting Mary. Those words, if you glance down
at 142, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus. Now those words are verbatim.
In both the Catholic and Protestant translations, we don’t need to
manufacture any contention with those words at all. Mary was
indeed exceedingly blessed, as was the child that she then carried. But I have to add that the final
words of the prayer called the Hail Mary are not derived from
Scripture in any way, shape, or form. And it is the most alarming
of all of the sentences because that last line says, Holy Mother,
Holy Mary, pardon me, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now
and at the hour of our death. It’s that shocking sentence that
attributes to Mary an intercessory status reserved only for God
alone. And it presumes that she interceding
for sinners is not a sinner. But the trouble with that prayer
really begins with the opening words, Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail Mary is just a catchphrase
for a greeting, but when Catholic translators machined that phrase
full of grace, they were accommodating their already established doctrine
of a deified Mary. They stretched and manipulated
those words to suggest that Mary possessed grace inherently. That she was full of grace. as
only God can truly be, that she even had grace to give, to bestow
on needy sinners. Well, the unmistakable suggestion
was that Mary was inherently filled with grace, so as to bestow
it upon others, and that suggestion makes her godlike. But that is
the teaching about Mary that the Catholic Church promotes. The Roman Catholic Church presents
an extremely distorted picture of this innocent Mary. She’s set forth by the church
as an object of worship, and they honor her with the same
degree of honor that they render to the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
They maintain that she was conceived without sin. and maintains a
perpetual virginity, something never articulated in scripture. She is believed to mediate between
men and God, just as Jesus and the Holy Spirit do. The Catholic
Church not only builds this doctrine from passages like the one before
us this morning, but they stretch this caricature with the most
fantastic embellishments. The Roman Catholic Church would
have everyone believe that their view of Mary has always been
the same. That’s not the case. Listen to
this short list. Mary first began to gain an exalted
view in 431, 400 years after the church was established. It wasn’t until the 7th century,
the 600s, that prayers began to be directed to her and to
her so-called saints. In 1508, the now well-known prayer
and song Ave Maria came into use. In 1854, the idea of Mary’s
Immaculate Conception that Mary herself was born without sin
was declared by Pope Pius IX. In 1950, Pope Pius XII declared
that Mary rose to a heavenly body referred to in brief as
her Assumption. And it wasn’t until 1965 that
Pope Paul VI declared Mary as the mother of the church. But the angel, by this simple
greeting, merely expressed that Mary was graced, favored, and
that, as always, in an undeserving sense. That is the very nature
of grace. It’s undeserved favor. The only other time this very
special word is used is Ephesians 1 6. Where Paul speaks of the
glory of God’s grace, which he freely bestowed. Upon us in the
beloved. We didn’t earn it. We didn’t
deserve it. And you know what? Neither did
Mary. That word means to make someone the object of favor. Just as we receive God’s abundant
grace, so also did Mary in her own unique measure. So, to whatever
extent Mary was full of grace, it was because she was the recipient
of grace, not the source of it. To counter Roman Catholic terminology,
She was the daughter of grace, not the mother of it. The Roman
Catholic translation, together with the ideas that it communicates,
is irreparably destroyed by verse 29. Would you glance at it? She,
that is Mary, whom they proposed to be godlike, was greatly troubled
at this statement and kept pondering it. If she, like God, possessed
intercessory omniscience, being inherently full of grace, why was this a surprise to her? The reality was that Mary was
a young human woman and a sinner just like you and me. No wonder
she was troubled at the sudden appearance of a spiritual being,
an angel. She was just a sweet, godly,
but imperfect person that God chose to bless for his own purposes
and glory. This grace, this favor was not
hers to grant. It was hers to embrace. But the
surprise to Mary is only beginning, because Gabriel, God’s messenger,
is about to provide Mary an awesome revelation. Not only an alarming
introduction, but an awesome revelation. We find that in verses
30 through 33. The angel said to her, do not
be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold,
you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall
call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be
called son of the most high and the Lord God will give him the
throne of his father, David. He will reign over the house
of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end. Mary is still
reeling from the initial shock of this sudden startling visit.
And so Gabriel immediately seeks to comfort her. Do not be afraid,
Mary. Gabriel isn’t there for purposes
of judgment or fear. He’s there sent from God with
a message of hope. You have found favor with God. Essentially a repetition of Gabriel’s
opening greeting. But this time the angel explains
this undeserved kindness. Behold, you will conceive in
your womb and bear a son. is the very reason that Luke
mentions in the introduction, Mary verses 26 and 27, that Mary
is a virgin that is unmarried. Whereas John’s conception was
conventional. It was a natural conception and
birth. Mary’s child, however, will be
miraculous. And so the angel says, behold,
listen to me. By supernatural means, you will
conceive a child, a son. This is an echo of God’s declaration
to Abraham. Genesis 17, God said, no, Sarah,
your wife will bear you a son. You will call his name, Isaac. It’s an echo of the sign provided
to King Ahaz in Isaiah chapter seven. The Lord himself said,
we’ll give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will be with
child and she will bear a son and she will call his name, Emmanuel. It’s an echo of that unnamed
angel who made the same announcement to Joseph, the husband of Mary,
husband to be of Mary. Matthew 1 21 she will bear a
son you will call his name The angels here are calling the shots
Not only that you’re going to conceive, but I’m going to give
you his name You will conceive give birth and then you will
name him Gabriel says Jesus the angel spares no detail right
down to the child’s name Now naming the child would typically
be the responsibility of the father but an unnamed angel of
the lord as i just mentioned would also appear to joseph in
matthew 1 21 it would give him the same exact command you shall
call his name jesus the name of jesus is not insignificant
is the greek version of joshua which means God is help or savior,
or more simply, Jehovah saves. It was a very popular name and
it took many different forms or nicknames. O’Shea, Ho’Shea,
Jehoshua, Joshua, Jeshua, and Jesus, just to name a few. By
this God-given name, Jesus would go before, that name would go
before him to declare his mission. And Matthew records that this
is precisely what the angel means when he concludes. You shall
call his name Jesus, for it is he who will save his people from
their sins. The name Jesus would be a clear
and consistent declaration that Jesus Christ’s purpose was to
save. He and no other will save. There’s no doubt about it. Not just making people savable,
not helping them to save themselves, not being a good moral example
to them, but actually saving his people from their sins. Look,
if you would, at verse 32, where the angel begins to enumerate
the character qualities of this savior, he will be great. the
angel gabriel said the same thing about john the baptist he said
that he would be great john gabriel said will be great in the sight
of the lord but jesus greatness must infinitely surpass surpass
that of a mere man like john the baptist as special as he
was jesus is great jesus is superior in character in holiness, in
his influence, in his power, in his accomplishment, that is
the salvation of sinners. He’s great. There is no greater. He’s not only great, he will
be called the son of the most high. Jesus is God, the father’s
eternal son. So this is not a position granted
him at creation or at his birth. But it is part of his very nature. Just as God is called the most
high God, even in this passage, Jesus is the son of the most
high. And not merely called in the
simple sense of that word, but called such as he is understood
to be. Just as he is the son of the
Most High, he stands in closest relationship with the Most High,
the Heavenly Father. He will be great. He will be
called son of the Most High. And thirdly, the Lord God will
give him the throne of his father, David. Jesus will be granted
the royal throne of King David. The word throne there speaks
of power and sovereignty, and it’s promised throughout the
entirety of the Old Testament to the Messiah. The promise is
recorded in Psalm 132. The Lord has sworn to David of
the fruit of your body, I will set upon your throne. In 2 Samuel. I will raise up your descendant
after you. I will establish his kingdom
and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Isaiah
likewise says of the Messiah that the government will rest
on his shoulders and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end
to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of
David and over his kingdom to establish and uphold it in righteousness
from then on forevermore. So Jesus, Gabriel informs, will
be the fulfillment of the promised Messiah sitting on David’s throne. Fourthly, look at verse 33. He
will reign over the house of Jacob forever. The very evident promise here
is that Jesus will reign over a kingdom. And it will have no
end. Jesus’ disciples, just before
his ascension into heaven, wondered about when Jesus was going to
establish this kingdom. The kingdom has already begun
on earth and will never end. It’s exactly what verse 33 closes
and saying his kingdom will have no end He is going to be a it
is going to be a perpetual everlasting kingdom Not a brief tenuous reign
like so many of Israel’s kings They came and they went But forever
and ever some 45 says forever and ever is the scepter of this
kingdom and It is a kingdom, Daniel 2.44 says, which will
never be destroyed. 7.14 of Daniel says, it is a kingdom
in which all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might
serve Him in an everlasting kingdom. It’s a kingdom over which Christ
will reign forever and ever. Well, by now, Mary, Mary’s probably very quiet at
this point, stunned with the news. Not only is she going to
have a child by miraculous means, but she’s going to carry the
Messiah himself, the God-man. In addition to Mary’s alarming
introduction and awesome revelation, look thirdly at Mary’s assuring
explanation. Mary said to the angel, how can
this be since I am a virgin? The angel answered and said to
her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you. And the power of the
most high will overshadow you. And for that reason, the holy
offspring should be called the son of God. And behold, even
your relative, Elizabeth, has also conceived a son in her old
age. And she who was called barren
is now in her sixth month. for nothing will be impossible
with God. In a very similar move, like
Zacharias before her, Mary dares to pose a question to Gabriel,
how can this be? And she adds to that her marital
status, not that the angel was unaware, that she’s a virgin. And so having seen the results
of Zacharias’ challenge of Gabriel’s report, we brace ourselves for
a similar reaction. But it never comes from Gabriel. That’s because the two situations
were entirely different. Zacharias expressed doubt at
the news that he received from Gabriel. He at least didn’t laugh
like Abraham and Sarah, but he did doubt, and he challenged
the angel’s report. And he basically asked for proof,
remember? That’s not what Mary does. She simply and innocently lays
out the obvious impediments to the angel’s announcement. She’s
not married. She understands that this conception
is going to be prior to her marriage to Joseph. And that would raise
very obvious questions since there had never been a miraculous
virgin birth. How is that possible? Mary wants
to know. She doesn’t demand a sign from
Gabriel. She only seeks an explanation. This is a young woman who knew
of her own moral purity. How then could she have a son? It’s not doubt, but it’s an inquiry
as to how such a pregnancy will occur. Will it be through natural
means after she has married Joseph, perhaps? Her concerns didn’t
need to go much deeper than that. Zacharias doubted whether the
thing promised could be at all. Mary merely wondered how. And
we’re assured that Mary’s question was born not out of a lack of
faith at the angel’s astonishing report, because Gabriel takes
her question right in stride. It’s almost as if he expected
it. And rather than a stern rebuke with an appropriate punishment,
like he provided to Zacharias, Gabriel graciously answers Mary’s
question. He delicately delicately provides
the answer to the question. How? And we see it in verse 35. Gabriel says that the Holy Spirit
will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow
you. It’s not flesh. Certainly not sinful flesh that
will bring about this conception, but the spirit, the Holy Spirit. This is going to be a truly miraculous
conception, a miracle of God, not unlike the pillar of fire
and the parting of the Red Sea, or even of creation itself. It
might be argued that John the Baptist conception and birth
could be likened to Isaac’s. giving to Abraham and Sarah a
son in their old age, after many years of waiting.
But if John the Baptist’s conception is likened to Isaac’s, Jesus’
conception and birth must be likened to that of Adam. As the
creation of Adam was a stupendous miracle of God, so is the creation
of the second Adam, Jesus. At the mere mention of the Holy
Spirit, Mary would have understood that divine power, the power
of Almighty God, would be the agency of her pregnancy. This
is not unbelievable to us who are saved. Because if the Holy
Spirit can bring to life dead sinners like you and I, through
the supernatural act of regeneration, Of course he can miraculously
generate conception. This is an act of creation that
Mary is pondering. And Gabriel echoes the thought
with the second line, the power of the Most High will overshadow
you. There would be no need for natural
conception. This would be a supernatural
conception, an exercise of the outpouring of the unlimited power
of God. This is the very explanation
as to how Jesus would be both fully God and fully man. When Gabriel says that this power
will overshadow you, he likely is here employing imagery from
the Old Testament. The Shekinah glory of God pictured
by a cloud of glory representing God’s presence and power. A newborn
baby. A newborn baby often creates
quite a discussion among relatives as to which parent the child
favors, right? There would be no debate with
this child. Spiritually speaking, he will be an exact image. of
his father. As the child was foretold by
the angel to be the son of the most high in verse 32. It doesn’t
surprise us here that in verse 35 that God, the father is referred
to as the most high, like father, like son. And so Gabriel summarizes
the obvious. For that reason, he says, because
this is a creative act by God the Father, the holy offspring
shall be called the Son of God. This would be Mary’s baby, no
doubt. This would be Mary’s baby as
Isaiah prophesied of him in his 53rd chapter. He committed no
sin nor was any deceit found in his mouth. Likewise, the writer
of Hebrews identified him as holy, innocent, undefiled, separated
from sinners and exalted in above the heavens. This was Mary’s
child, but he would be God’s son, the son whom God was ever
well pleased. When we embarked on this study
last Sunday, we noted that Jesus’ birth accounts Matthew and Luke
they fill in a crucial information gap for us Because as the Messiah
had to be both fully God and fully man It’s important to readers
of all ages To discover how it is that this union of flesh and
divinity came to be Humanity’s debt of sin was insurmountable
it was Our responsibility. But even if we collectively died,
we wouldn’t have saved one sinner. It was man’s responsibility,
but only a sinless savior, only one who was God could atone for
it. And so our savior had to be both
God and man in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. I read you
a portion of this verse a moment ago. It’s the birth announcement
in Isaiah 7 14. Behold, the virgin shall be with
child and shall bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel,
which translated means God with us. Well, unlike Zacharias, Mary
didn’t demand of the angel Gabriel, that he provide her proof of
this transaction. It’s the testimony of a miracle
that God has already done. Behold, even your relative, Elizabeth,
has conceived a child in her own age. Mary didn’t ask for
that proof. The angel graciously provided it. And we can hear
it there in the angel’s phraseology, can’t we? Elizabeth, even in
her old age. Gabriel continues as old as she
is, as impossible as it sounds. She who was called barren is
now in her sixth month. Your cousin Elizabeth is six
months pregnant, Mary. This astonishing news is likely
what prompts Mary in the verses ahead of us. It prompts Mary
to immediately visit Elizabeth. That would not be an excursion
motivated by doubt, but certainly one that would bolster Mary’s
faith and Elizabeth’s as well, as we’ll see. Gabriel adds the
theological capstone to this entire revelation in verse 37. For nothing will be impossible
with God. This sentence has such a timeless,
rock-solid feeling to it, doesn’t it? It sounds like a summary of the
theological foundation established in the Old Testament, doesn’t
it? A few years ago, I taught a devotional series at Olive
Tree. Just to get the students’ attention, I called it, The Laws
God Has Broken. They were in rapt attention.
But I went on to tell them that those laws that God breaks, he
does it every day. It’s called a miracle. When God
causes the sun to stand still, he’s breaking the laws of nature. When God causes a young lady
to be pregnant by spiritual means, that’s a miracle. God is not
bound or limited by the so-called laws of nature. That’s basically
what a miracle is. Nothing is impossible for God.
When God challenged Abraham because of Sarah’s laughter, he asked,
is anything too difficult for the Lord? Job. Nearing the end of his lesson,
submissively expressed, I know that you can do all things. And
that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Likewise, the prophet Jeremiah,
our Lord God. Behold, you have made the heavens
and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm.
Nothing is too difficult for you. And so Gabriel here. Nothing will be impossible with
God. Not even a miraculous virgin birth interweaving God himself
with human flesh. Serves as the bedrock. upon which
Mary can place her faith. But what else is there for Mary
to do? Except to express her humble submission, to embrace
this favor that God has bestowed upon her. But it’s arguably the
greatest act of faith that any woman has ever exercised. And
this she does in verse 38, where she says, behold, the bond slave
of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word. Three
times during his announcements. You may have even caught this
three times in his announcements. Gabriel has made use of this
little word of exclamation. Behold. Luke 120 to Zacharias,
behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak. Zacharias had
no reply to that. To Mary, verse 31, behold, you
will conceive in your womb and be Harris. Behold, the son bear
us on. Verse 36, behold, even your Elizabeth
has been has conceived in her old age. Well, Mary. Seizes upon this same word for
a declaration of her own. Look, if you would, at verse
38, behold, The bond slave of the Lord, be
it done to me according to your word. Based on the form of this verb,
she indicates her willingness to accept the fulfillment entirely
according to God’s sovereign design. Let it be so, she says. She knew that this news would
be skeptically received by her friends and neighbors. She knew
that her reputation would be called into question. Nevertheless,
she joyfully submits. Using the graphic word slave,
bond slave, she yields herself to the word of the angel and
to the Lord himself. Her words are reminiscent of
those in first Samuel three. It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to
him. May God’s will be done, Mary says. And with that, Gabriel
departed from her.