Gabriel’s Beautiful Greeting
In our Grace & Knowledge email on Monday, we began preparing our hearts for Christmas by looking at the story of Mary of Bethany and her beautiful gift—the anointing of Jesus before his death. Throughout the rest of December, we’ll continue to focus on Advent and the birth of Christ each week in Wednesday’s Word.
We’ll start today in Luke’s gospel, going back to the beginning of the core Christmas story. Here, we are introduced to another Mary—the mother of Jesus—and a beautiful greeting from the angel Gabriel.
“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting 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 call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’
And Mary said to the angel, ‘How will this be, since I am a virgin?’” (Luke 1:26–34, ESV)
There are so many things to consider in this greeting, and we will continue the story next week, but I want to highlight just a few. Even if you have heard this story a thousand times, meditate on it anew with fresh curiosity and awe.
First, put yourself in Mary’s sandals. Imagine the fear and confusion you would have at this visit from an angel. “She was greatly troubled and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.”
Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but she knew she had never slept with him. How could she become pregnant? Not only would there be devastating social, cultural, relational, and financial implications of this pregnancy, but an angel of the Lord was visiting her? Was God angry? Was this “favor” Gabriel was proclaiming a cruel, sarcastic joke?
Then the angel Gabriel slips in the most divine understatement of all time. I actually find this kind of humorous: “You shall call his name Jesus. He will be great…”
Well … I guess?!?! He’ll just be the greatest human being who ever walked the face of the earth!
I wonder if we throw around the word great too lightly. “That was a great steak. That was a great party. I just bought a great car. I got a great pair of shoes.” This greeting contains greatness on an entirely different level. The greatness of Christ is hard for our finite little brains to comprehend.
The name that Mary will give him will be “the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9), with “immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:19–20, emphasis mine).
Lastly, once Mary gets over the biological impossibility of her pregnancy, there is the theological “impossibility” of this announcement. How could the Creator become part of the creation? How could the Word be a wordless infant? How could the Self-Sufficient One be completely dependent? How could the Eternal One someday experience death?
We take these narratives, angelic announcements, and fulfilled prophecies for granted because we have the whole history and theology of the Old and New Testaments to reference. But for Mary, who some think was just a teenager in this moment, this greeting would be mind-melting.
Next week, we’ll look at Mary’s response, but for today, I want to close by reminding you of two additional truths we find in this greeting: God doesn’t always work in the way we expect, and God doesn’t always work through the people we would expect.
God will be faithful to every one of his promises to you, but he will seldom fulfill those promises in the ways you expect. And God will choose to use the most unexpected of people to participate in the work of his Kingdom.
Our God is a God of surprising, redemptive creativity!
Like Mary, we have found favor with God, not because we are great, but because Christ is great. Like Mary, we have been called to participate in a kingdom of which there will be no end, not because we’re qualified and prepared, but because the Great One will give us everything we need to do what he calls us to do.
Great is his faithfulness!
A Prayer for Today: Father, thank you for your faithfulness in the world and in my life. I’m so grateful for the call you’ve given me to participate in your kingdom of which there will be no end. Lord, I know you don’t always work in ways that I expect, but thank you that I can always trust that you are always up to something good, even when life is confusing or full of suffering. Thank you for redeeming and rescuing me! In Jesus’ name, amen.
Discussion Prompt for Children
1. Why do you think it can be so hard for us to understand God and his ways of working in our lives and in the world? What do you think God calls us to do even when we may not understand his ways of working?
2. What does it mean to be faithful? Who is an example of someone in your life who is faithful to you? Do you think we are always faithful to God? Is God always faithful to us?
3. Why can we always trust God even when we don’t understand how and why he’s working the way he is?
Reflection Questions
1. How has your personal use of the word “great” been watered down simply in the way that you’ve used it and heard it used? When reflecting on the true greatness of Christ, how does the word take on new meaning as you ponder Jesus’ significant greatness?
2. Even though you might agree with the fact that God doesn’t always work in the ways you’d expect, why do you think there is still so much shock when we see God work in unexpected ways? Can you think of a personal example of when God worked like this in your life?
3. In what ways have you experienced God’s faithfulness in your distant past? In your recent past? In your current life? How have you seen God’s faithfulness play out through people you didn’t expect? How have those examples helped you to understand God’s creativity better?
4. Why is it so important to continually remind ourselves that despite our faithlessness, God will always remain faithful? How have you witnessed God’s provision by faithfully providing for you when he called you to be obedient to him in a specific way?