Mary's Voice

DECEMBER 2

Today on this Advent journey shaped by Mary’s perspective, we consider the interaction between the Angel Gabriel and this unknown young girl living in an obscure part of an occupied land, where a defeated people labored under the control of a massive empire. This woman, Mary, heard the angel say to her, “Don’t be afraid; you have found favor with God, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus, and He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Most High.” What did Mary make of those words? The text says that she was afraid, and she was troubled and that she had asked how this could happen.

The angel replied that the Holy Spirit would come and that the very power of the Most High God would overshadow her.

Mary was a Jewish woman. She would have been steeped in the scriptures from childhood. She may have known the prophecy from Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and he will call him Emmanuel.”

It had been prophesied long ago in the history of her people that God was going to enter his own creation and be born of a virgin. God himself would be born as Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” But it was never going to be an ordinary conception and birth. The sign signifying that God is at work in this way is that this child’s birth is an intervention from outside—the Virgin will conceive and bring forth a child.

Mary may well have known those words of the prophet Isaiah, but she would certainly have known the words of Genesis 3:15, where her foremother Eve had been promised in the scriptures that her seed, the seed of the woman, would crush the serpent’s head.

From the earliest scriptures the promise is there that one day a child would be born of a woman and crucially of her seed rather than a man’s seed, and that child would have absolute authority and power to crush evil in this world, bruising the very head of the serpent.

Imagine Mary, a dispossessed person living under an oppressive regime, a woman living in a patriarchal society, hearing an angel tell her, “The holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” Not only is God going to do this for all people, but he is also going to do it through you. Perhaps we might grasp her sense of wonder. The child born to her will be a “holy one” and will be recognized as “the Son of God.” This is who Jesus is. Mary is pointing us unequivocally toward the uniqueness and divinity of Christ. Her recounting of Gabriel’s prophecy is critical evidence for the nature and identity of Jesus as the Son of God. Theologians sometimes call this Christology. Mary is convinced. Her reply shows us that she believes that what she has heard will come to pass. Her fear is natural, and it is acknowledged, and her words echo through the pages of scripture and through the corridors of the ages, down to us today. She said to the angel: “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.” What outstanding faith!

As we walk through this Advent season and prepare our hearts to welcome and worship the Lord Jesus at Christmas, take some time to reflect on Mary’s faith and say with her: “I am your servant, Lord, may your word to me be fulfilled.”

In this Advent season, perhaps we can draw encouragement from the simple but astonishing faith and obedience of a young woman. A young woman who understood theologically this magnificent intervention of God in human history and who said “yes,” offering her own body willingly to this calling with these simple words: “May your word to me be fulfilled.”

Mary’s involvement also points us to deep truth about how the incarnation was to unfold. Her question was: How can this be? The way God came in history matters as well as the fact of him coming. Some time ago, a teenager asked me if men and women are equal image bearers of God as Genesis 1:27 claims: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Why did God come as a man? As we have seen, Genesis 3:15 contains a messianic promise given to Eve, promising that her seed will crush Satan and evil. God will come as a man in history and will be a woman’s offspring. Through Mary’s womb, God comes into the world as a man, but he is born of a woman. Jesus is born as a man, the Son of God in human history—but he is born of a woman. Both male and female play a unique and significant role in the incarnation of God.

Mary’s response to the word of the Lord through Gabriel: “May your word to me be fulfilled” is preceded by the angel’s promise: “No word from God will ever fail.”

PRAYER

We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts; that, as we have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by his cross and passion we may be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Church of England Book of Common Prayer

DECEMBER 3

In this Advent season, it is meaningful to take time to stop, reflect, and actively prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord Jesus into this world. Mary’s testimony gives us a unique and fresh perspective, given her unmistakable viewpoint on the central events around the birth of Jesus Christ. Today’s scripture passage gives us insight into how Mary understood what was happening.

In the last two days, we have reflected on the interaction between the Angel Gabriel and Mary following his announcement to her that she was going to give birth to a son unlike any person who has ever lived—“the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” And today we consider what happened at the end of that encounter with Gabriel. Mary is told that Elizabeth, her relative, is going to have a child in her old age, and that “she who was said to be unable to conceive is now in her sixth month of pregnancy. For no word from God will ever fail.”

Mary is going to give birth to a child, who will be Immanuel, God with us, who will be the Son of the Most High, and he will rule forever. The enormity of this truth is underscored by signs of confirmation to her. She, a virgin, will become pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit, but there will also be a further sign. This is that her aged relative Elizabeth, who had been barren for years and years, is now also pregnant. In fact, Mary is told that Elizabeth is already in her sixth month at this point. As human beings, sometimes we need reassurance, we need signs and affirmations that we are headed in the right direction. We need to know at a deep level that we are on the right track. Mary is given her own virgin conception and the miraculous pregnancy of her aged, childless relative Elizabeth, as two tangible signs, so that she can know for certain that this really is God at work and it is not just her mind playing tricks on her.

Pregnancy is an extraordinary thing. Women all over the world will find their lives utterly changed and altered by pregnancy. And Elizabeth experienced exactly that. Her husband was a priest named Zechariah. He was a high-profile person, and so their barrenness as a couple was a cause of extraordinary shame for them, and a very public shame since childlessness was experienced as a deadly social and spiritual stigma. For Elizabeth, bearing a child would not have been a private experience. This birth was something that would be a miracle in the open and undeniably on the public record.