“Greetings, favored ones! The Lord is with you.”
This is how the angel Gabriel greeted Mary with good news. He came to announce to Mary that she was going to have a baby and that she should name the baby Jesus and that this child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Mary ultimately surrendered her will to God’s will and she consented to this gift and accepted it with grace.
But I’m not sure that the announcement of a child was very good news for Mary. Yes, in the end she said, “Let it be to me according to your will.” But good news doesn’t really require our consent. Challenging news might require us to surrender to it. And this announcement certainly brought many challenges into Mary’s life. Motherhood itself is a challenge. Childbirth, especially at that time, was a risk and even life-threatening. Facing all this unmarried not only adds to the challenge, but also brings social and religious consequences – like stoning!
So, as I said., the content of the angel’s announcement, the central piece of this event that we call the Annunciation, while it was very good news for us and for the world to be sure, I don’t think you can make any argument that it was good news for Mary. There is a popular Christmas song called “Mary Did You Know?” Dolly Parton just released a new version of it. It has a beautiful text. The song wonders if Mary knew that the child she was going to bear would be the Savior of all? And I think it’s safe to say that the answer to that question is resoundingly NO! How could we possibly expect her to know? How could she know the love that this child would lavish on her and the whole human race? How could she know that he would give his life on a cross for her and for the world? No. Mary did not know. And without that knowledge, the Annunciation was not good news for Mary.
However, the greeting of the angel WAS good news. “Greetings, favored one,” the angel said. “The Lord is with you.” Did you notice how Mary responded to the greeting? We are told that Mary was perplexed and wondered what kind of a greeting this might be.
What was so perplexing about the greeting? As a child I often thought this comment in the story – that she was perplexed — meant that Mary was afraid of the presence of an Angel. But we’re not told that the Angel appeared in a bright light or with golden wings and a halo or in some other strange manifestation that would have startled Mary. It’s very likely that the angel appeared in ordinary human form like angels do elsewhere in the Bible. Nothing says that she was particularly afraid of the Angel himself. So what was it about the GREETING that perplexed Mary? Why did she wonder “what kind of greeting it was?”
“Greetings, favored one.” Mary was favored? I imagine Mary doing one of these: (Looking over her shoulders to see if the angel is talking to someone else) “Me? You’re talking to ME?” Why would she addressed as “favored.?”
One of the things we must do to understand the good news of this greeting, a greeting by the way that applies to us as well, is to strip away the Christmas card mythology about Mary — who always has perfect hair, beautiful skin and dressed in blue flowing statin robes. The truth is that Mary by any of the current definitions of her time, would not be considered “favored status” for a number of reasons. First of all, her age. Mary was a young girl. And in Mary’s day children or even teenagers were not pampered or even valued like they are in our culture today. They were treated more like pets. And many times not even THAT well. Her gender of course puts her in additional unfavored status. Mary would have been considered property of her father and soon to be property of a husband. She has no rights and privileges of her own.
Her status is diminished even further by the fact that she lives in poverty. We learn this later on when Mary and Joseph go to the temple and offer two pigeons – the offering of the poor. Being impoverished means Mary is basically invisible to her neighbors unless she was out begging.
And Mary lives in the town of Nazareth which for us has a very romantic image to it because of its place in the biblical story. But if we were to actually see Nazareth in its original setting it would be a little bit like perhaps Bemidji. Now with all due respect to Bemidji which I think is actually a very cool town, it’s not a big city and it’s not at the center of anything except a lot of lakes. Much like Nazareth in Galilee. There was a big lake there and that was about it and the people there were not considered at all civilized or devout. Again no disrespect to Bemidji but take it down a few notches and you’ve got Nazareth — a small backwoods backwards little town at the center of nothing with absolutely zero cultural or commercial importance. I read an article about Mary that said if Mary’s social economic status had been any lower she would be on par with a leper. So when it comes to measuring people against the social norms, Mary is about as low you can get without have a very contagious, debilitating disease. There is nothing about her that would invite an angelic messenger or a greeting that called her, “favored one.”
And then to follow that up with, “The Lord is with you.” In what way would Mary feel that the Lord was with her? What evidence would she have up to this point? All of this perplexing wonderment is reflected in Mary’s song which, if you listen closely, is really based on the GREETING and not the announcement. She praises God not for a pregnancy, but because “he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” That’s like saying “God did not think that my “bottom of the barrel status” should keep him away from me. Even though she was nothing, she was visited by God’s messenger and more than that, God himself was with her. She was accepted and chosen and loved. THAT is what she sang about because THAT is good news for Mary. THAT is good news for us. We have been loved and accepted, visited and chosen by God. THAT is amazing! The greeting even more than the announcement captured Mary’s heart and gave her a joyful spirit even before she ever learned what a gift her son would be.
Even before we get to the Christmas story and the gift of Jesus himself, even before we learn about his humble birth, even before we discover him in Galilee befriending humble fishermen, even before we hear him say that he came to seek and save the lost, even before we see him touch and heal the lepers, even before we hear him invite Zacchaeus out of the tree, or see him on his knees washing his disciples’ feet, even before we watch him suffer and carry his cross, right here in this greeting is good news for us because God approaches us in the same way he greeted Mary – with the same affirmation and promise.
We are his favored ones. And today he promises to be with us. Oh, there is so much more to this story. Gabriel’s visit to Mary in our Gospel today is just the beginning. The good news is just starting to unfold with the angel’s announcement and Mary is the first to hear of it. She is the first to be blown away by the wonder of God’s love for her – of all people! She is the first to feel the thrill of knowing she was accepted as she was! She is the first to experience the courage and confidence that comes with that favored status before God. And she was not the last. We stand in line with Mary and with all those whose hearts leap for joy at the sound of this good news.
Mary did not know what was to come. Nor do we know what is to come for us. We do not know today all the ways God will love us and save us as his story of grace unfolds in our lives. We cannot know just how deeply he will have to reach to find and rescue us. And we do not know what we will have to surrender down the road or what gifts will be given us. But he is with us. He comes with us into all our unknowns – into all our human challenges and into our deepest fears. Nothing about us will keep him from us nor can anything separate us from his love. And dear favored ones: that is good news enough.
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