The Blessed Virgin (Luke 1:26-38)

The Blessed Virgin

 

Luke 1:26-38

 

The Bible calls Mary “the blessed woman” (Luke 1:42, 1:45). It is, of course, because she is the Holy Mother who conceived the Savior, gave birth to him, and raised the Lord. When we read the Bible carefully, however, we can see that this is not the first reason for Mary’s being called “the blessed woman.” In Luke 11:27, a woman called out to Jesus, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you!” She cried out so because she was amazed at Jesus’ excellence. What she meant by this saying was: “Wow! Your mother is so lucky, having such a great son as you!” We all think this way too. For a woman, what can be a greater pride than her gorgeous son? And even when her son is Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world and the King of the Universe, nobody can question that Mary is the blessed woman more than anybody in the world. But Jesus had a thought different from the woman. To the woman’s saying, Jesus replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:28). Jesus says that those who hear the word of God and obey it are truly blessed. Jesus didn’t add any other condition. For example, Jesus didn’t say, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it, and thereby become prosperous,” or “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it, and thereby get saved.” Jesus simply said, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

 

Today’s text is a short conversation between the angel Gabriel sent by God and country girl Mary. The conversation flows as follows.

 

Angel Gabriel	Mary
Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.	What kind of greeting this might be?
Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.	How will this be, since I am a virgin?
The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.	I am the Lord’s servant, May your word to me be fulfilled.

This dialogue begins with Gabriel’s greetings, and is followed by Mary’s two questions and the angel’s answers to them, and ends with Mary’s statement of commitment to the word of God. Through this talk, the angel delivered God’s message, and Mary received it. The angel’s message is itself great news, but Mary’s responses to the message is also interesting. The angel’s opening greeting is as follows: “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Hearing this, Mary was greatly troubled, and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. It is, of course, an astonishing happening that God’s angel appeared to her. However, the angel’s greeting doesn’t sound very unusual. “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Aren’t we exchange similar greetings? Virgin Mary had her wedding with her fiancé Joseph ahead, and therefore, people around her might say these kinds of greeting to her every day. Furthermore, in the Jewish society worshiping God, it must be very common to wish God’s grace, God’s peace, and God’s being together, as common as our “Good morning!” or “God bless you!” Nevertheless, Mary heard this greeting very unusual, and talked to herself in wonder, “What kind of greeting this might be?” Mary’s second question is even more interesting. To Mary’s first question, the angel said to her that she would conceive a child and give birth to a son, and he would ascend the throne of King David and reign over his kingdom forever. Then, Mary asked back, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” What Mary said is true, but she could think in a different way. She had already been engaged to Joseph, and naturally she would have a baby in the near future. What is more, Joseph was a descendent of David (v. 27). Considering all these, Mary might take the angel’s word as something that could happen in her new family with Joseph. She might assume, “Our son may become the king of Israel and rebuild our family and our nation.” Quite oddly, however, Mary asked, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” She thought the angel was saying that she would have a baby in her virginity. What a strange way of thinking? The Bible records many miracles performed by God. The sea water was divided, the sun and moon stood still, the dead was raised, and a barren woman had a baby. But there was no record that a virgin had a baby. And Mary understood that, according to the word of God spoken by the angel, she, as a virgin, would have a baby. Wow!

 

Mary’s response to the angel’s words is truly extraordinary. People, living in the world, understand everything in the context of the world. Even for the word of God, we think and understand it in the context of the world. Mary was also living in such a world. She was a virgin in small town Nazareth in Galilee, and she was engaged to Joseph in the same village, and she was one of many women leading a quiet life in the male-dominant community run by the strict Judaist regulations. This was her world. In this context, what kind of life she should and would live had already been decided. Even what “blessing” is and how to be blessed were also determined by others. What she could wish in the pre-established context was being a good wife of a good man, and living a life as peaceful and joyful as possible. It would be far better if she had a few good sons and daughters. This was her world, and God’s word of blessing should also comply with the context. If not, it would be rather a trouble than a blessing. This is how ordinary people think and respond to the word of God. But Mary had a very unique way of thinking. When she heard the word of God, she didn’t take it in the context of the world where she was living. Rather, she heard the word of God as it was. Mary did not fit the word of God onto her own situation. She just let the word speak to her freely what it truly meant. In this sense, she was a virgin. A virgin means a woman who has never experienced a man, but it also has the descriptive meaning of ‘purity’ and ‘inexperience.’ In her deep heart, she had a secret room, an empty and clean sanctuary that had never been opened yet to anybody. Nobody knew it. It had been intact from her parents, her closest friends, and even her fiancé Joseph. When Mary heard the word of God, she opened the deep sanctuary for the first time, and received the word into the room. She was truly a pure virgin to the word of God.

 

Mary opened her deep sanctuary and received the word of God. Verse 29 says, “Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.” Here the word “wonder” is commonly translated “consider,” or “ponder” or just “think.” When she heard the angel’s greeting, she conceived it in her heart and meditated on it carefully. Mary’s character as such is found also in a few other scenes in the Bible. In Luke 2, a group of shepherds watching over their flocks in the field at night visit baby Jesus lying in a manger, and tells the parents what they heard from the angels about the baby. Then, “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). And in Luke 2:51 as well, for what Jesus were doing and saying in his young age, the Bible says that “the mother treasured all these things in her heart.” In this way, Mary kept the words in her heart and chewed over them again and again. Like the seed of life is implanted onto a woman’s body, the word of God was settled in her heart. Figuratively saying, Mary “conceived the word.” John of Damascus, the Syrian monk and priest in the 7^th century, said, “Mary conceived through the ear.” When she heard the word announced by the angel, she received it as if she was receiving God Himself and treasured the word in her heart. She engraved each letter and stroke of the word onto gold, ornamented the engraving with jade, lit lamps around the King’s message, and standing still in front of it, she contemplated it over and over again. Although it thundered too massive and fearful to the little country girl, and although she couldn’t appreciate it fully, Mary grasped the word of God. She enshrined the word in her deep sanctuary, and committed her body and herself to the word by saying, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you said!”

 

What the angel said to Mary was all about Jesus from the beginning to the end. Verse 31-33 says, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” The child to be born of Mary is the Son of God and the Eternal King of Israel. He will be “great,” and is also called “the holy one” in Verse 35. It is surely a great blessing to Mary that Jesus, such a great figure, is born through her body. But how? Isn’t this just God’s taking advantage of her body for his own business? From Mary’s position, she cannot be happy with this calling. She may have to expect the opposite. In fact, according Matthew 1:18ff, Joseph, Mary’s fiancé, when finding that Mary was pregnant before they came together, tried to divorce her quietly. Mary’s hometown Nazareth was a small village and a Judaist community keeping the law and regulations strictly. If Mary was branded as an unclean woman, her entire life could be ruined completely. When she spoke to the angel, “May it be to me as you said,” her inner voice might talk to herself, “If I perish, I will perish” (Esther 4:16). It seems that Mary had to pay too much in order to be the Holy Mother.

 

But in fact, this is the gospel. Conceiving Jesus and giving birth to him is itself truly a blessing to Mary. In his book Incarnation, theologian named Thomas Torrance said this meaningful statement: “Our birth in Christ is a participation in his birth” (p. 91). This is mysterious. In order to be the Holy Mother, Mary gave up everything. In a sense, she died to everything meaningful in her life. Now Jesus was the only and most meaningful being to her. Her life was united with Jesus. Jesus became her life and her light. Figuratively saying, she was born again in Jesus, and with Jesus, she became a totally new creature that had a new life. When we review the angel’s description of the child to be born, we can find that it is also the description of us re-created in Jesus. As Jesus is great, we also become great in Jesus. As Jesus is the holy one, we also become holy in Jesus. As Jesus is the eternal king, we will reign together with him in his kingdom forever. As Jesus is the Son of God, we are also God’s children in Jesus. All these blessings come upon me when I receive the word of God into the sanctuary in my deep heart, and commit my body and my life to God so that the word may come true in me. With this I am conceiving Jesus. And at the same time, I am being conceived in Jesus as a new being, a new creature such glorious and eternal as Jesus himself.

 

The angel calls Mary, “You who are highly favored.” What is God’s favor to us? What is God’s grace upon us? Karl Barth defines “grace” in this way: “Grace is the royal sovereign power of God, the existential presentation of men to God for his disposal, and the real freedom of the will of God in men.” Grace is a certain condition or context in which only God’s royal sovereign power tells, in which I entrust my whole being into the God’s hand, and in which God can do freely whatever he wants to do to me. Mary was entering into this grace when she said, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said!” May the Lord bless us to be a virgin like Mary, having a pure and clean sanctuary in our deep heart, not tainted or tinted by the world but opened only to the word of God, and to enter the grace of God by receiving the word of God and conceiving it until we give birth to Jesus and Jesus gives birth to us!