At the church where I serve we
are spending the weeks leading up to looking at the opening sections of an
account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of Luke, which records the
announcement of the arrival of Jesus as the Messiah.
This week, I would like for us to pick up where we left off last week. And as we jump
into the next section of this account of Jesus life in the Bible called the
gospel of Luke, we are going to discover another timeless truth when it comes to
how we can respond to announcement of the arrival of Jesus as the Messiah that
marks the Christmas season. So let’s do that together, beginning in Luke 1:26:
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.
Luke brings
us into this section of his account of Jesus life by introducing us to the two
main characters in the event from history that we are going to look at this
morning. The first character that Luke introduces us to is the Angel Gabriel,
who, as we discovered last week, was a an angel of the Lord that was sent by
the Lord on two separate occasions to one of the Jewish people’s most famous
prophets, who was a man named Daniel, some 500 years earlier with another
announcement from the Lord.
Last week,
we saw the Lord send the Angel Gabriel to inform a man named Zacharias that He was going to answer his prayers by supernaturally enabling his wife
Elizabeth to have a son who would be the fulfillment of a promise of a
messenger who would prepare the Jewish people for and to announce the arrival
of the Messiah who would bring the Jewish people back to the Lord and back to prominence
in the world.
Luke tells us that God sent the
angel Gabriel to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, which was a small, rural
town, located about 60 miles north of Jerusalem. Gabriel was sent to Nazareth
in order to deliver a message from God to the second character in this event
from history named Mary, who was a virgin engaged to a man whose name was
Joseph.
Now when Luke refers to Mary as
being a virgin, this phrase does not only refer to her sexual history. In the
culture of the day, this phrase was used to describe a young girl of
marriageable age, which in the
culture of the day would have been between 12-13 years old, and who had not had
sex. So Mary was basically a Junior High age virgin who was engaged to be
married to a slightly older teenager named Joseph, who Luke tells us was of the
descendants of David.
That Joseph
was a descendant of David was significant because God had promised the Jewish
nations most famous king, King David, that one of his descendants would be the
Messiah. So the Jewish people were looking for the descendant of Abraham, from
the line of David that would be the promised Messiah who would bring the Jewish
people back to God and back to prominence in the world.
And Joseph
was a descendant of Abraham from the line of David. However, Joseph is not a
main character in this story; he is only mentioned here as an aside. Luke then
gives us a front row seat as this story unfolds, beginning in Luke 1:28:
And coming in, he said to her,
"Greetings, favored one! The Lord is
with you."
Now this
morning, imagine yourself as Mary: you are a Jr. High girl in a small rural
town. Place yourself in her shoes. Out of the blue, the angel Gabriel, God’s
personal messenger appears and says "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is
with you."
Now, if the
appearance of the angel Gabriel wasn’t enough, let’s take a minute to look at
the greeting itself. The word greetings here, in the language that this letter
was originally written in, is the same word that is translated rejoice in our
English Bibles.
In addition,
the little phrase favored one comes from the same word that is translated
grace. This greeting, if it was to be communicated in the language we use in
our culture today, would have sounded something like this: “Rejoice Mary, for
God is with you and is going to extend grace to you in a way that will
transform your life”. We see Mary’s response to this greeting in verse 29.
But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering
what kind of salutation this was.
When Luke
states that Mary was perplexed at this statement and kept pondering what kind
of salutation this was, he is revealing for us the reality that Mary was
confused and was trying to process what this amazing greeting from this
supernatural being meant. This teenage girl was confused and was considering
the significance of this statement.
Now wouldn’t
you be confused? Wouldn’t you be considering the consequences and significance
of the statement if the angel Gabriel showed up at your door and made such a
statement? But not only was Mary confused; not only was Mary considering the
significance of the angel Gabriel’s statement that “God is with you and is
going to extend grace to you in a way that will transform your life”. There was
something else going on in Mary, which we see revealed in verse 30:
The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary;
To which
Mary was probably thinking “that’s easy for you to say. You’re not a teenage
girl; you are an Angel of the Lord who delivers special messages from the Lord”.
You see, the reason why the Angel Gabriel said “do not be afraid” is because
Mary was afraid. After trying to calm Mary down, Angel Gabriel delivered the
announcement from the Lord to Mary
Tomorrow, we
will look at that announcement…
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