Luke 1:26-37: Do You Believe?

Presented to the Nipawin Corps 24 December 2008
and the Swift Current Care Centre (abridged), 17 December 2011
and Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 24 December 2011
by Captain Michael Ramsay

Luke 1:26: In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,

This sixth-month referred to here by Luke is the sixth month of Elisabeth’s pregnancy. Elisabeth, as we know from earlier in this chapter of Luke, is Mary’s relative but Mary was quite young and Elisabeth and her husband Zechariah were old and 3 months from now Elisabeth is about to have a baby. The messenger, the angel who went to speak to Elisabeth’s husband was Gabriel. Here Gabriel is bringing another message from God about a miraculous birth but this time he is bringing the message of a very significant birth to a very insignificant fishing town, in an insignificant region, of insignificant Palestine (John 1:36).

Gabriel, the angel, the messenger of God is bringing this message…

Verse 27: to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant. of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

Mary was a young woman. Mary was a virgin. Mary was pledged, betrothed, engaged to be married to Joseph. Now Joseph was a descendant of King David. King David was the first king of an hereditary dynasty that lasted for the better part of a millennium. Now Palestine is occupied. It is prophesied that her deliverer will be a member of the southern tribe of Judah and a descendant of King David. And Joseph – and any of his legal children – even though he is living in the north, Joseph is a descendent of David and Joseph is betrothed to be married to Mary (Cf. 1:32, 2:4).

Now betrothal is not quite like engagements of today. In those days a man and his wife were committed to each other at the engagement ceremony.[1] They did have a public ceremony with witnesses and the more. They did each gain a marital status, complete with rights and responsibilities and if Joseph had died after their engagement ceremony but prior to their marriage ceremony, Mary would still be considered a widow with all the responsibilities and rights (or lack thereof) of a widow. The betrothal was very different then anything we have today and even though Mary would be Joseph’s legal wife, after this engagement ceremony rather than going off to live with one’s husband, the wife usually returned to her father’s household for a period of up to a year.[2] It was different than today.

But this was Mary’s situation when…

Verse 28: The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.”

There are a few things here that need examining by us – not the least of which is the idea of an angel coming to speak to Mary. We must remember that the word for ‘angel’ (aggelos) simply means messenger. We also know from elsewhere in the scriptures that there are times when people –like Gideon (Judges 6); like Manoah and his wife, Samson’s mother (Judges 13); possibly like Jacob at Jabbok (Gen. 32), and even like Abraham (Gen. 13); did not realize that they were entertaining heavenly messengers. They did know they were dealing with angels as we immediately think of angels. It is possible that Mary did not recognise Gabriel as a heavenly messenger from God yet.

The Pharisees at this time certainly had developed a theology of angels providing a form of mediation between God and human beings but not everyone ascribed to it at this time and indeed angles were indeed rare in the understanding of early Judaism.[3] It is quite possible that she did recognise him as such it would be understandable that…

Luke 1:29: Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
 
It is equally likely though that she did recognise Gabriel as an angel, as a spiritual being, and this in and of itself was not necessarily comforting. In our day and age we often think of angels as nice spirit-beings (usually in the form of a woman with wings and a ring or a halo over her head) and just about incapable of deviating from the perfect will of God. This is not how people saw angels in Mary’s time though. Angels were seen as free moral agents who would just as likely appear to do you harm as to do you good.

The Apostle Paul, a later contemporary of Mary, writes about angels a few times in his letters that have been preserved in the New Testament. None of these accounts is very flattering at all (Romans 8:38-39; Galatians 3:19-20; Colossians 2:18-19). At best he portrays angels as these free creatures who can to either uphold or oppose the work of God.[4]

There is also a story of Tobit, in the Apocrypha, with which Mary was more than likely very familiar. This story is about an angel who shows up on a bride’s wedding night and kills her husband.[5] Angels were certainly not always seen as good.

So, there is some reason why at the appearance of Gabriel, that Mary might be troubled…

Luke 1:30: But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God.
 
This reminds us of the earlier story of her relative Elisabeth’s husband who was indeed chosen for a purpose by God and notified through this very same angel only a few short verses before.

And just like the Priest Relative and his wife, Mary is told that…
 
Verse 31: You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.
 
Like Gabriel told Zechariah exactly what he was to name his son (1:13), he also dictated to Mary, what it was that her son was to be called. Mary was to name her son ‘Jesus’, which is the Greek version of the Hebrew name ‘Yeshua’ or ‘Joshua’ and this name means ‘YHWH is help or salvation’ or ‘the one through whom YHWH brings salvation’[6] (cf. Matt 1:22). And we know that just as Joshua led the people of Israel into the promised land. Jesus leads humankind into the eternal promised land.

Jesus is to be the Messiah…

Verse 32: 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,

Joseph is of the house of David, in the clan of Judah. Jesus is of the clan of Judah and the house of David. The expected Messiah, the Christ is to be of the house of David, the clan of Judah (Cf. vv.32-33; 2 Sam 7; Isaiah 9:7; Heb 1:5;)…

Verse 33: and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
 
We know now that, this side of the cross, after the resurrection, we know that indeed Jesus will reign forever as the wonderful counsellor, mighty God, and Prince of Peace whose government will never stop ruling and being peaceful as the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 9:6-7) tells us, but Mary did not necessarily know this;

So it is understandable that she questions the angel…

Verse 34, “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

There are times when the word virgin can be translated simply as young woman. There are other times when the word specifically refers to what we – in our world – would use it to mean: a woman who has not been with a man. Certainly here the author of ‘Luke’ is making it known that May has not known a man in that way[7]…

Verse 35: The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon 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.

This was to be no ordinary bi rth and even as miraculous as is the birth of John the Baptist to an elderly couple (1:57ff.), the birth of God’s own son to a virgin is even more miraculous. The Holy Spirit, who was there at the creation of the world (Genesis 1:2; John 1; Cf. also Exodus 40:35; 1 Kings 8:10; Ezekiel 26:14; Haggai 2:6-7) is present in the conception of Jesus as it is written.

As a way of verifying all this – which must be quite something for Mary to understand, after all Mary is just a very young women about to be married – as a way of verifying this almost incredible experience to Mary, that all she is seeing, hearing, and experiencing here is true, the angel, Gabriel, tells her about her relative Elisabeth. Mary did not necessarily know that her much older relative was going to have a baby. She does now because Gabriel tells her that…

Verse 36: Even Elisabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month.
 
This is a sign to Mary. Mary should believe. Mary has been chosen of God, not because of anything that it is recorded that she did.[8] She was chosen by grace just like we are chosen by grace and Mary does believe the angel Gabriel…

Verse 37: For nothing is impossible with God.”
 
This is true and so the question for us today is just this. Do we believe in angels? Do we believe in heavenly messages and do we believe in miracles from God? Do we know that nothing is impossible with God? Do we really know and believe?

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[1] E. Earle Ellis, 71.
[2] R. Alan Culpepper, 51.
[3] Craddock, 27.
[4] Craddock, 27.
[5] R. Alan Culpepper, 51.
[6] Lenski, 65; Ellis, 73.
[7] Culpepper, 51. Lenski, 69; Cf. Ellis, 75, for an interesting discussion on the placement of this verse in the text.
[8] Cf. Craddock 27-28.