Luke 1.26-38.
The Gospel of Luke begins with
Anyway right after John’s annunciation comes Jesus’s annunciation. And for that, we leave Judea and go to the Galilee, to a little town settled by Bethlehemites called Nazareth, to a young woman—likely in her teens, ’cause they married ’em off young in those days—named Miryam, in Latin “Maria,” in English “Mary.”
Luke 1.26-38 KWL 26 In Elizabeth’s sixth month,- the angel Gabriel is sent by God
- to a Galilean city called Nazareth,
27 to a maiden betrothed- to a man of David’s house named Joseph;
- the maiden’s name is Mary.
28 Coming to her, Gabriel says, “Hello, your honor!- The Lord’s with you.
- {You’re blessed above all women.}”
29 Mary is alarmed by this message,- and speculates about what sort of greeting this is.
30 The angel tells her, “Don’t fear, Mary:- You’ve found grace with God.
31 Look, you’ll conceive in your womb.- You’ll give birth to a son. You’ll name him Jesus.
32 He’ll be great. He’ll be called the Most High’s son.- The Lord will give him his ancestor David’s throne.
33 He’ll be king over Jacob’s house in the age to come.- His kingdom will never end.”
34 Mary tells the angel, “How will this happen?—- since I’ve not been with a man.”
35 In reply the angel tells her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you.- The Most High’s power will envelop you
- and the holy one produced will be called God’s son.
36 And look: Your relative Elizabeth- has conceived a son in her old age.
- This is actually her sixth month—
- and she was called sterile.
37 No word of God is impossible.”38 Mary says, “Look: I’m the Lord’s slave.- I hope it happens according to your word.”
- The angel leaves her.
In Orthodox tradition, Mary was at the Nazareth well, so most Christian art depicts her there, with Gabriel either greeting her, or saying something profound as she looks downward in humility. Something pious, and posed—you know, like artist’s models will do.
Today, the well, and the cave it’s in, is underneath St. Gabriel’s Church in Nazareth. As our tour guide rightly pointed out, if it wasn’t the very place Gabriel appeared to Mary, it doesn’t entirely matter; Mary did go to this well to get water, since it’s Nazareth’s only natural water source. (As a city of 74,000 today, it’s had to tap a number of additional water sources.)
When the art doesn’t depict Mary at a well, it’s often of her at home. Sounds reasonable, ’cause Luke says Gabriel entered, and we usually figure that’d be a building. The Roman Catholics built a chapel, the Basilica of the Annunciation, over the cave where they think Mary’s family lived. Yep, another cave. Caves are all over Israel, and I remind you Jesus was both born in, and buried in, caves. Once again, western art gets it wrong: Mary’s family could hardly have afforded the Roman villas the art regularly depict her in. Nazareth wasn’t in Italy!
A little historical context.
Northern Israel had been systematically conquered by Assyria in the 700s
Then as now, Jews weren’t satisfied with this territory of the “promised land” being occupied by gentiles. So they planted settlements in the area: A few families would move into unoccupied land and homestead there. (Nowadays the land isn’t always unoccupied; the Israelis first drive the Palestinians out, treaty or no treaty, then start building themselves houses. But anyway.) Nazareth was one of those settlements, founded by Bethlehemite families. Like Joseph and Mary’s families. (And since Levites could live anywhere, it explained how Mary was related to Elizabeth: Their families in Bethlehem must’ve intermarried.)
Briefly, about the “sixth month” date in verse 26: Some Christians assume this means the sixth month
But no; Gabriel identifies it as Elizabeth’s sixth month,
Betrothed to Joseph.
Luke identifies Mary as betrothed to
Y’see, in
And yes, I’m fully aware of how not binding marriages are nowadays. People in the first century weren’t always that religious, and divorce was ridiculously easy. All the husband had to do was sign a paper legally freeing his wife, and off she went, to return to her birth family, if they’d have her. Or to fend for herself in the few jobs women could hold back then.
The contract and oaths had to do with the fiancé’s obligations to his wife and her family. Not promises to love and honor. That stuff comes from the New Testament teachings about husbands and wives
Custom was that a suitable length of time was made for the fiancé to put everything in order: Gather the dowry money, sort out his living arrangements, plan the wedding party (yeah, the groom paid for it back then), and tie up all the loose ends. That done, he’d inform his fiancée’s parents, then come collect his bride. By Jesus’s day, collecting the bride had been turned into a surprise event: She didn’t know the day or time her groom would come get her; she just knew it’d be any day now. Yep, it’s exactly like
Suddenly and unexpectedly, the groom and his friends would march in procession to the bride’s house, get her and her friends, and take her to his house. Then they’d celebrate—and the party could last days. No ceremony. Didn’t need one; the groom had already signed the contract. The only difference was now the couple could live together, and have sex.
Jews could marry as soon as they reached adulthood—in other words, at age 13. Mary was likely that age. So was Joseph, although since Jews didn’t care about age difference, he could’ve been anywhere between 13 and death. The idea Jesus’s mom and dad were teenagers still weirds people out nowadays. But it’s historical.
Supernatural conception.
Gabriel greeted Mary with “Hello, your honor! The Lord’s with you.”
The rest of the greeting—“your honor” and “the Lord’s with you”—are not things anyone but royalty expected to hear. Coming from an angel—particularly Gabriel, God’s End Times angel—they were really unexpected. Hence Mary’s utter confusion. Gabriel probably should have started with the more traditional angelic greeting, “Don’t fear.” But angels aren’t infallible, y’know. Only God is.
Anyway, Gabriel got to its point: “You’ll conceive in your womb. You’ll give birth to a son. You’ll name him Jesus.” And so forth. I translated these statements as separate sentences, but they can also be translated as one big long excited run-on sentence, ’cause Gabriel might’ve been just that excited. This was big news.
Mary realized Gabriel wasn’t talking about something which would take place later, like after she was married. This was happening. She was gonna conceive now. God wasn’t gonna wait till her wedding night. Hence her very reasonable question, “How will this happen?—since I’ve not been with a man.” Literally “not known a man,” which is a Hebrew euphemism (like our English “been with a man”) for sex. I don’t know whether Mary knew the nasty Greek myths about how Zeus produced his “sons of god,” but she certainly knew the L
Bluntly, Gabriel’s answer sucks. The Holy Spirit will come upon you? God’s power will envelop you? (Literally
Preachers like to claim it was heroic and brave of Mary to accept this situation. “She was willing to give birth out of wedlock. And back then, if she cheated on Joseph, it was
Nah, not really.
First of all, she wasn’t out of wedlock. Joseph had sworn to marry her. Technically they were married. Custom dictated they’d wait till they lived together before having sex, but horny human beings don’t always follow custom! And if Mary was found to be pregnant, Mary and Joseph’s families would simply have pressured Joseph to speed up the date of their wedding feast. Plenty of Christians still do this, y’know—get hastily married before their kids are born, so everything fits conservative Christian culture’s customs.
Second of all, stoning people to death was no longer legal at that time. It was against Roman law for anyone but Roman rulers to execute people. Yeah, if people were outraged enough, a mob might’ve tried it anyway, Romans or no Romans. But they wouldn’t’ve been in any stoning mood unless Joseph riled them up, and he wanted to dissolve their contract privately.
Any consequences really came down to Joseph. Would he accept Mary’s pregnancy?—and if not, what would he do? Everything depended on what sort of character Joseph had. Was he petty and vindictive? Or was he gracious?
Since we already know from Matthew Joseph was a righteous, outstanding guy, it erases all the anxiety from this story. Yeah, at first Joseph totally didn’t buy Mary’s story. He knew how babies are made, and “God did it” wasn’t acceptable. He decided to end things—and then God ordered him not to, and that was that.
But you’ll notice Joseph didn’t speed up the date of their wedding feast: She was still called his betrothed when Jesus was born.
Preachers likewise claim Mary gave God permission to do this: “May your word to me be fulfilled,” as the
As I wrote previously, women were consdiered wards of their families or husbands. According to the Law, if she agreed to anything—even if she swore to God!—her father or husband could easily overturn it.
Still, she did wish to go along with God’s plan, which is what
This, I think, describes a much better sort of faith than Mary heroically saying, “Do it; I give consent.” It was, “I’m not in control of these circumstances, but you are.” It was putting herself entirely into God’s hands, as opposed to defying her parents and fiancé and society, and conceiving Jesus no matter what these folks wanted. It wasn’t Mary defiantly striking out on her own. That’s a very American idea, but it’s not how God works. He strikes out on his own, and we faithfully follow him.
So here we see some of the character qualities which made Mary an outstanding mother for Jesus. God knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t choose his mother lightly.
