Luke 1.26-38.
Last week John’s birth was foretold; this week Jesus’s. Goes like so.
Luke 1.26-38 KWL - 26 In Elizabeth’s sixth month,
- the angel Gabriel was sent by God
- to a Galilean town called Nazareth,
- 27 to a young woman affianced to a man of David’s house, named Joseph;
- a young woman named Mary.
- 28 Entering, the angel said, “Hail, your honor!
- The Lord’s with you.
- [You’re blessed above all women.]”
- 29 Mary was alarmed by this message,
- and was speculating about what this greeting meant.
- 30 The angel told 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 told the angel, “How will this happen?—
- since I’ve not been with a man.”
- 35 In reply the angel told 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 said, “Look: I’m the Lord’s slave.
- I hope it happens according to your word.”
- The angel left 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 has to tap a few 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 got it wrong: Mary’s family could hardly have afforded the Roman villas they often depict her in. Nazareth was just not that sort of town.