Week Four of Advent

Luke 1:26–37

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “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,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “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.”

No word from God will ever fail. Those are the angel’s last words to Mary. What God promises he will bring to completion. One thing that separates the true God from all the false idols, all the lesser ‘gods’, is that they can’t keep their word. Idols traffic in false promises, while the God of heaven and earth keeps his word. 

What God promises here is incredible. He promises a son to a virgin, who is to be named Jesus, which in Hebrew means ‘Yahweh saves’. This child will be the Son of the Most High. He will receive the Kingdom of David, which was always promised to reach the ends of the earth. Once he took up the kingdom, he would never ever lose it. His reign will never end. Here is promised the King of kings, the Lord of all lords, the ruler of the nations that would bring about the reign and rule of God. Everything that God had always promised was coming to a head and reaching its fulfillment in this child yet to be born. 

I don’t know if Mary truly understood any of this. Who could have in her position? But what she did know is that no word from God will ever fail and she responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.” Along with John the Baptist, Mary is one of the great heroes of Advent, because she hears and believes the promise of God. We look forward to Jesus’ coming just like Mary; confused, in awe, but utterly confident in the word of our God. We say “May it be so Lord. May Jesus, our savior, come and establish his worldwide, never-ending rule of peace, justice, and mercy.”