Advent – Day 13
“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.’” – Luke 1:26-28
What comes to your mind when you think of the word “favored”? If you’re anything like me, you may think of some kind of privilege, perhaps economic riches or mental aptitude that rivals everyone else. Maybe it’s a specific talent or a coveted gifting. What we likely don’t think of when we hear the word “favored” is oppression, poverty or geographical insignificance. And yet those are Mary’s conditions when the angel Gabriel appears to her and addresses her with these words: “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary is a poor, unwed, teenage girl living in the insignificant town of Nazareth. Based on her conditions and her position, the world wouldn’t have deemed her as favored. And yet that’s exactly how Gabriel greets her. Because God’s economy is radically different than ours. Throughout scripture, he doesn’t use the wealthy, the qualified or the gifted. Rather he chooses the poor, the unqualified and the least talented. He used a stuttering adopted child to free the Israelite people from the oppression of Egypt. He used a lowly country shepherd with a simple slingshot to defeat a giant and win a battle. He used an orphaned teenage girl to ransom her people from the murderous threat of annihilation. And here he uses Mary. Because God isn’t in the business of calling the qualified; he’s in the business of qualifying the called.
Throughout history he has used the marginalized, the cast-aside, the weak and the oppressed to bring about ransom, rescue, reconciliation and redemption. And he’s going to do it again through Mary. But this time, he won’t just bring about ransom and redemption for the Israelites. He will usher in salvation to the ends of the earth for all who believe. This time, the Lord is going to use a lowly girl from the unlearned region of Galilee to bring about the Savior for all mankind.
Many of us are so familiar with the Christmas story that we miss the appalling weight of this reality. To us, the details of the nativity story are expected. But that wasn’t the case in ancient Israel. Everything about the unfolding of these circumstances was unexpected. The religious elite didn’t anticipate such a humble arrival. You and I are familiar with the young mother and father, with the lack of vacancy, with the manger and the little town of Bethlehem. But the religious elite didn’t expect such humility, such poverty, such want. In The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Alfred Edersheim writes “It is necessary here to recall our general impression of Rabbinism: its conception of God, and of the highest good and ultimate object of all things, as concentrated in learned study, pursued in Academies; and then to think of the unmitigated contempt with which they were wont to speak of Galilee, and of the Galileans, whose very patois [dialect] was an offence …”
The religious elite didn’t expect the messiah to arrive through a Galilean girl. And yet this way of Jesus’ coming foreshadows the way of his being. He came forth through the least of these to come unto the least of these … unto the lonely, the heartbroken, the poor, the marginaziled … unto us. This is the glorious reality of Christmas. That the breath of Heaven breathed on the least of these and brought forth the greatest of these. That the arrival of the most extraordinary gift arrived through the most ordinary means. Jesus, who holds space for you and me, took up space in the womb of a woman. And all of heaven and earth rejoices at the unfolding of this eternal plan.
Today, if you relate to the least of these … if you find yourself impoverished or heartbroken or sick … dear one, he came for YOU! The announcement of the conception of God’s son came to a young girl who understood the ache of poverty and the hardship of an insignificant position. And yet the angel called her highly favored and the son of God took up residence within her. And he does the same for you and I today. Jesus comes unto every single one of us who receives him and gives us the gift of life and salvation. I pray the blessed audacity of that floods you heart! Dear Lord, we come to you and pray that the miraculous events of the arrival of your son would fall fresh on us. Don’t let us become immune to the unfolding of your plan and to the reality that you brought your son through the least of these so he could come to the least of these. We are overwhelmed with gratitude and wonder at the goodness and the grace of your plan. Thank you for Jesus. Thank for the humility of his birth. Thank you for the redemption of his cross.
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