Scripture

Luke 1: 28-30

And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her,“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

Muse

You’d think the angel’s opening line would’ve been good news to Mary. He called her “favored one”: literally, one “having been graced” by God. And if that wasn’t clear enough, he echoed a refrain that would’ve been top-of-mind for a young Jewish girl: “the Lord is with you.” Indeed, Mary had likely grown up hearing those words from Moses’ farewell to Israel at the edge of the Promised Land (Deut. 31:8), God’s reminder to Joshua on the eve of battle (Jos. 1:9), and Isaiah’s song despite impending judgment (Is. 41:10). So if Gabriel was painstakingly clear, why was Mary not only afraid but also confused? Why did he have to tell her twice that she had found favor with God?

Of course, the simple answer is that this encounter wasn’t normal. Mary’s is a candid and predictable reaction to heaven breaking into earth. Especially after 400 years of silence from God, she had good reason to second guess the intentions of her visitor.

But that answer, though simple, is incomplete. She knew God had done things like this before. And she knew a Savior was coming. What if she was bemused because she couldn’t imagine that God was with her, a teenage girl from a working-class family in a little town called Nazareth?

Mary had come to terms with her unremarkable life. Ignored by the world, she had been convinced that favor is for those who deserve it. But the angel came with a different message: She had favor with God precisely because she didn’t deserve it. No wonder she was “greatly troubled” at first. The shocking truth rebuked a fallacy in her self-image.

So Gabriel reassured her. Gently, he replaced her false feelings of unworthiness with the surprising reality of grace. Even the least in the eyes of the world are not beyond the presence of God. As He had done with Gideon, David, and others before her, God would defy human expectations and do something remarkable in Mary’s unremarkable life. And the baby she would carry would debunk all her fear and insecurity as soon as she said His name: “Emmanuel”– God with us.

Our World

If the modern presumption is that God is either dead or absent, something else must fill the human need for self-worth and purpose. Some have tried to manufacture their own value and meaning by simply embracing their “uniqueness.” But treating self-worth as a brute fact ignores our need to be valued by someone outside ourselves. Others, then, have tried to find it in the audience of the world. But the striving will never stop; a short attention span is reserved for the ones who earn it.

So how many young people today would react like Mary did to the message of grace? Wouldn’t they be afraid that the sources of meaning they were sold are counterfeit? Wouldn’t they be confused by a God who doesn’t force them to earn His presence? Wouldn’t the angel’s words shock them?

But that is the point. As C.S. Lewis reminds us, “[r]eality . . . is usually something you could not have guessed.” The good news of Christmas is that a life dependent for meaning on our own will or others’ approval—what we thought was real—is a fiction. The reality is that the Lord over all has made us “accepted” (Eph. 1:6). Or as Gabriel put it, “favored ones.”

Is there anyone in your life that needs to hear this truth? How do we remind ourselves of the reality of grace when the world around us seems more real?

Prayer

Lord, who am I that you would be mindful of me? I’ve done nothing to merit life with You, and still You have promised to be with me. In this season, may I remember that I have value and purpose because You have accepted me, and may I share this unexpected hope with a world that desperately needs it. Amen.