Notes on The Annunciation to Mary

In Elizabeth’s sixth month the angel Gabriel is sent from God to Nazareth in Galilee, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.  Both Mary and Joseph are of the house of David.  Mary is betrothed, or formally pledged, to Joseph, but they have not yet come together and Mary is still living in the home of her parents.  Tradition and the common practice of those times tell us that Mary would have been around fourteen years old. 

Here we come to the heart of a Christian doctrine that many find challenging, but the issue is not that of a Virgin Birth, but rather of a Virginal Conception.  Any virgin nine months pregnant is going to give birth, that is not the miracle; the conception is.  The actual miracle is microscopic; the size of one sperm, the divine seed that forever unites God with human flesh. This event is the hinge of history, even though secularists today flee away from BC and AD.

While the angel who appears to Joseph remains unidentified, the angel who appears to Zechariah (Lk. 1:11-12) is same Gabriel who appeared to Daniel (Daniel 8:16; 9: 21), and the same one who appears to Mary.   This appearance to Zechariah was actually the first of the angelic appearances that ended the long drought of the famine of the hearing of the words of the Lord prophecied by Amos. (Amos 8:11-12).  

Gabriel’s first word to Mary is often translated, “Greetings,” or “Hail” but it also means “Rejoice.”  “Rejoice, Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you.”  The phrase “O favored one” is translated by the Latin Vulgate as “gratia plena” or “full of grace.”  The unmerited favor, the grace of the Holy Spirit rests on her in unusual measure.

We are told that Mary is troubled, or agitated by the greeting.  She tries to puzzle out what the greeting means.  Being genuinely “gratia plena,” full of grace she was probably quite unaware that she was at all unusual.  Self-awareness often spoils potential saintliness.  The angel says, “Do not be afraid” you have found grace (charis) with God.  She need not fear the grace she has received, it is an unmerited gift from God, it is divine favor, the steadfast covenant love of God that rests upon her.

The angel Gabriel is clear and direct in his declaration, “Behold, look, you shall conceive in the womb, and bear, give birth, to a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, Yeshua, God Saves.”  Mary understands this to mean now, not at some distant time.  Today you have to go to your obstetrician in order to determine the gender of a child, but not Mary and not in this situation.  The child is to be the prophesied Messiah, and as response to ancient prophesy is to be a male child, a son.  Further the child is to be named Jesus, Yeshua; a short form of Yehoshua, meaning Yahweh is Salvation. 

The implications of the Name are not made clear at this point and we await the strong hint of pain that comes in the prophecy of Simeon “a sword shall pierce through your own soul also” (Luke 2:35).  But now only the troubling statement of Gabriel is on Mary’s mind.  Mary is without doubt well aware of her lineage, and the lineage of Joseph.  They are of the house of Judah, descendants of David.  But they are poor relatives, not wealthy prominent heirs.  To the least of David’s line the promise is given. 

The angel’s message in some sense seems unlikely, or at the very least, a bit of a stretch.  “He shall be called the Son of the Most High” (v. 32).  The expression “the Most High” is drawn from an Old Testament Name for God, “El Elyon” which means “God Most High” (Genesis 14:18; Psalm 57:2 and other places).  To this Jesus, son of God Most High, the Lord God (Yahweh Elohim in Genesis 2:4) will give the throne of his father David.  At Gabriel’s declaration of the coming Incarnation, the highest Names of God are evoked, and that for a reason.  We are to understand that it is no less than YHWH [Yahweh] who is initiating this act of divine humility. 

There is in verse 33 an interesting twist, this child to be born will rule over the house of Jacob forever.  Often the phrase “house of Jacob” refers not only to Israel in general, but to the Northern Kingdom.  Both the house of David, the tribe of Judah, and the displaced house of Jacob that once held sway from Samaria will be ruled by him.  Of his kingdom there will be no end, even though earthly kingdoms come and go.

Mary asks a simple question, not as a matter of doubt; and she may well have known the Messianic prophecy, “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Isaiah 7:14).  The question is rather an enquiry into how this is going to take place.  She also makes it clear that she herself is a virgin.  Certainly the angel treats the question in this light.  He says “The Holy Spirit, the Ruach Ha Kodesh: will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you.”  The phraseology harkens back to the anointing of David by the Holy Spirit, “Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers And the Spirit of YHWH (LORD) rushed, came mightily upon him from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13). 

Mary is to experience a distinct and powerful anointing, a veritable baptism of the Holy Spirit who will overshadow her like the Shekinah Kabod, the Cloud of Glory that both accompanies and cloaks the manifestation of the Living God.  Because of that anointing, the child “will be called holy—the Son of God (v.35).  The angel Gabriel further encourages Mary with the news that her previously barren cousin Elizabeth is in her sixth month, because “No rhema (not ‘nothing’ but no personal word from God, will be impossible with God.”  As God has spoken his word to Zechariah, and to Mary, He will fulfill it, for no prophetic word is impossible with Him. Mary’s answer is one of humble submission and acceptance, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  Let it be to me according to your rhema, according to your prophetic word” (v. 38).