QUARANTINE BLOG # 363

March 28, 2021

If This Is What it Means to Be Favored, I’m Not Sure I Want It!

“The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call his name Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.  And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.  Then Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man?’” (Luke 1:30-34 NKJV).

For a moment, imagine you have a teenage daughter, and she walks nervously into your room and says, “Uh, Mom, Dad, I have something to tell you.”

You are expecting her to tell you about a bad day at school, or a lost doll, or at worst, one of the animals she takes care of has died, but she says, “I’m pregnant!”

Mom starts crying.  Dad doubles up his fists, and says, “Where’s that scruffy, no good carpenter you’ve been hanging around with?”

Your little girl puts her hands up in a gesture to stop you and says, “You don’t understand!  I am virgin!”

And while you are both still reeling, she says, “I was visited by an angel who said I would give birth to God’s Son.”

It takes some doing, but your little angel convinces you she is telling the truth.  Now, what will the neighbors say?

Six months earlier, the same angel, Gabriel, had predicted the birth of John, the miracle son of Elizabeth and Zechariah.  Now Gabriel is sent to Nazareth, and given another commission.  From the point of view of earthly thinking the message he must deliver is even more unpredictable.

The contrast between the two settings is revealing.  The announcement about John came to a priest in the midst of a public worship service at the high holy place of Israel’s capital.  The announcement about Jesus comes privately to a humble young woman in an unremarkable rural village.  

Gabriel was not sent by God to Rome, or to Jerusalem, but to Nazareth, a little Galilean town with a bad reputation.  Nazareth is never mentioned in the Old Testament.  It is never mentioned in the writings of the historian Josephus.  But it was to Nazareth that Gabriel was sent.  

Well, then, the womb that will carry this greatest treasure of all is a princess, right?  No, it is that of a virgin pledged to be married to the village carpenter!  

“Greetings, highly favored one,” Gabriel says.  Mary was perplexed by Gabriel’s introductory remarks.  She is mulling this over, “what manner of greeting this was.”  She heard that God was with her and that she was an object of his grace.  What was God going to do to her?  She is going to have a son, God the son.

Debate the Greek, discuss the historiography of Luke, but Mary settles the issue.  “I have never had sex with a man!  I cannot be pregnant!”

“Therefore also the holy offspring will be called the Son of God,” Gabriel says.  Therefore.  That’s it.  All wrapped up.  Mary, you have a clear understanding, right?  No!  Neither God nor Gabriel demand that Mary must understand everything she was told.  What is required of her is only this, that she believes and willingly submits.

Mary said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.”  She is eager to be the handmaid of the Lord, ready to do his will and be used to carry out his purpose – whether she understands it all or not.  

Mary was young, poor, female – all characteristics that, to the people of her day, would make her seem unusable by God for any major task.  But God chose Mary for one of the most important acts of obedience he has ever demanded of anyone. 

You may feel that your ability, experience, or education makes you an unlikely candidate for God’s service.  Don’t limit God’s choices.  He can use you if you trust him.  Take him at his word.

We can trust God to perform his promises.  He will do it at his own time and his own way, but it will come to pass.  Our attitude should be, “Use me as you will.  I will not refrain from serving because I do not feel qualified or useable.”

I started to call this devotion, “With God, Nothing Is Impossible.”  But I think this title is a better fit: “If This Is What it Means to Be Favored, I’m Not Sure I Want It!”

To “find favor” is an expression that is used frequently in the OT.  Gideon finds favor, asks for a sign and is chosen to judge Israel (Judges 6:17).  Hannah finds favor and receives the child she asked for (1 Samuel 1:18).  David finds favor and is allowed to restore the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 15:25).  

In each of those three cases, the phrase involves a requested granted on the condition that they had found favor with God.  But with Mary, the favor was announced without any request.  It was freely bestowed.  She is a picture of those who receive God’s grace on the basis of his kind initiative.  It is what Methodists call “prevenient grace” – the grace that goes before; the wooing of our souls by the Lord God Almighty before we ever knew we needed him.

To accept God’s plan might involve her in potential problems with Joseph.  She will be exposed to painful criticism and ridicule; perhaps even death – “If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor’s wife” (Deuteronomy 22:23-24) – but she made a complete surrender.  

God’s favor does not automatically bring instant success or fame.  His blessing on Mary, the honor of being the mother of the Messiah, would lead to much pain: her peers would ridicule her; her fiance would consider leaving her; it would be a difficult journey to the town where she would give birth, birthing would be under unsettling, unsanitary, isolated, and traumatic conditions.  Eventually her Son would be rejected and murdered.

But through her Son would come the world’s only hope, and this is why Mary has been praised by countless generations as the young girl who “found favor with God.”  Only in retrospect do we grasp all that was included in Gabriel’s admonition, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

William Barclay says, “Mary had learned to forget the world’s commonest prayer – ‘Thy will be changed’ – and to pray the world’s greatest prayer – ‘Thy will be done.’”

There is risk in agreeing to go God’s way, but as the Lord’s servant, Mary willingly accepts it.  She literally says, “Let this be whenever he pleases.”  Moffatt translates Mary’s response as, “I am here to serve the Lord.  Let it be as you have said.”

Perhaps like Mary, you are facing discouragement, or despair, or an unexpected change of direction, or a loss which dims your hope.  Now the Still, Small Voice of God whispers, “You have found favor.”  What is your response?  Do you answer, “Let it be as you have said” or something else?

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