Mary has been described as the best supporting character in the greatest drama placed on the stage of history – the drama of which Jesus was the star. Unfortunately, we know little about her. The first time she appears on the stage of history, is when she was “promised in marriage to a man named Joseph, who was a descendant of King David” (Luke 1.27 GNB).
Now in Jewish society of that day engagement (or betrothal) was a much more serious affair than it is today. In first century Palestine engagement was as binding as marriage and could only be dissolved by divorce. Should the man to whom the girl was engaged die, then in the eyes of the law she became a widow. It is no exaggeration to say that nothing but death could break an engagement.
Mary had probably not even reached her teens, for engagement normally took place in a girl’s thirteenth year: i.e. she was twelve years old. She would have been still living at home with her parents in Nazareth. It was only at the end of the year-long engagement that girls were taken into the home of their husbands, and it was then that sexual relationships began. Mary was a virgin (see Luke 1.27, 34).
God sent the angel Gabriel (Luke 1.26) to Mary to give her a message from God. Precisely how he came and in what form he came, we do not know. Gabriel prefaced his message by stressing the privilege that was about to be bestowed on Mary. “Peace be with you… the Lord… has greatly blessed you” (Luke 1.28 GNB); literally, “Greetings favoured one!” (Luke 1.28 NRSV). The implication is that this favour or blessing is undeserved. It is all of grace. Unfortunately the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible understood Mary as deserving God’s favour: “Hail Mary full of grace”, which Roman Catholics take to believe that God chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus, because of the special grace which was hers. From this misinterpretation of the text arose the belief in Mary’s immaculate conception: namely, it was Mary’s unique experience of grace which preserved her from original sin and from sinning during her life. But the fact is that Mary was just an ordinary village girl, whom God in his grace had chosen.
Luke tells us that Mary was “deeply troubled by the angel’s message” (Luke 1.29 GNB). For as Gabriel went on, she discovered that the particular favour or blessing which she was to experience was that she was to conceive and to give birth to a son, whom she should name Jesus (i.e. ‘the Lord saves’). What an amazing message! Every woman believes her first-born child to be special, but Mary’s child is in another league.
Mary’s first thought was not about the identity of her son, but about the fact that she is to give birth to a son: “I am a virgin. How then can this be?” (Luke 1.34). For Mary the thought of having a child during her year of engagement was unthinkable. For what is clearly implied is a virgin birth – or rather a virgin conception, and virgin conceptions do not happen. Mary knew that, and so too Luke and his readers. However, once we believe in the God of creation and resurrection, difficulties in believing in the virgin birth disappear. In the words of John Taylor, a former bishop of St Albans:
I find it easier to accept that when God chose to reveal himself in human life, he did it as a one-off exercise rather than go through what the bureaucrats call ‘the usual channels’. A Saviour of the world, without a touch of the miraculous at the beginning, the middle and the end of his life, I would find totally perplexing!
Gabriel did not attempt to rationalize the virgin birth. Instead, he assigned all responsibility to God: “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and God’s power will rest upon you”. Just as the Holy Spirit was active in the creation of the world (Genesis 1.2), so here he is active in a new creation. Gabriel went on to give an instance of the creative power of God. He pointed to the unusual fact of Elizabeth’s pregnancy – she was both old and infertile, and yet she was already six months pregnant. This was a sign of God’s ability to surprise. For “there is nothing God cannot do” (Luke 1.37 GNB”); “nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1.37 NRSV).
Mary quietly accepted God’s will for her life: “I am the Lord’s servant, may it happen to me as you have said” (Luke 1.38). She recognized that she had no option: for as “the Lord’s servant” (literally, his slave), God’s wish was her command. Yet Mary was no puppet on a string. She could have rejected God’s calling on her life. Instead she said ‘Yes’ to God’s initiative of grace. “May it happen to me as you have said” (Luke 1.38). Whereupon Gabriel departed, his mission accomplished.