The Angels’ Announcement to Mary

THANKS TO THE INCREASINGLY PERVASIVE ROLE of the mass media, people of every generation have heard some very memorable, and at times unexpected, news announcements. Such declarations, both print and broadcast, concerned crucial events that shaped the history of the past century. As huge, staggering, and widely proclaimed as modern news announcements were, each is inconsequential when compared to the startling and far-reaching announcement of Jesus Christ’s birth, which Mary heard from the angel Gabriel. That simple, lovely, unmistakably clear narrative explicitly features the divine character of the event. There is no more miraculous, compelling announcement in all of history than that which opens Luke’s familiar and beloved account of the birth of our Lord:

26 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” 29 But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. 30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. 32 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. 33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

I. THE DIVINE MESSENGER

A. The best way to grasp the significance of the angel’s announcement is to look at it from God’s perspective.

Everything about the proclamation was divine, including first of all its divine messenger. That God would send a message by means of a holy angel for the second time in less than a year was in itself amazing. God’s people had not seen or heard from an angel in more than four hundred years. During that time there had been no revelation from the Lord, no miracle, and certainly no sequence of miracles.

For the second time in the span of a few months the same angel appeared, both times with an extraordinary birth announcement to an ordinary person.

B. Gabriel is one of only two angels who are actually named in the Bible.

Luke 1:26 identifies the divine messenger as Gabriel, the same angel who came a few months earlier to the priest Zacharias with news about John the Baptist’s birth. Gabriel is God’s supreme messenger, who brought great, glorious, and crucial announcements from heaven.

Gabriel is God’s supreme messenger, who brought great, glorious, and crucial announcements from heaven. Gabriel delivered the most astounding and significant birth announcement ever. And it was even more incredible because he brought it directly from the throne of God.

II. THE PERSON OF DIVINE CHOICE

A. God’s choice of the special person who would be Jesus’ mother.

Not only did the Father send an angel to a small, obscure town in Galilee, to one specific house—He also chose one of its residents to have a major role in the birth of Jesus. That person was a young teenager named Mary. The name Mary is the Greek form of the Hebrew Miriam and means “exalted one.”

Beyond that, we know virtually nothing about Mary’s background, because the Bible does not tell us anything.

B. Mary’s marital status followed the normal Jewish practice.

Girls were engaged at twelve or thirteen years of age and married at the end of the engagement period. That practice ensured that adolescent girls maintained their virginity until marriage.

When you think about it, God’s sovereign choice of Mary to be the mother of Jesus is most astonishing. Out of all the women He could have chosen—queens, princesses, sisters or daughters of the wealthy and influential—He chose an unknown, unassuming young woman named Mary from an obscure village called Nazareth. But God’s plans and purposes often do not unfold in the manner we, as humans, would have selected.

III. THE DIVINE BLESSING TO MARY

A. The angel’s incredible message is indeed from God and contains His blessing.

28 And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” 29 But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. 30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

Gabriel merely entered the house and greeted Mary with a friendly “hello” (usually translated “hail” or “rejoice”). Mary, who was apparently alone and preparing food at the time, must have received the angel’s greeting as a definite understatement. But there was a reason the greeting did not come with elaborate heavenly fanfare or intense drama. Divine wisdom undoubtedly knew a low-key introduction would prevent Mary from panicking.

Mary had never seen an angel before; and such a phenomenon could have frightened her, since she was an inexperienced youth. So a calm, reassuring, human-style voice was best for this most special situation.

B. The divine blessing sovereignly bestowed on Mary was nothing less than God’s grace.

For centuries some have not embraced that truth, but instead have been misled by accepting an inaccurate translation of Luke 1:28. Commentators, writers, and theologians have spread the familiar but wrong rendering, “Hail, Mary, full of grace.” That has led millions to accept the seriously incorrect belief that Mary is the source of immeasurable grace, which she bestows on others.

Simply reading and understanding the entirety of Gabriel’s opening statement easily refutes that heresy: “‘highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!’… ‘you [Mary] have found favor with God’” (vv. 28, 30). Those words are not praising Mary for her inherently virtuous, godly, or worthy character. The angel’s message to her simply said that God had freely chosen to give grace to Mary—that is what made her favored and blessed.

Gabriel had to use such an expression because, before God, Mary was unworthy in her own strength. That means she was a sinner, and sinners need God’s grace. In that sense, Mary was just like you and me—she had no grace to dispense, because she needed the saving grace only God can give. Therefore, she was the recipient of grace, not the source or bestower of it.

C. God affirmed that He had extended His grace to Mary for no other reason than it suited His good pleasure and perfect plan.

The issue was not Mary’s individual worthiness or human merit; it was God’s sovereign choice. God exercised the same prerogative centuries earlier when He spared Noah and his family from the Flood: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6:8).

God’s special blessing to Mary, granted in the opening act of the wonderful drama of Christ’s birth, boldly highlights the truth that the Lord gives no grace to those who refuse Him. But as with His unique graciousness to Mary, He grants abundant grace to His chosen ones.