Untitled Sermon

496 of TDNT: "mostly “to proffer the greeting” which is customary on entering a house or meeting someone on the street or parting. ἀσπασμός consists in such gestures as “embracing,” “kissing,” “offering the hand,”.... It also consists in words, especially a set form of greeting."ἀσπασμός can have "the force of an “official call,”" cf. TDNT note on 496Mary is trying to figure out what the meaning of this angel's greeting address --> really uniqueDivine power of the greeting of the angel Gabriel + then carried forward in the greeting of Mary and Elizabeth. "According to Lk. 1:29 Mary wonders concerning the greeting of the angel: ποταπὸς εἴη ὁ ἀσπασμὸς οὖτος (ἀσπασμός is here a word of greeting). Each greeting has in fact its own ring. The Greek χαῖρε (→ 496), punningly deepened by κεχαριτωμένη, is related to the biblical ὁ κύριος μετὰ σοῦ of Ju. 6:12; Rt. 2:4. In the ἀσπασμός there is proclaimed already something of the wonderful message of grace which the future mother of Christ is at once to receive. / A second greeting of profoundest importance and remarkable power is that with which Mary greets Elisabeth in Lk. 1:40–44. We are not told how it runs, but the (φωνὴ τοῦ ἀσπασμοῦ of Mary stirs the child John in his mother’s womb; it reveals to him the nearness of the mother of Christ. Through the greeting Elisabeth herself is filled with the “Holy Ghost.” Thus here again there operates in the greeting a dynamis of divine character." --> TDNT "2. The ἀσπασμός in Religious Narrative."

Protestant History and Practice

Following the Reformation, the act of praying the Ave Maria became primarily a Catholic practice. The Ave Maria is not part of the Anglican rosary though it is sometimes included in the daily liturgy of the hours or in private devotion. Calvin advocated biblical literacy over the use of the rosary (Knutson Vignol, “Rosary,” 722–23). In Lutheran practice, the Ave Maria is used as a hymn of praise rather than a prayer (Atkinson, Great Light, 203). Luther advocated using only the first half of the prayer in his Little Book on Prayer (Pelikan et al., Word and Sacrament III, 260n158). He went to the Greek (Χαῖρε κεχαριτωμένη, Chaire kecharitōmenē) instead of the Latin (Ave gratia plena) to provide his translation of Gabriel’s adjective for Mary, rendering it along the lines of “gracious” (Ger. “holdselige”), by which he intended to disambiguate the nature of Mary’s favor and emphasize her role as a human recipient of grace (Bluhm, “Luther’s Translation”). His critics, namely Emser, felt Luther had disrespected Mary in this translation, which in their view did not allow Mary her divinely-bestowed grace, but rather made her appear well-liked by other people, but not set apart among them (Bluhm, “Luther’s Translation,” 203).