The God of Love

Luke 1:26–38 NIV

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” 29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” 34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.” 38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Love of Another Kind

The love of a good mother is a wonderful thing—so wonderful, in fact, that a holiday has been set aside to celebrate it. Because of that, if we aren’t careful, we can read today’s text through that lens. If we read this text through the lens of two mothers who love their children, we could miss the truly miraculous things about this text that are much deeper than that. To reduce this text to the love of two mothers—Elizabeth and her relative Mary—would be in some sense to place love in a box reserved for biological connection. And that would miss the very miraculous ways in which this story subverts biology altogether—Elizabeth being far too old to conceive or give birth, and Mary being a virgin. But it would also miss something even greater: that love, true love, while not reserved to those with biological connection, is also not just about feeling or connection. Love has something very much to do with faithfulness. And while the faithfulness of a good mother might be a blessing for some, our belovedness is not contingent on our own faithfulness. Rather, it relies completely upon the neverending faithfulness of God.

Zechariah and Elizabeth become part of an old tradition of God miraculously doing something new.

“In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy” is an important beginning place for this text because the miracle of the conception of John the Baptist sets the stage for another miraculous conception. The sixth month is also past when a person can hide a pregnancy, and by the sixth month, there is no doubt whether the pregnancy is viable: the child’s movements and life can be felt.

The narrative of Elizabeth’s pregnancy echoes miraculous pregnancy narratives and God’s abounding faithfulness from the Old Testament.

Sarah conceived in her old age.

Hannah prayed fervently for a child at the temple.

Samuel was dedicated as a Nazirite, which meant he could never drink wine. The angel Gabriel tells Zechariah that John is never to drink wine either.

God worked in unexpected ways throughout the Old Testament, in order to illustrate God’s faithful love for the children of God, even though there are numerous examples that the children of God did not always reciprocate God’s faithfulness.

The narrative of John the Baptist’s conception seems to be an ending to the age of the prophets. Something new is coming.

Even the conception narrative of John the Baptist seems to point forward to something new.

John is going to be like Elijah the prophet: he is going to bring back people to the Lord; he is going to prepare the way for the Lord.

The muteness of Zechariah also seemingly points to something greater coming.

Mary also becomes part of an old tradition with a something-new twist.

The announcement of Mary’s pregnancy (often called the Annunciation) in many ways also echoes the birth narratives from the Old Testament and of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.

There is an angel delivering a message, even repeating “do not be afraid,” as so many others have done.

A miraculous birth is going to happen, and a special baby is going to be born. b. Among the echoes, it becomes clear that something different is happening here.

The other birth narratives happen to couples, but this one is happening to Mary, through the power of God.

The other birth narratives, while they acknowledge the work of God, don’t mention the Holy Spirit. There is a definite Trinitarian element to Mary’s conception (Father, Son, Holy Spirit).

While many of the other women fervently prayed for years for a child, this birth is wholly unexpected and unplanned.

The other women have had husbands. Mary is betrothed but not yet married, which puts her in a precarious position if she becomes pregnant: her fiancé has the right to have her stoned to death for adultery, or to divorce her at the very least, which would leave her at the mercy of her father.

The angel declares that Mary is highly favored, but we don’t see what this means.

She seems to be an ordinary Jewish girl going about her life.

Some scholars point to her name—Mary, which is a variation on the name Miriam—as evidence that she must have been raised in a particularly devout Jewish community. Yet nothing about this reality would set her apart as “extraordinary” since others were part of this community as well.

The custom for an engaged Jewish woman of that time was to live with her parents for a year while her bridegroom prepared their future home, so we can assume Mary still lived with her parents.

The angel’s declaration that Mary is highly favored raises many questions, but we do get a glimpse of Mary’s faith.

She doesn’t seem to hesitate in her obedience.

She responds in faithfulness to do what the Lord asks.

Her declaration of obedience does not end in silence but results in a powerful song (the Magnificat) that praises the deep and abiding faithfulness of God through the ages.

The declaration that Mary is highly favored and that God is with her is not solely for her but is meant for the entire world.

Immanuel—God with us—is being born into the world. We remember the words that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.” Mary is a focal point of this story, but the true message of faithfulness and love is that God is entering the world.

The world has not been forgotten. God is breaking in. God is faithful to humanity because God is love. A great miracle of Christmas is that we are not forgotten. God draws near to us out of great love. Regardless of our faithfulness to God, God remains faithful to us.

God breaks into the world in a new and unusual way, by becoming a baby, born of a virgin. Therefore, we can expect God to continue to enter the world in unexpected ways.

A new family is being forged.

As we later see in Jesus’s teachings, he is ushering in a new understanding of family. The children of God used to be based on ancestral heritage, but Mary was not a descendant of a priestly lineage, nor does she bear the traditional markings of Judaism that men bear, since she is a woman (i.e., she is not circumcised).

Family is usually based on biology, but biology doesn’t line up here since Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the key component to this new understanding of family.

God’s love is for the entire world, so God weaves together a new family born of the Holy Spirit, and this new thing is already beginning the moment Jesus’s conception is announced by the angel.

No matter who we are, where we come from, or where we are at this moment, we are loved by God and invited to be part of this new family.

God broke into the world in this new and unusual way out of love for us because God desires to have a relationship with us and because God is faithful to us even when we aren’t faithful to God. God imagines more for us than we could ever imagine for ourselves.

God began something new, that we might be made new—because God loves us. Though the concept that God loves us is simple, it can get lost among our burdens. We often need to be reminded that God’s desire for us to be made new is because of God’s great love for us.

God became Immanuel—God with us—to be present with us wherever we are.

This narrative of conception can be a difficult one for those awaiting similar miracles. But the true miracle and true hope here are not about the opening of wombs. They are about the presence and nearness of God. God loves us and chooses to walk with us where we are, even in heartache, drawing near to us and dwelling among us in the middle of it all. No matter what the desires of our hearts are, no matter our abilities, no matter where we came from or what we’ve done, we remain the beloved children of God.

“God with us” is a message that rings through all the preceding weeks of Advent. It is a great bridge as we enter into Christmas. It is our bridge of hope that we are not alone; of peace in the confidence that God is with us through all our circumstances; of joy in the knowledge that we are loved; of love beyond measure—not because of who we are or what we’ve done but because of who God is.

God is with us that we may be with others. We carry the promise of God’s presence into the world, to share with others the good news that they are also the beloved of God.

As the beloved of God, we are invited to bear Christ in the world in order to reveal the belovedness of others—in much the same way that Mary was.

Though we will not physically bear the Christ child, we are called to the same level of discipleship: to obediently follow after God to do hard things.

We are called to bear Christ in the world, revealing the belovedness of humanity to a people who may not realize they are loved. We know the hurt we have experienced in our own lives. Others are hurting too, and are in need of the message that not only does God love them, but God is also with them.

We are called to sing words of defiant hope in the same way that Mary did. Our obedience leads to a bearing of love and truth, but it doesn’t end there. This new family is the inbreaking of the kingdom of God coming to earth as it is in heaven.

A Loving Family

The old refrain is simple: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” But within that truth is something deep and powerful: abiding and radical love, and the formation of a new family that we get to be part of ! Though it is simple, it is sometimes easy to forget. We are the beloved of God. But not only us—because we know that God loved, and still loves, the world so much that he sent Jesus to be God with us, to be present with us in our joys and triumphs, and also to be with us in our pain and sorrow. To love us in the midst of all of the ups and downs of life.

Christ is still God with us today. The Holy Spirit is still in the business of breathing life into unexpected places. The king- dom is still breaking in on earth as it is in heaven. And God is choosing to use us to carry that message; to be the bearers of Christ into the world to bring hope, peace, joy, and love with us wherever we go—that the world might remember how beloved they are, and join in this beautiful new family being united by the very breath of the Holy Spirit.