The Annunciation, by Henry Ossawa Tanner
"Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you." Luke 1:28
Oh, how I wish these words expressed how God felt about me! Would God see me as the kind of woman He would choose now to mother Jesus, the most high God? By what means did she find favor, in the hidden moments of her life?
Mary lived in a tiny, obscure village amidst a humdrum life. Wheat was ground, bread was pounded out on wooden tables, crumbs were swept from the floor, children lovingly tended, with mother and father presiding over the home, the Shema was listened to every day over shared family meals, the Sabbath was kept. She lived in invisibility, in the moments of an ordinary, obscure life, as far as anyone knew. And yet, in the living of her life quietly and faithfully, God noticed her. He saw her, and she found favor and pleased His heart.
God always sees, even when no one else is noticing.
Imagine being greeted by an angel in the midst of a normal day, when no one else knew: "Hail, favored one!”
And then the angel said, "Mary, do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God."
Really? She did not have a college degree or a ministry position or title and had never published a book or even spoken in the synagogue--and yet, in the midst of her quiet life, she found favor with God.
There are clues as to why... Being the mother of Jesus would require a tenacious, steady, engaged faith. As his mother, her life would be in danger. Jesus would be pursued by a crazy king, and at every point, people would cast doubt on her irregular, fantastical story.
Satan would have wanted to prevent Jesus becoming Savior, and Mary would be his protector--a shelter from danger, a nurturer of his soul, a provider of truth, a teacher and trainer, a strength in storms--all of this she would be asked to be for God, the baby, entrusted into her hands, as his mother; a divinely appointed role.
She would have to move, put up with peer pressure, believe in the miraculous, and live for ahwile amidst the despised Egyptians. Her life would be filled with stress, pressure, rejection, fear, loneliness, and questions.
And yet, God had called her favored, He had seen her heart, noticed her response to circumstances throughout her life, and tested her willingness to obey, and she had been found faithful, and so she was favored.
Her response, ready on her lips, had been practiced in her heart.
"“Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.” Luke 1:38
God looked for one who would serve Him, willingly, readily, at the moment of His impossible request, one who would respond in utter submission.
I am your bondslave--a commitment he had seen in her prayers, through out her life as she engaged her heart in scripture, He had seen her practice of worship by choosing, through all the years of her training, her response of believing and her heart consecration to serve Him, to obey throughout the seemingly unnoticed moments of her life.
Is that my response to this life He has given to me--be it done according to your will for I am your bond-servant? Even if it means sacrifice of the plans I hold dear? Even if it means being misunderstood? Rejected? Chased? Inconvenienced? Even if it requires me to have courage against fears that will assail my life?
We are left another clue. Elizabeth, her older cousin, who had also lived above reproach and obeyed God, upon seeing Mary, responded,
"And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.”
Mary believed God.
She had a ready heart to believe Him, trust Him with all that it would require of her, to await the miraculous, to live through long years of waiting and quiet and mundanity, as she awaited to see this little baby become the expected Messiah, the fulfillment of His role as Savior.
She believed there would be a fulfillment.
She had practiced believing in Him her whole life and this, I think, was in part what would qualify her to be the mother of the son of God. She was ready, willing to immediately respond to Him in belief--even to the impossible--even in the obscure place of dust, dishes, and duty.
And so God shined His light on my soul this early morning as I pondered Mary in His presence--am I ready to believe, to obey wherever He takes me, to await the fulfillment of His word and to choose to believe in His future fulfillment of faithfulness in my own life and in my own prayers--even if the ultimate fulfillment will take years and years, as it took Mary?
Today as I sit in the sparkle of our Christmas home, I hope that He will find me, in the integrity of my heart, obeying, responding, and bowing my knee to His will as a bondservant whose heart is ready to follow, obey, accept limitations of a world at battle for righteousness, and yet ready, in His strength, to believe.
May He prepare your heart today to worship in the quietness of your life, right where you are. May He bless you with His peace and grace. May you be filled with all the fullness of God.