“In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.’
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of this father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.’
‘How will this be,’ Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?’
The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon 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. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month.’
’I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May it be to me as you have said.’ Then the angel left her.” --Luke 1:26-38
I’ve always been amazed at Mary’s response to Gabriel’s message. She receives this crazy news that she's going to be pregnant before she's married, and, after some brief confusion about how exactly this is possible, she simply says Yes. Yes, because she's the Lord’s servant. Yes, because He is the master and knows what is best. But what, exactly, is she saying Yes to? It's true that ultimately she is saying yes to the honor of being the mother of the Messiah, but what is she saying yes to in the immediate future? We don’t know a lot about Mary and Joseph and their marriage, but Luke does say that when Mary and Joseph were on their way to Bethlehem, Mary was still “pledged to be married” to him. In other words, Gabriel’s news meant that Mary had a baby before she was married, and I’m pretty sure that was not socially acceptable in the Jewish community of the day. So in the short run, it is very likely that Mary was saying “yes” to shame. She said “yes” to disgrace in the eyes of men.
There is also something else remarkable about Mary's encounter with Gabriel. Twice Gabriel tells Mary that she is favored by God. She is “highly favored,” and yet God’s plans for her involve her shame in the eyes of men. Mary must have known this, and yet she does not complain to God that this makes no sense, that if she was really favored, He would make her path more pleasant. Instead, in saying “yes” to God’s plan for her, she simply shows that she regards the favor of God to be of more value than the favor of man. What a “Yes,” and what faith!
The kind of humble obedience Mary displays is magnified many times over in the person of Christ, “who, for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2b). The path that God the Father laid out for Christ was full of much deeper shame and suffering than the cup that Mary drank. Not only was he condemned to die among criminals, he died a death that the Jews considered cursed, for “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” (Gal 3:13). And not only did he die looking like a cursed failure, but he endured all the terrible wrath of a just God against sin. This was the path that God chose for his “beloved Son” (Matt 3:17). Though it ended with a throne, it was full of suffering. In contrast, the way to dominion that Satan offered Jesus (Matt 4:1-11) involved no suffering, but it required Jesus to renounce God as the only one worthy of worship. But Jesus chose the Father’s plan, with all the included suffering, rather than rebellion and Satan’s painless short cut.
This is so often the way of it: the way of the Lord involves suffering while the way of the world is pleasant. And why shouldn’t it be this way? When we choose God’s way over the world’s way, we have chosen to rebel against the world, and we know that rebellion is always punished. The world punishes us by rejecting us, but we take heart because it rejected him first. And Jesus knew, as the writer of Hebrews tells us, that the joy set before him was much greater than the shame of the cross. Paul likewise writes that “our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18).
If we believe the Author, we need never be afraid to say, like Mary, “Be it unto me, according to your word,” because we know that the victory is won, and our troubles are “light and momentary” (2 Cor 4:17). If we believe the Author, we will rebel against the world daily and follow Christ. The cost is great. Indeed, we must die to ourselves. But that is no loss since our real selves are hidden with Christ in God. We cannot lose. There is but one work that matters, and that is the work of God. It looks like foolishness to the world, and it can feel like suffering and shame to us, but it is achieving for us a glory that far outweighs all trouble. Thanks be to God for his ways that are higher than ours!
