Word

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In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendent 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.”

Luke 1:26–28 (NIV)

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Consider This

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In his book The Fiddler in the Subway, Gene Weingarten tells the story of Joshua Bell, a world-famous violinist who donned a baseball cap, grabbed his $3.5-million-dollar Stradivarius violin, and stood on a platform in a crowded Washington, DC, subway station to test a theory. Bell was accustomed to playing for sold-out venues around the world, but, on this day, for forty-three minutes, he played his violin amid the busy commuters walking by to see who would notice. It’s recorded that 1,097 people passed by, and he earned a measly thirty-two dollars in change and tips.

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Here’s the fun part. Out of the nearly 1,100 people who walked by him, one person, a young lady named Stacy, was the only one to recognize the world-renowned violinist. When she recognized Bell, she stood ten feet away with a huge smile plastered on her face. She was astonished at the fact that here was a world-class violinist playing, and people were casually passing by, tossing quarters at a man who gets paid professionally to sold-out concert halls. Her response: “What kind of a city do I live in that this could happen?”1

 

Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning made the following observation:

 

. . . Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries . . .2

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I think about this quote often in relationship to the Christmas story. If the people in our nativity sets are wearing shoes, the truth is, none of them should have been—because holy ground was breaking out all around them.

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In Luke’s gospel, sandwiched between Zechariah’s angelic encounter and his nine months of silence, we find the angel Gabriel making another stop on his Advent journey to someone else we are going to spend a little time with. Her name: Mary.

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I’d love to know the context of exactly what Mary was doing when Gabriel arrived on the scene. We don’t really know those details. We only know where Mary was; she was in Nazareth, a small town with a population of less than two hundred people. It was here that Gabriel arrived onto the platform of Mary’s story.

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In the days that follow, let’s take some time to dig into the wonder found in Mary’s angelic encounter. For today, let’s just pause and sit with the eleven words Gabriel spoke over the soon-to-be mother of Jesus: “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

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I love this word that Gabriel used with Mary: favored.

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To be favored means to be both endowed and enriched in God’s grace. What follows favor? After Gabriel spoke of God’s favor and grace that was on Mary, he said, “The Lord is with you.” What a statement! What Gabriel was saying is this: “Mary, not only is God’s grace with you, but God’s grace is also at work around you!”

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This Advent story is a reminder: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). That is favor, my friends. Let’s not stop there, however. John’s gospel goes on to say, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (v. 17). This is the beauty of grace.

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Perhaps today is a good day to stop and get lost in the wonder of this truth.

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Let’s find a moment to remove our shoes and remember that the places we are standing are holy indeed, for the Lord is near. Let’s look up from our calendars and schedules in the rush of the season to listen to the music of favor and grace that the God of the universe is playing over us and around us all.

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No matter the circumstances, the words to Mary meet us within the context of Jesus today: “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” That is good news for us all.

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The Prayer

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God of wonder, we pause today to remember that not only is your favor on us because of the love found in Jesus, but your presence is also with us. Today, we thank you for favor and presence. In Jesus’s name, amen.

the questions

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What does favor mean to you? How does this story change your definition? How can you lift your eyes today and see the greater story God is playing in and around you?

For the Awakening,
Mark Sorensen

 

notes

1. Gene Weingarten, The Fiddler in the Subway: The True Story of What Happened When a World-Class Violinist Played for Handouts . . . and Other Virtuoso Performances by America’s Foremost Feature Writer (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 360.

2. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1857; repr., Oxford University Press, 2008), 246.

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