The Story of the Annunciation (18+)

The most important announcement ever made was not to a royal personage or to a member of a wealthy or influential family. It was made to a simple girl by the angel Gabriel, God’s own messenger. He told her that she was to be the Mother of the Lord. This announcement is what we celebrate in March, nine months before the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in December.

Mary was surprised and disturbed by the angel’s announcement. Though she was betrothed to Joseph, they were not going to get married for some time yet. She would be a single pregnant woman, and according to the law of the time she could be stoned to death. Then there was the social stigma: What would people say? How would Joseph feel about it? What would the future of this child be—the Son of God Himself!

All these doubts must have risen in Mary’s mind. And though she was young, and was standing there alone with this powerful, intimidating angel, she had the courage and presence of mind to ask him a logical and sensible question: “How can this be, since I have not been with any man?” Mary was not ignorant of or naïve about “how babies are made.”

Gabriel told Mary how this miracle would come about by the power of God. When he had done so, it was up to Mary. She could refuse, and by worldly standards we might expect that she would do so. But Mary did not refuse. She said to Gabriel, “Let it be to me according to your word.” Her “yes” to God was, as the Troparion says, “the beginning of our salvation.”

Mary’s response was one of faith. She might have said, “Wait! This wasn’t what I was planning for my future. It’s dangerous, and it will change my life forever.” But instead she showed humility in giving God charge of her life. To be “humble” does not mean to devalue yourself or to allow yourself to get pushed around. It means doing what Mary did, as many of the great saints also did. The words “Let it be” are the key. To trust God and give your life to Him—that is the meaning of her words, and that is what humility is. For us, the rest of the human race, it was nothing less than deliverance from the power of death.