Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!” Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. (Luke 1:29)
Immediately, in our introduction to Mary in Luke’s Gospel, she is described as “confused and disturbed” (Luke 1:29, New Living Translation. That’s the rendering by those translators for “greatly perplexed”, as some English versions might have.) Why is she in this state? The angel Gabriel appears to her and in his greetings, he announces that she is a favored woman and that Yahweh is with her! An angel appearing out of nowhere, with that message, would indeed lead to a confused, disturbed state of mind for most unsuspecting people! I guess we could say, in modern language, her mind was blown…
Her mind and heart were churning: “What does this mean?” And, when the angel delivers even more content, and gets to the heart of the matter concerning the news he is delivering (you will conceive, give birth to a son and name him Jesus and he will save his people from their sins—you know, light sort of small talk), her mind runs to “Why is this happening to me?”
It’s interesting to me that Mary was not warned in advance that this was coming. Unlike the prophecies that were delivered centuries in advance pinpointing the exact village birthplace of the Messiah, and the family line from which he would arise, there are no prophecies in the Bible that she, Mary, would be the one. Yes, Isaiah said a virgin would conceive—but how many of those were there in Israel’s history? This news just landed on one named Mary. She had no preparatory time period. Coming out of the blue, I can see how this gives rise to confusion.
She stays in a confused and disturbed state throughout this visitation time (which seems to last less than a minute! Maybe the Biblical story is cut way short—but the reader gets the impression that this is all there was, and that was plenty!). But at the end of Gabriel’s message, she simply says, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” Her total confusion gives way to clarity, acceptance, and resignation. She has effectively resigned from going her way, and is now firmly in the Lord’s path for her. And the Scripture does not again describe her as “confused and disturbed”. She is in fact resolute, moving forward with God’s plan for her.
“Father, thank you for the response of Mary to this most extraordinary news—she accepted what you said and lived her life in obedience to you, assuming the role as the soon-to-be-pregnant mother of the Messiah. Help us to respond in similar fashion when a message comes to us from you.”
Freddy Boswell 