"... the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
(Luke 1:26-35) ESV
In my blog post yesterday I wrote about how the shepherds were afraid when the angel appeared to them with great light in the middle of the night. Angels sent by God in ways that can be seen by people are quite unexpected and when that happens it is normal for people to be afraid.
When the angel Gabriel was sent by God to Mary, she was greatly troubled. She was scared. She did not know what was about to happen.
What Gabriel spoke to her were words to calm her fears. And they were words to cause her to wonder. She was told she had found favor with God. And, even more amazing, she was told she would give birth to a son and was to call him Jesus, and that He would be called the Son of the Most High.
The words of the angel may have calmed her fears, but she still did not understand how what He had said could be true, for she was a virgin. Well, she got her answer. And I believe it is an important answer for us to know about. She was told that the Holy Spirit would come upon her, and therefore the child to be born would be called holy -- the Son of God.
The name that the baby was to be called was Jesus, which means God is the Savior. For Jesus to be our Savior, and die on our behalf for our sins against God, He had to be one of us, a real flesh and blood man, and yet be perfectly sinless, so He had to also be God in the flesh. Jesus was and is both Son of Man and Son of God. He is the Savior we needed, and He came and did what we needed.
Mary had been told incredible things by the angel Gabriel. She knew the baby she would giver birth to would be extraordinary. But even with knowing that, there was much she would not know until that baby grew up and began to demonstrate how much He was the Son of God, and could do glorious things.
From the time the angel told Mary she would give birth to Jesus, to when He was born in Bethlehem, to His years of childhood, and to His years of ministry, then death on a cross, followed His resurrection, Mary continued to learn more about Him.
Learning more about Jesus is a good thing. Getting to know Him should be the focus of our lives. That is why it is good to read about Him in the Bible. And that is why it is good to sing about Him.
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