²⁶ In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, ²⁷ to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. ²⁸ Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”

²⁹ Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. ³⁰ “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³² He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. ³³ And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”

³⁴ Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”

³⁵ The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. ³⁷ For the word of God will never fail.”

³⁸ Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.

Luke 1:26-38

Dear God, I’ve read this passage and journaled on this passage so many times that it’s hard for me to look at it in a fresh way. But when I looked at it this morning, I thought of Gabriel and these jobs he was given by you. Now I want to be clear that there is no way I can even pretend to see anything from Gabriel’s perspective. Nor should I be able to. He is an archangel. I am at the bottom of the creation food chain. It’s like my dog understanding how to get to Europe by leaving our home and traveling by plane. She just has no frame of reference for that. And I have no frame of reference for what Gabriel saw and knew at that point.

However, I can observe what I have the benefit of knowing that he left out of his speech to Mary (and Zechariah and Joseph for that matter). In fact, before I go down this road, let me just consider that he was the messenger to all three of them in this. From heaven’s standpoint, this must have been an amazing inflection point in the space/time continuum.

But back to what he left out, he left out the difficult physical circumstances when Mary gave birth. He left out the flight to Egypt, the boys in Bethlehem being murdered, the difficulty in raising a perfect child, the conflict between Jesus and his siblings and hometown, the doubts about his sanity, the brutal death, and the ultimate losing of Jesus to the ascension. This was not an easy path for Mary to walk. It didn’t lead to power and wealth in her earthly life. It didn’t lead to ease. Simeon was the first one to tell her that her soul would be pierced through this child’s life. That he would cause people in Israel to stumble. Gabriel left all of that out here. Why? Because she was on a need-to-know basis, and it would not have blessed her to know that path ahead.

Father, I’m on a need-to-know basis too. Help me stay in the moment. Help me to look for you in the moment. Help me to be at peace. You know what my hopes are. You know the desires of my heart. But I know that my desires and your plans might not overlap, and I am willing to lay my desires at the foot of your cross and say, “Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I just ask for my daily bread and that you will forgive me and help me to forgive others. Please keep me from temptation and give me the strength to walk away from it.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen