Luke 1:38

New International Version (NIV)

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.

For meditation

The world has surprises for us every day, which sometimes overwhelm us. Our surprise could be people in their behaviors or situations that blow the mind off. However, none can compare with an angelic visitation with an announcement of something biologically impossible and with no precedence in history. Now, that is at another level—the apex of all surprises. Is it any wonder the angel Gabriel’s visit troubled and perplexed Mary (Lk 1:26-29)?

A young woman at a tender age, Mary imagined nothing like she experienced that day, which altered the course of her life forever. If anything could occupy her mind, it would have been the day she and Joseph would complete their marital arrangements so they could live together as a couple. Can you understand why the angel’s announcement that she would conceive while she was a virgin shocked her (31)?

More than that. Gabriel said the baby she would carry for nine months would be the Son of God (32).

What did Mary do to deserve such a high privilege? Nothing! Nothing in her life caused God to single her out of all the women in the world for that high honor, and nothing she could do to pay God for that unequaled opportunity.

Naturally, she had a question.

“How will this be… since I am a virgin” (34)?

The poise! So admirable!

“I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled” (38)?

Could she have been humbler than that? Is that not all one could say when overwhelmed by grace? She did not understand it all, but she had heard from God, and that was enough to put her in the way of servanthood.

Has God shocked you similarly before? If you are scratching your head to remember, maybe you can stop at the day God laid His redeeming hand on you when you were drowning in your turbulent sea of sin.

Not the same, you may say, and I agree. But until we see ourselves as the worst of all sinners, as Paul saw himself (1 Tim. 1:16), His saving grace will never overwhelm us (Eph. 2:8-9). Nothing can beat the privilege and right to become a child of the Most High (Jn. 1:12-13), and it was all by His amazing grace.

Maybe Charles Wesley’s hymn, “And Can It Be?” can take us to that humbled state. Sing through it and you will feel his overwhelmed heart with the grace of God that flowed from His amazing love.