So why would God send Gabriel to Nazareth to find a suitable mother for Jesus?
Luke 1:26-38, 46-50
December 22, 2024
Dr. Todd R. Wright
It is the time of year when lots of packages are being delivered.
Do you think Gabriel wondered whether God had given him the wrong address?
His last delivery was to Jerusalem – the Holy City, the location of the Temple, the place where people were drawn to the presence of God! That made sense.
But this time he was scheduled to find someone in Nazareth. Nazareth???
That’s like sending an international delegation to … Nettie!
Actually, Nettie is bigger, with a 2020 census population of 494! Scholars say Nazareth would have had fewer than 400 people; maybe only 100!
And Nettie is at the crossroads of state routes 20 and 39, while Nazareth was not near a highway or a major water source. So Nazareth would not have attracted travelers, visitors, or merchants passing through. And with only a well to supply water, it could only sustain a few families.
Nazareth was in the shadow of its larger neighbor, Sepphoris, much like Nettie is in the shadow of Summersville.
So why would God send Gabriel to Nazareth to find a suitable mother for Jesus?
Rob Fuquay, the author of our Advent study, casts the question in a different way. He asks, “What was it about Nazareth that would have shaped and influenced a young girl in such a way as to find favor with God?”[1]
Well, we know a few things:
We know that in small villages, neighbors must depend on each other for survival. And everyone must play their role. And there are no secrets.
Consider the life of a young girl, any young girl, on the cusp of marriage in a small agrarian town in first century Israel. Biblical archeologist, Carol Meyers, writes that despite the absence of universal gender roles, the “survival of any group is dependent upon three major activities: production (subsistence), procreation (reproduction), and protection (defense).”[2]
Women and men alike would have been involved in subsistence farming and the caring for flocks of sheep and goats. Add to that fetching water and cooking and cleaning and weaving for the women; and the gathering of wood and building with it, the making of pottery, and the pressing of olive oil and grapes to make wine for the men, and you have a lot of work to be done. Men took the lead in defending the village, and women, like Mary, were expected to bear children.
One scholar muses, “Imagine Mary’s pregnant body, continuing with the rhythms of [that work]. Imagine the strain on her back as she carried water from the well. Imagine the swelling of her feet as she planted and gathered the harvest during the late stages of pregnancy. Imagine the sweat dripping from her brow as she gathered grain [and ground it] and kneaded it for the evening meal.”[3]
If Mary had gotten pregnant on her honeymoon, the community would have celebrated, for births meant the community had hope of surviving for another generation! We also know that in a small place like Nazareth any whiff of scandal would have been dangerous, for it threatened the honor of the community.
Debie Thomas reminds us that once news of her pregnancy leaked, “At the very least, [Mary] became an object of widespread scorn. At the worst — as in contemporary cultures which practice honor killings — she risked being stoned to death by the very villagers who raised her. To say "yes" [to God’s invitation] was to put everything — her reputation, her marriage, her very life — on the line.”[4]
So I ask again, why did God send Gabriel to Nazareth to make an offer to Mary?
In her poem, “The other annunciation”, Amy Frykholm wonders if it could have gone differently, if Mary wasn’t the only option:
“What if there was another girl
To whom the angel did not come,
One who said, every day, “I am ready.”
She woke, she dressed, she went to the well to draw water.
Still no flutter of wings
No gifts delivered in the dark.
No sudden lights.
Just ordinary grit and labor.
She knew the stories — Samuel, Miriam.
The power of, “Here I am.”
She wiped sleep from her eyes.
Readied the day. Waited.”
What if Gabriel had gone off script? What if he had mixed up his deliveries? What if he had intentionally made the offer to someone he thought more worthy, more dramatic – like Elizabeth!
After all, she was the wife of someone in the religious establishment, someone respected. And she, herself, was a descendant of Aaron, known to be righteous. And her story would have echoed Sarah’s, a woman too old to have children, a miracle!
But that’s not how the story goes. That’s not God’s plan. There is something about Mary!
We see it in the encounter with Gabriel:
She is not overwhelmed by the angel’s presence. In little Nazareth she has faced more frightening things – like famine and draught, sickness and soldiers.
She asks probing questions of Gabriel, like she learned to do in the marketplace.
And when she embraces God’s plan, even though it puts her at risk, she does so, counting on her neighbors to understand, to withhold judgment, to see how things work out. She knows them. She stakes her life on the trust that she has built with them in the fields, at the well, at worship, at community dinners.
Michael Lindvall, presbyterian pastor, nods his head at this story of this girl from a small town, and tells his own:[5]
It was the practice of the church, at each baptism, to ask, “Who stands with this child?” Normally the family is all in attendance, along with neighbors and friends, so there is no shortage of support.
But after one such baptism, Lindvall noticed a middle-aged woman waiting for him. She normally sat in the last pew, near the door, ready to make her escape as soon as the service was over. He had been their pastor less than a year and didn’t know her name.
She introduced herself as Mildred Cory and after a long pause said that her daughter, Tina, “had just had a baby, and, well, the baby ought to be baptized, shouldn’t it?”
When Lindvall suggested that he meet with Tina and her husband, Mildred blurted out, “Tina’s got no husband. [She’s] just 18 and she was confirmed in this church four years ago. Then she started to see this older boy. Then she got pregnant and decided to keep the baby. She wants to have it baptized here in her own church, but she nervous to come and talk to you.”
Lindvall met with the session. They all knew who the father was. This is a small town.
“The real problem was the picture of the baptism that we all had in our heads,” writes Lindvall. “Tina, pimples on her chin, little Jimmy in her arms, big Jimmy long fled to North Carolina [for basic training at Fort Bragg], and Mildred Cory the only one who would stand when the question was asked. It hurt to think of it, but the session approved the baptism.”
The church was full, that Sunday in Advent, and the scene hurt just as much as everyone thought it would. “So young this mother was, and so alone.”
When Lindvall asked the question, “Who stands with this child?” only Mildren rose.
And then some of the elders joined her, and then one of Tina’s Sunday school teachers, and then a new young couple in the church, and soon the whole church was standing for little Jimmy.
I think Mary was counting on Nazareth being like that. Amen
[1] From On the Way to Bethlehem, page 67
[2] From her article “Procreation, Production, and Protection: Male-Female Balance in Early Israel,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 51, no. 4 (1983): 573.
[3] From Courtney Buggs’ reflections on the text for workingpreacher.org, 12/20/20
[4] From her sermon “The Pause Before Yes” 12/21/14
[5] From a chapter in his book, The Good News from North Haven, “Christmas Baptism”
Commentaires