And coming to her, he said,
"Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you."
Mary believed, but she did not believe the angel out of pride. And if she had been living a life "full of grace" we might well assume that would be a risk. If she was truly sinless, would it even occur to her to be troubled about the appearance of an angel?
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Why was she troubled? She was troubled because the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. She was to be the Seat of Wisdom in human form. Fear of the LORD is a gift of the Holy Spirit who alone could have enabled her to be full of grace. Was it a servile fear? No. Was it a paranoid or anxious fear? No. It was precisely her full spirit becoming attentive to what God was doing at that moment. It was her absolute refusal to miss it or to mess it up through any selfishness on her part.
Then the angel said to her,
"Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
In meeting an angel fear is a normal human response. But it was not as is if the plan somehow depended on Mary's ability or skill. As always before, in this new thing too she was permitted to trust and allow God to have his way. Even in her trust she still needed to know more in order to fully be available to what God wanted to do. And so she asked.
How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?"
And the angel said to her in reply,
"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.
Not that this answered all questions. But it was enough. Trusting in God's plan allowed her to remain in the peace of God, and to fully receive the peace the angel spoke to her.
Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word."
Then the angel departed from her.
The balance between trust and doubt seems precarious. Ahaz didn't quite get it right.
But Ahaz answered,
"I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!"
Trust is not burying one's head in the sand and ignoring what the LORD is doing. Nor is it demanding proof of his power as does Zechariah. Trust is precisely what Mary shows. She is not afraid to get those details which she needs and to leave the rest to God.
Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD?
or who may stand in his holy place?
She will speak her fiat in us if we ask her. It is not a fiat of fear, but one which sees a world of difficult circumstances and still realizes "nothing will be impossible for God."
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