[1:19–20]
The angel identifies himself as Gabriel (Luke 1:26), known from the book of Daniel (Dan 8:16). Gabriel once appeared to Daniel at the time of the “evening offering” (Dan 9:21), apparently the same time that he is now appearing to Zechariah (Luke 1:10). To Daniel, Gabriel prophesied regarding a period of “seventy weeks” until “a holy of holies will be anointed” (Dan 9:24). This prophecy is generally understood as referring to seventy weeks of years (490 years). However, it is possible that Luke presents the proper time for Gabriel’s prophecies to be fulfilled as seventy weeks of days (490 days), beginning from this encounter. Luke tracks the time with various indicators: (1) in “the sixth month” of Elizabeth’s pregnancy (Luke 1:26), Gabriel appears to Mary who becomes pregnant (1:38); (2) the birth of Jesus occurs nine months later, when “the time came for her to have her child” (2:6); and (3) Jesus is presented in the temple “when the days were completed for their purification” (2:22), forty days after his birth (Lev 12:1–4). The total is roughly fifteen months plus forty days—seventy weeks or 490 days—between the announcement to Zechariah in the temple and the appearance of Jesus the holy, anointed one (Luke 1:35; 2:11) in the same temple.9
Gabriel was sent precisely to announce to Zechariah this good news about John. For the first time Luke uses the verb euangelizō (“to announce good news”), which refers throughout Luke-Acts to the preaching of the gospel message (e.g., 4:18; Acts 5:42). The proper response to “good news” is to “believe” (see Acts 8:12). However, Zechariah did not believe and so is punished by becoming temporarily speechless (literally, “silent”).
[1:21–25]
The people were waiting for Zechariah because the custom was for the priests to bless them after the incense offering (Num 6:24–26).10 However, the sign indicated by Gabriel takes effect immediately: he was unable to speak to them and remained mute (kōphos, which can also mean “deaf”; Luke 7:22; see 1:62). Readers may perceive a further meaning to this sign: in God’s plan, the priestly blessing will later come from Jesus instead (24:50).
In his mute condition, Zechariah finishes his days of ministry and then goes to his home outside of Jerusalem, as was typical for ordinary priests. In fulfillment of the angel’s words, Elizabeth then conceived. She exclaims that the Lord has taken away her disgrace, words that echo Rachel’s response: “God has removed my disgrace” (Gen 30:23). God has indeed remembered Elizabeth!
BIBLICAL BACKGROUND
Angels
The Greek word angelos means “messenger” (Luke 7:24, 27; 9:52), but in the announcements to Zechariah and Mary it refers not to a human messenger but to an angel: a created, spiritual being. The existence of angels is a truth of faith revealed in the Scriptures (Catechism 328–30). In the Old Testament, the “angel of the LORD” often brings important messages from God to chosen individuals such as Abraham (Gen 22:11) and Moses (Exod 3:2). To the wife of Manoah, the “angel of the LORD” announces that she will bear a son, Samson (Judg 13:3). In Luke’s Gospel, angels figure prominently. The angel Gabriel (Luke 1:19, 26; see Dan 8:16; 9:21), who with Michael (Dan 10:13) and Raphael (Tob 3:17) is one of the three named angels in the Bible, is one of those “who stand before God” (Luke 1:19; see Tob 12:15; Rev 8:2). In addition, “the angel of the Lord” appears to the shepherds (Luke 2:9) along with “a multitude of the heavenly host” (2:13). An angel appears to Jesus during his agony (22:43), and angels announce his resurrection (24:4, 23). Angels are also often mentioned in Jesus’ preaching (9:26; 12:8–9; 15:10; 16:22).
Announcement to Mary of the Birth of Jesus (1:26–38)
26In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. 28And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, 33and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” 35And 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. 36And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; 37for nothing will be impossible for God.” 38Mary 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.
OT: Gen 18:14; Exod 40:35; Judg 6:11–24; 2 Sam 7:8–16; Isa 7:14; 9:6; 11:1; Zeph 3:14–17
NT: Matt 1:18–25; Luke 2:4, 11; Rom 1:3
Catechism: Mary and Old Testament women, 64, 489; Immaculate Conception, 490–91, 722; the name “Jesus,” 430, 2812; virginal conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, 484–88, 496–97, 505, 510, 695, 697, 723; nothing impossible with God, 269, 273; Mary’s faith and fiat, 148, 494, 973, 2617, 2622, 2674; ecumenical councils on the incarnation, 456, 464–67; Hail Mary, 2676–77
Lectionary: Fourth Sunday Advent (Year B); Annunciation; Immaculate Conception; Our Lady of Guadalupe; December 20; Consecration of Virgins and Religious Profession
This passage follows not only the pattern seen in Old Testament birth announcements but also one found in Old Testament call narratives, such as the vocation of Gideon (Judg 6:11–24). For example, both Mary and Gideon are addressed with a title expressing their mission: “favored one” and “mighty warrior.” Both are told: “The Lord is with you.” Both are given a sign, and both accept their mission by giving consent. As a birth announcement, this passage is about Jesus, who will be born. As a call narrative, it is about Mary, who is given a mission.
[1:26–27]
The reference to the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy and the appearance again of the angel Gabriel connect this passage to the previous one. Both announcements are part of one plan of God.
Nazareth in lower Galilee was a small village of several hundred inhabitants. It is not mentioned in the Old Testament, and a dismissive attitude toward it is found elsewhere in the New Testament (John 1:46). However, its residents apparently had a more positive outlook. According to the church historian Eusebius, descendants of David lived there.11 The name of the town—from the Hebrew netser, meaning “branch” or “shoot”—may have reflected their hope for a messiah from the line of David: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isa 11:1 RSV [emphasis added]).
Thus, Joseph is fittingly introduced as being of the house of David (see Luke 2:4). He is betrothed to Mary, indicating the first stage of a Jewish marriage, in which a written document was presented by the groom to his bride but the bride remained in her family home until the wedding ceremony a year or so later, when she moved into her husband’s home (see Matt 1:18).12 The name “Mary” is the same as Miriam, the sister of Aaron and Moses (Exod 6:20). She is a virgin, a detail stated twice and whose significance will become clearer in verse 31.
The contrast in the settings of the two birth announcements is striking. The first occurs in the temple in Jerusalem, the second in an obscure village. The first occurs at the fixed hour of a liturgical celebration, the second at an unspecified time of day. The first occurs to an official priest, the second to a young maiden. Despite this contrast, the second announcement involves something greater than the first! This is in accord with the logic of a God who lifts up the lowly (Luke 1:52).
[1:28]
The angel’s greeting, Hail, favored one (chaire, kecharitōmene), is a play on words—between the related Greek verbs chairō and charitoō. The word chaire,
meaning “rejoice,” is at times simply a greeting (Matt 26:49). However, in the †Septuagint, whose style Luke is imitating, it translates the summons for the people of Israel to rejoice: “Shout for joy, daughter Zion” (Zeph 3:14; Zech 9:9). What is the reason for such joy? The Lord is with you—that is, “The LORD is in your midst” (Zeph 3:15, 17), so “do not be afraid” (Luke 1:30) and “do not fear” (Zeph 3:16). If Zechariah’s muteness represents the silence of prophecy in Israel until the time of fulfillment, by this call to joy Mary represents Israel as faithful “daughter Zion” to whom the Lord announces that the time of fulfillment has arrived.
Mary is the “favored one”—literally, “one who has been graced.” The perfect tense of the verb charitoō indicates that this bestowing favor on Mary (making her full of grace, gratia plena, according to the †Vulgate) is not something that is about to happen to her as a result of the angel’s message, but is rather an action completed in the past with effects that continue in the present. In view of the mission she is about to receive, Mary has already been transformed by grace. Mary’s identity is defined by this transformation, so that the phrase becomes her title, replacing her name in the angel’s greeting.
[1:29]
As Zechariah was troubled by the appearance of the angel (Luke 1:12), so Mary is greatly troubled. She pondered the meaning of the greeting, and she will continue to contemplate the extraordinary events taking place (2:19, 51).
[1:30–31]
As with Zechariah (1:13), the angel’s message begins with a word of reassurance: Do not be afraid. The reason is that Mary has found favor with God. The noun “favor” (charis) can also be translated “grace” and is related to the verb charitoō in the greeting: the highly favored one found favor; the one full of grace found grace.
The angel’s words—Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him—recall his similar words announcing John’s birth (1:13) and echo the Old Testament announcement about the miraculous conception and birth of Isaac (Gen 17:19; 21:2). In addition, because of the emphasis (Luke 1:27) that Mary is a virgin, these words refer to the famous prophecy of Isaiah, which literally reads in the †Septuagint: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son and you shall name him Emmanuel” (Isa 7:14 LXX; see Matt 1:21–23). This prophecy was a word “waiting” for its “owner”:13 the virgin Mary and her son Jesus are its ultimate fulfillment (Catechism 497). The name “Jesus” means “†YHWH saves” (see Matt 1:21). As “savior” (Luke 2:11), he will bring God’s “salvation” (1:69; 2:30).
LIVING TRADITION
The Immaculate Conception
St. Thomas Aquinas explains the phrase “Hail, full of grace” (Luke 1:28) by saying that “it is reasonable to believe that she who gave birth to ‘the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth’ [John 1:14], had received greater gifts than any other.” Since John the Baptist was sanctified in the womb (Luke 1:15), as was the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 1:5), all the more, “it is reasonable to believe that the blessed Virgin was sanctified before her birth.”a Aquinas, however, thought that Mary contracted original sin at her conception but then was cleansed before her birth.b Shortly after him, Blessed John Duns Scotus instead explained that the grace of sanctification could be simultaneous with Mary’s conception, so that she was “preserved from original sin” as “Christ showed the most perfect possible degree of mediating” with respect to Mary.c In 1854, Pope Pius IX defined Mary’s Immaculate Conception as a dogma (Catechism 491), making reference to Luke 1:28.
a. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IIIa.27.1, trans. Thomas R. Heath, vol. 51 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969), 7.
b. Summa Theologiae IIIa.27.2 (ad 2).
c. John Duns Scotus, In Librum Tertium Sententiarum 3.1, quoted in Luigi Gambero, Mary in the Middle Ages, trans. Thomas Buffer (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005), 251.
[1:32–33]
Whereas John the Baptist “will be great in the sight of [the] Lord” (1:15), Jesus will be great in an absolute sense. As Son of the Most High, he will surpass John, the “prophet of the Most High” (1:76).
Moreover, Jesus will possess the throne of David his father14 and of his kingdom there will be no end. These words refer to God’s promise to David spoken by the prophet Nathan: “Your house and your kingdom are firm forever before me; your throne shall be firmly established forever” (2 Sam 7:16). David ruled over all twelve tribes of Israel (see 2 Sam 5:1–5), but after the reign of his son Solomon, the kingdom was divided into two, with the northern kingdom eventually falling to the Assyrians (721 BC) and the southern kingdom to the Babylonians (586 BC). With the end of the Davidic monarchy and the scattering in exile of many of the tribes, God’s promise seemed to have failed. However, expectation for a Davidic messiah who would restore Israel arose in the centuries before Jesus. The angel is here announcing the birth of this long-awaited Davidic Messiah (see Luke 2:11). He will rule over the house of Jacob, the regathered tribes of Israel (see Gen 49:28; Exod 19:3).
[1:34]
Like Zechariah, Mary asks a question of the angel regarding the fulfillment of the message: How can this be? A more literal rendering is “How will this be?” At first glance, it seems similar to Zechariah’s question, “How shall I know this?” (Luke 1:18). Beneath the similarity in form, however, lies a greater dissimilarity in attitude. While Zechariah “did not believe” the words of the angel (1:20), Mary instead will be called “blessed” precisely for believing “what was spoken” by the angel (1:45). The difference is that whereas Zechariah “wanted proof,” Mary “wants instructions.”15
The reason for Mary’s question is that she has no relations with a man. Mary’s response is puzzling, since a betrothed woman would normally expect to begin sexual relations after the celebration of the second stage of marriage, when she moved into the home of her husband. One would think that after this delay the angel’s words to her would be fulfilled, as they were for Zechariah following the delay of his remaining days of ministry (1:23–24). Some interpreters have therefore explained Mary’s response as due to her interpreting the promise as having an immediate fulfillment, while she was still a virgin, although Gabriel’s words do not say this. Another explanation, offered by Church Fathers such as Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine, is that Mary did not plan to have relations with Joseph, but had already dedicated herself to God as a virgin.16 This idea is often dismissed as anachronistic, imposing a Christian ideal onto a Jewish context, since mainstream Jewish groups such as the Pharisees emphasized marriage. However, this possibility cannot be excluded, given the diversity of views in Judaism at the time (e.g., some Essenes practiced celibacy).17
[1:35]
The angel explains that it will indeed be a virginal conception, occurring through the holy Spirit (see Matt 1:18, 20) and by the power of the Most High. The child, already called “Son of the Most High,” will thus also be called holy, the Son of God. The Davidic king was considered to be adopted as God’s son at his coronation (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7), but the angel’s explanation of Jesus’ status as God’s Son is different and points to his divinity.
The verb overshadow (episkiazō), found in the Gospels only here and in the description of the cloud at the transfiguration (Matt 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:34), recalls how in Moses’ day the cloud “settled down” (episkiazō in the LXX) over the tent of meeting, the precursor to the temple (Exod 40:35). Here, the verb suggests that Mary, who is about to become pregnant with Jesus, will thus become the new, living tent of meeting filled with God’s holy presence. Gabriel’s first announcement took place in the temple, the place of God’s presence. Now in his second announcement, there is a new temple!18
[1:36–37]
Just as a sign was given to Zechariah (his being made speechless), a sign is now given to Mary: Elizabeth her relative has conceived a son despite her old age. Through the kinship of the two women, the two announcements are also connected. If God can make a barren womb fruitful, he can also make a virginal womb fruitful, because no
thing will be impossible for God, as the barren Sarah had once discovered: “Is anything impossible for the LORD?” (Gen 18:14 NET).
[1:38]
Unlike the earlier announcement to Zechariah, who “did not believe” (Luke 1:20), this announcement ends with an act of faith. Mary is God’s handmaid, meaning “female servant or slave” (also 1:48; see 2:29 for Simeon a male servant). She is one of the †anawim, the poor and lowly who put their trust in the Lord (see Pss 10:17; 25:9; Zeph 2:3). She humbly expresses her consent to God’s plan through her fiat: May it be done to me according to your word. Corresponding to her yes to God is the Son’s yes to the Father: “Behold, I come to do your will” (Heb 10:7). This is how the †incarnation of the Son of God takes place in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
Reflection and Application (1:26–38)
Praying the Angelus. The Church daily reflects on the words of Scripture announcing the †incarnation (1:26–38; John 1:14) in the Angelus prayer, traditionally said at morning, noon, and evening. St. John Paul II wrote, “I . . . came to understand why the Church says the Angelus three times a day. I realized how important are the words of that prayer. ‘The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary and she conceived of the Holy Spirit. . . . Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done unto me according to your word. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. . . .’ Such powerful words! They express the deepest reality of the greatest event ever to take place in human history.”19
Figure 2. Annunciation of Cortona by Fra Angelico. Words from Luke 1:35, 38 appear on the painting. [Public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
The Gospel of Luke Page 5