How Will This Be?

A young woman has just heard the most astonishing news anyone has ever heard. An angel stands in front of her. She takes a breath, and she asks one simple, honest question. How?

We are in Nazareth, a small village in the hills of Galilee. The angel Gabriel has come to Mary, a young woman betrothed to Joseph, a descendant of King David. He has told her she will have a son, that she is to name him Jesus, and that he will reign on David's throne for ever. Mary is not yet married. She and Joseph are promised to each other, but they do not yet live together. In Nazareth, everyone knows everyone. The well, the fields, the little synagogue: news travels fast in a village like this. Mary has grown up hearing the old promises read aloud, about a king from David's family, about a child who would be called Immanuel. But she never imagined the promise would come to her door. So there is a question she cannot avoid asking.

Mary says to the angel, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” She is a virgin. How can she have a child? Notice the difference between Mary's question and Zechariah's, six months earlier. Zechariah asked, how can I be sure? He wanted proof before he would believe. Mary does not ask for proof. She does not say, I don't believe you. She believes it will happen. She is asking how. And Gabriel does not rebuke her. He answers her.

The angel says, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” This child will not come about in the ordinary way. God himself will do it. The word overshadow recalls the cloud of God's presence that covered the tabernacle in the wilderness. Then Gabriel gives Mary a sign she did not ask for. Your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age. She who was called barren is now in her sixth month. And then the words at the heart of this story: For with God nothing shall be impossible.

Now Mary must answer. Think about what saying yes might cost her. She is betrothed, not married. People in Nazareth would talk. Joseph might break off the engagement. Her life could become very hard. And yet Mary says, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” I am the Lord's servant. Let it happen to me as you have said. It is one of the bravest sentences in the Bible. Mary does not understand everything. But she trusts the one who sent the angel. And the angel departs from her.

Gabriel's words, nothing is impossible with God, would have rung a bell for anyone who knew the Scriptures. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament used in Luke's day, they are very close to what God said to Abraham when Sarah laughed: is anything too hard for the Lord? Luke seems to be pointing back deliberately. The God who gave old Sarah a son, and old Elizabeth a son, was now doing something even greater through a young virgin in Nazareth.

You'll find Mary's question and answer in Luke chapter one, verses thirty-four to thirty-eight. She asked how, she heard that nothing is impossible with God, and she said yes. So here is a question to carry with you. Is there something God is asking of you, where you could say, like Mary, let it be to me according to your word?