Today's Gospel

Prepare for Your Moment

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant. We have some epic readings this week and remember each day we're looking for a word or a phrase or an idea to anchor our day. Today's reading is the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary. It's from Luke's Gospel Chapter 1 Verses 26 through 38. In the sixth month, the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you." But she was greatly troubled at the saying and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom of, there will be no end."

And Mary said to the angel, "How can this be since I have no husband?" And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child who'll be born will be called Holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman, Elizabeth, in her old age has also conceived a son and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God, nothing will be impossible." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, that it be done unto me according to thy word, and the angel departed from her." Wow, there's so much in this reading. There's a hundred words, phrases, ideas we could pick out, we could talk about each of them for an hour. Just the opening line. Sometimes, we hear these lines. In the sixth month, the angel was sent by God, the city of Galilee, named Nazareth, virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, the House of David. The virgin's name was Mary. There's like 35 prophecies being fulfilled in that sentence. And that's why the writers included that stuff. It was important that it was a city of Galilee. It was important that it was a virgin. It was important that it was the House of David. These things were critical because they were fulfilling dozens of prophecies. And so sometimes I think the danger is to read through that stuff.

I think the most attractive line is toward the end, which is, "With God, nothing will be impossible." I think it's easy for our hearts and our minds and our spirits to be drawn to that. Again, there's just so many today. The line that really jumped out at me, the angel says to Mary, "For you have found favor with God." And I wonder to myself, how? What did she do? Because whatever she did, we should be doing. What is it that Mary did to prepare herself for this moment? How was she allowing God to prepare herself for this moment? How was she surrendering to God in a daily way? How was she growing in virtue in a daily way so the Angel Gabriel shows up and says, "You have found favor with God." It's very, very powerful. And then the other thing I'll point out, because we will see this theme over the next few weeks, as we make our way towards Pentecost, over and over in the readings, we will hear about the Holy Spirit.

Yesterday, we heard about Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit onto the disciples. Today, Mary says, "How's that going to happen? I got no husband." And Angel Gabriel says, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you." And so in these days, let's pray. Let's invite the Holy Spirit to come upon us, to fill us, every corner of our being, to drive out anything that should be driven out, and to guide us in the moments of our day. Have an amazing day. Remember, don't just be yourself, be the very best version of yourself. All that God created you to be.