Slowly reading through Luke’s Gospel you can’t help feel that the stories in Chapters 1 and 2 are out of sync with the time of year. That’s a fairly modern problem since Luke never envisaged a set Christian Year or lectionaries. He would have been bewildered at the suggestion that any part of his Gospel should be tied to a particular time of the year. So today I try to empty my mind of any seasonal associations and read of Gabriel’s visit to Mary and his announcement:
‘Greetings you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ (Luke 1: 28)
It’s Mary’s response that is often said to take us to the heart of her being:
‘Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.’ (Luke 1: 29)
For some people Gabriel’s greeting may just have been confirmation of something they had always suspected. We laugh when Mac Davis sings: ‘O Lord it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way . . .’ but there is more than just a squeak of that in our souls. But look at Mary’s response. She was ‘greatly troubled’. What Gabriel was saying did not fit with her image of herself - if she had an image of herself. This is what we call humility.
We are constantly reminded that humility is at the heart of the Christian life. Jesus impressed it upon His disciples. Paul pronounced it as part of the fruit of the Spirit. And yet the moment we become conscious of it we have mangled it. There were two congregations in a village. One was large and flourishing, the other was small and struggling. The minister of the latter said to his people: ‘Never mind what’s going on down the road. For humility we’ve got them licked!‘
We tend to think of humility as something to be shown in our personal relationships but Mary’s story reminds us that first and foremost humility is our default position before God. She could not fathom the significance she was being given and her place in God’s plan but she was willing to go with it. And not blindly and unthinking. She said: ‘I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.‘ (Luke 1: 38) She knew her God and trusted Him.
I was once told a story about John Stott when he was going through a period of illness. He was being visited by a friend and before he left John asked him to pray: ‘Pray that I may have the humility to accept this time.‘ Mary was able to cope with the greatest challenge of her life because of the room she had in her life for God and His ways. This is what John aspired to in his weakness. The way forward is to go with David when he says: ‘I have set the Lord always before me . . . ‘ (Psalm 16: 7) When He is ‘set’ before us we have a proper perspective on ourselves.
