The Favored One
Imagine the smallest most insignificant town you know. Now think even smaller, more obscure. A town so unimpressive it has a reputation for being unimpressive, and when it's mentioned people joke, ‘Can anything good come from there?’ Now imagine yourself a very young woman of this small town pledged to be married and awaiting your wedding day. What could go wrong in this place where life is so predictable?
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, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern 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 to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
And the angel answered her, “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. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
Luke 1:26-38
This is the story of one of the most influential women in the world and how she came to be so. With no money, prestige, power, renown, or influence, Mary the mother of Jesus is without exaggeration one of the most influential women in the world. Growing up in a town like hers what could she have imagined of her future? The most this Galilean girl could have hoped for was the life she had seen in all the other women around her. Whatever her dreams were, never in her wildest imaginings would she have come up with what happened to her. To be visited by an angel called "favored one" and be promised that you would be the father of God's son was monumental. What was a girl to do with something like this? She did the only logical thing, she submitted herself to the Lord’s will. “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word”.
Mary the mother of Jesus could not have understood the magnitude of the privilege she was being given and her story is packed with significance. We are told that before the creation of the world, God already had a plan to rescue the human race from the sin we had not yet committed. Hundreds of years before it happened the prophet Isaiah spoke of a virgin who would conceive and give birth to a son. That means that at the outset when he said, “Let there be light”, God already had Mary in mind. We are being told that God’s grand plan to save the world involved him coming into this world in a body that was incubated, protected, nurtured, and sustained by a woman. What if what God feels about women and their role in his creation is something more unbelievably wonderful than we had ever imagined? I think the one who made you has something to say to you about what you are to him.
The First One
Long before Mary, there was another important woman. Eve our first mother was a perfect woman in a perfect garden. An angel came to her too. He was a fallen angel not sent from God and he also had words for her but his words were false. She too believed what the angel told her about herself and God. Believing his words did not lead her to submit to God but rather to rebel against him. The result of her action was a curse. She who was already favored, lost her position of privilege. Instead of being the servant of the Lord, she became a slave to the sin she had given herself to and the false messenger she had believed. The day the human race lost its honored place and fell from God’s glory was the saddest day in human history. If God had Mary in mind at the beginning of creation then we have to believe that he also had her in mind when he made Eve. Eve’s sin was not a surprise to him. After he had pronounced judgment on Eve for her sin he promised that her offspring would bruise the head of the serpent, alluding to the son of Mary. Here are two women who changed the course of the world in the most profound ways, one by bringing a terrible curse and the other an incredible blessing, and in each case, it was because they believed something about themselves and God.
What we believe about ourselves and about God matters more than we can know. Our actions flow from what we believe. The fact that these two individuals who were chosen were women was as important as any other attribute. It matters that you are a woman. As long as you live on earth and in this body your gender is a crucial part of who you are and God’s plan for your life depends on you being a woman. Like both women, it is impossible to calculate the consequences of making choices either for or against God’s plan. Since we cannot know how far the influence of our choices will go it is always better to choose to be on God’s side than otherwise. I am convinced that God wants you to be like Mary and not like Eve but that means you must listen to and believe what he says about you and choose to submit to him to be a servant of the Lord.
The Perfect One
There is another 'woman' I should mention who has also been given a special place in history. This woman will live forever and she will be exalted above all women. She is also the means by which God brings great blessing to the world. She is the bride of Christ. She is not an individual like the other two. Instead, she is the church, the gathering of all believers throughout the ages.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
Revelation 19:7-8
We are told that Jesus has paid a high price, the sacrifice of a perfect lamb, himself, for her. Now he has become one with her in the same way a husband and wife are one. He has gone back to his father to prepare a place for her. He has promised to come back to take her home to a great wedding feast. In the meantime, he is also taking care of her and preparing her for his coming. When he finally takes her to himself she will be made perfect for her husband Jesus and they will be together forever. Even though she is not an actual person I think it is important not to miss the symbolism of the title, “the bride of Christ” who also is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. There is something about womanhood that Jesus the son of God cherishes and honors so highly that he describes the entity that is most precious to him as a woman, his bride.
Why it matters
All this matters first because God has preserved for us a very vivid picture of what womanhood means to him. God’s wisdom and truth have always been countercultural and counterintuitive. Our perception of reality and our response to this reality must conform to what is true and not simply what we feel. Just like Eve, if we believe something about ourselves that is not true we will live by it and as a result live as slaves to the lie. The only thing that can break us free from a lie is the truth.
Secondly, everything God has made is beautiful and praiseworthy. Sin has marred everything and God is in the process of restoring things to what they are meant to be. As we understand and grow closer to what we are made to be, we become more beautiful to God and others and His glory is displayed and we can all praise him for his marvelous work.
Third, God the Creator brings things into being by calling them into being. We see many examples of God calling people something long before they fit the description. Mary was called “favored one” while she was still a poor insignificant young woman from an obscure town but she became the mother of Jesus and is honored above all women. I believe that your understanding of what God calls you is crucial to living out what you have been made for.
If you are willing, I would like to walk with you on a journey to discover the image of womanhood that I am sure God has saved for us in his word.
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