The Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 20, 2020

Luke 1:26–38

The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He 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, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And 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. And 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; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary 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.

This reading from the Gospel of St. Luke is one we have all heard many times, and yet it contains so much richness that each time we come to it we may receive an abundance of new jewels and pearls.  For instance, the name “Galilee” comes from a Hebrew word that means “district”.  During the time after the Assyrian conquest of Israel in 720 B.C., the Jewish inhabitants were driven into exile never to return and it was forcibly resettled by other conquered people.  Thus, the term “the Galilee of the nations” arose.  This remained the condition of the land for over five hundred years until the Maccabees rose up against the Greek occupiers of the time and began to reclaim what had simply become known as “Galilee” (as the District of Columbia is sometimes merely called “the District”).  Many of the gentile people who lived there at that time were compelled to convert to Judaism and accept circumcision, but also Jews coming from Judea resettled the country.  The Virgin Mary’s ancestors and those of St. Joseph would have been among these settlers from Judea, as we see from Luke 2, 4.   

In Isaiah 9, 1-2, Isaiah speaks of how God allowed the unfaithful northern kingdom to be destroyed, and then prophesies of a great age to come, which could not possibly have been foreseen at the time without divine inspiration: “In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.”  While this could be understood as fulfilled by the return of Judaism to the land, it is better fulfilled by the Incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary in Nazareth and his subsequent public life, which was spent primarily in that region.  The prophecy will be perfectly fulfilled with the Second Coming, for “the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali” can be understood as our world in which so many have “dwelt in a land of deep darkness” of ignorance and faithlessness, upon which the great Light of Christ will dawn in his coming for judgment.

The origin of the name “Nazareth” puzzled the Fathers, and the question remains unsettled to this day.  It is possible that it comes from the Hebrew word for “shoot”.  Jerome points to the Hebrew text of Isaiah 11, 1 for this: “A rod shall go forth from the stock of Jesse and a nazer shall spring from its roots.”  The Hebrew nazer can be translated as “shoot”, “sprout”, or “branch”.  The human nature of the Son of God, of course, arises from the House of David, whose father was Jesse.  And the Son of God received this human nature in Nazareth.  It is also possible that this is the source for St. Matthew’s referencing a prophecy that “He shall be called a Nazarene” (Matthew 2, 23), which is otherwise not found in the scriptures, as the Fathers confirm.  

An interesting question that arises for many in this reading is: Where was the Virgin Mary at the time she was visited by Gabriel?  Fathers such as Augustine hand on that she was in her room in her father’s house.  This seems a distinct possibility because it is thought that she would have been at prayer at that moment, and she would have known her room as the best place for prayer.  On the other hand, the oldest tradition on this has her at a well at this time.  The so-called Proto-Gospel of James tells us, “And she took a pitcher, and went out to fill it with water. And, behold, a voice saying: ‘Hail, you who have received grace: the Lord is with you!  Blessed are you among women!’  And she looked round, on the right hand and on the left, to see whence this voice came. And she went away, trembling, to her house, and put down the pitcher.”  Once she is in the house, the angel speaks to her again, announcing that she will conceive according to God’s word.  Now, while this document is not divinely inspired, it may preserve elements of actual history.

The detail that the author of the Proto-Gospel adds, that Mary was “trembling” at the sound of the voice of the invisible angel, may come as an attempted explanation for the Gospel record of Gabriel’s words: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”  This “Do not be afraid” does not seem to correspond with Mary’s reaction to the angel’s greeting.  If we look at the Greek word translated as “do not fear”, however, we find that it has a wide variety of meanings.  Those which best fit this context are “to be startled by an unusual sight or event” and “to be struck with wonder”.  Other meanings include “to hesitate”, as in “Do not hesitate, Mary”.  And so instead of picturing Mary as fearful, we should see her as startled by the sudden appearance of the angel, or as marveling at the angel’s beauty.

Finally, the last part of the above verse, “You have found favor with God” should be translated differently so that it is consistent with its antecedent, translated here as “Full of grace”.  That is, it should read, “You have received grace from God” — not the insufficient “favor”.  This confirms for Mary that she has sufficient grace to carry out what God desires her to do.  The verse, then, should read: “Do not be amazed, Mary.  You have received grace from God and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son.”  (The case for translating “Do not fear” as “Do not hesitate” is made by an ancient homily in which all creation is represented as imploring the Virgin Mary, standing before the Angel Gabriel, to give her answer to him, as though she had paused to consider what was being asked of her).

These are a very few, a spoonful, of the riches contained in this reading from the Gospel of St. Luke.