Residents of small towns in the Middle East are not known for their tolerance and acceptance of people breaking the rules of their society.  What would an unwed, thirteen-year-old girl have to endure if she found herself pregnant in one of these small towns?  How would she explain her situation?  How would she tolerate rejection and public ridicule?  Would she have the maturity to handle her situation well?  

        Well, over 2000 years ago, this is the situation Mary, Jesus’ mother, found herself in….Nazareth was not considered by Biblical writers to be a progressive community.  Instead, the town were Mary and Joseph lived was considered a backwater, unsophisticated place by the urbanites of Jerusalem and Rome.  At the time of Jesus’ birth and early childhood, Nazareth had between fifteen and twenty thousand residents.  Nearby, King Herod was building a Hellenistic city, Sepphoris.  Carpenters and builders would have been needed to create Sepphoris, and it is a possibility the Joseph, Jesus’ adopted father, would have worked there.  Nazareth would have been a town where uneducated people and laborers lived.  After Jesus became an adult and began to gather followers, Phillip went to Nathaniel and told him he had met the messiah who was from Nazareth. Nathaniel’s response was to remark, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?”  Nazareth was the last place on earth the Israeli people expected to be the hometown of the messiah.

        Mary, a child from small-town Nazareth, probably never expected the messiah to come from Nazareth either.  There were limited options for a girl like Mary.  There are no examples unmarried adult women in the Bible, so we can assume that almost all women were married.  Mary would have expected to be betrothed to a young man from the village and to be married soon after she reached childbearing age.  Most ancient Israeli women were thirteen when they married, so we can assume Mary to be about that age when she found herself pregnant with Jesus.  Mary was a typical Israeli girl for her time-period, typical until God interfered with her life and its expected course.

        Luke does not tell us where Mary was when the angel Gabriel came to her.  We know that Gabriel must have been terrifying in appearance, because after Gabriel greeted Mary and her uncle Zachariah he told them not to be afraid.  Six months before the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her the “good news” of her pregnancy, he appeared to Zachariah and told him that Zachariah’s elderly wife, Elizabeth, was pregnant with the baby who would grow up to be John the Baptist.  God found favor with this extended family of faithful believers in Him. 

        We would all probably be surprised and upset if an angel appeared to us.  Mary was very troubled when the angel came to her.  One of the stories Mary would have heard often in her childhood was the story of Tobit.  In the story, a jealous angel appeared on a bride’s wedding night each time she married and killed her bridegroom.  Against the background of this popular story, Mary possibly feared Gabriel had arrived to prevent her marriage to Joseph

        In a way, Gabriel’s appearance could have prevented her marriage, because he announced to Mary that she was pregnant.  According to the customs of the time, when a woman was engaged to a man, the marriage was legally sealed even though the woman would live at home for a year after the engagement.  If the groom died during that year, the woman would have been considered a widow.  If the woman got pregnant during that year, the groom and community would blame the woman for committing adultery.  It was very dangerous for Mary to be pregnant before completing her marriage to Joseph.  As is still the case in some middle eastern villages, one of the punishments for adultery was death.  Mary’s life was at risk due to her pregnancy.

        After the angel tells Mary she has nothing to fear from him, he tells her that she has found favor with God and is pregnant with the messiah.  I am sure this whole experience was difficult for Mary to take in: on the one hand, she was in a great deal of trouble for being pregnant out of wedlock; on the other hand, she was favored by God and was pregnant with the baby who would become the messiah.

        One of the things that most impresses me about this story is how Mary reacts to the news….She tells the angel “I am the Lord’s servant…May it be to me as you have said.”  I am sure God chose Mary to bear the messiah for many reasons, but one of those reasons must have been that God expected Mary to handle the news well.  She doesn’t fight Gabriel.  She does not protest.  She asks one logical question: how can a virgin be pregnant?  After the angel explains to Mary that nothing is impossible to God, Mary accepts her fate.

        And what a fate it is…she is pregnant with the son of God.  Mary has to explain her pregnancy to her friends, family, and community and live with the consequences.  She has to face possible rejection from Joseph, her betrothed.  Then, as a thirteen or fourteen year old girl, she has to take on the responsibilities that went along with raising a child who probably had exceptional abilities and needs that differentiated him from all other children.  After that child grew up, Mary had to endure Jesus’ years in the limelight, a time that brought both positive and negative attention on Jesus and his family.  Mary had to endure Jesus’ disgrace and execution. Mary was not given an easy life and yet she accepts the plight God has placed upon her.

        Over the past centuries, many people have looked to Mary’s life to guide their own.   Mary lived through experiences that would break most people’s hearts.  She lived through the fear and rejection of her community when she found herself unwed and pregnant.  She faced potential rejection from her future husband.  She raised a child who was never fully her own.  She watched that child become the greatest human who ever lived and she watched him face the consequences of being unpopular among the political and religious authorities.  Mary stood nearby and watched that son be executed.  The example Mary set for us reminds us that all humans have the capability to endure great hardships and we all have the ability to overcome those hardships.  We all face things in life we have no control over, and Mary shows us we can make a great difference in the world no matter what unexpected events take place in our lives.  Mary is an example for us of acceptance, patience and grace.  Her faith in a God that bestowed upon Mary a difficult life is an example to us of endurance and love.  May we all learn from Mary’s example.  Amen