The Five Words of Christmas: Favor

Luke 1:30

Rev. Juvenal Cervantes, Pastor
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Greeley, Colorado
November 28, 2021

“But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.”

Luke 1:30

 Mary and Jesus

The story of Jesus begins not with the Son of God but with his mother. Mary was a peasant teenage girl living in the remote village of Nazareth. Her hometown was so small that it is not mentioned a single time in the Old Testament. She had been promised to Joseph by her parents when she was a small girl. Now that she has reached puberty, around 13 years of age, the two had become engaged and would soon be married. She would be an eighth grader in our society.

Now the angel Gabriel appears to her: “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28). Luke tells us that “Mary was greatly troubled at his word and wondered what kind of greeting this might be” (v. 29). I know that you’re familiar with the story but try to imagine it for the first time. Has an angel ever appeared to you? How might you respond?

When I was in high school, I had an awkward experience. My brother Joe and my sister Herminia cared for my dad who struggled with gangrene on his feet. We helped make the coffee, cook the meals, change his bandage on his feet and take him to his medical appointments. We lived in a small house, and I slept on a sofa in the living room. Shortly after I surrendered to preach, I may have been 16 years old, I laid on the sofa to go to sleep and suddenly I felt a presence behind me and out the corner of my eye I saw a human figure dressed in white. I could not distinguish who this was, but I froze. I was so fearful that I froze my way to sleep.

Gabriel says to her:

Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end (vs. 30-33).

Her son would be the Promised One, the Messiah for whom the Jewish people had been waiting and praying for more than seven centuries. They taught their daughters to pray every night before going to bed that they might be chosen to become the mother of the Messiah. Now Gabriel has come to tell Mary that God has selected her.

But she doesn’t understand: “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

This was a surprising fact in her day and town. Nazareth was constructed on a hillside, with a very popular trading route just below. This road was crowded with Roman soldiers, Greek merchants, and world travelers. Many of the village girls dressed and acted so as to attract the men traveling along this route, seeing them as their way out of Nazareth to the larger world. But not Mary—she kept herself pure.

Gabriel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God” (vs. 35-37).

Note Mary’s response: “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said” (v. 38).

In making this commitment, Mary risked her future and even her life. How would her fiancé understand this miracle? She would become pregnant, and he would know that the child was not his. He would have to assume that she had committed adultery. He could divorce her or bring her before the village to be stoned to death. At best she would be an outcast, a single mother with no future; at worst she would die.

But Mary trusted God with her life, her child, her future. “Servant” translates the Greek word for “slave.” She gave herself completely to God as his possession. He could do with her what he wished, send her where he wanted her to go, ask of her anything he wanted. She would be his, now and for the rest of her life.

And what she was, her Son became.

He would be about his “Father’s business” at the age of 12. He would submit to John’s baptism and his Father’s call to ministry. He would touch lepers, befriend prostitutes, call tax collectors and “sinners.”

Then he would choose in the Garden of Gethsemane to die on our cross for our sins. He would be impaled with spikes through his wrists and heels, stabbed with a Roman spear, and die on a Roman cross. All this he chose to do for his Father when he said, “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).

Yes, Mary was highly favored. Consider this: Mary has no credentials. No one who matters have ever heard of her or her parents. And she’s from the wrong end of the country. In this era the urbanized citizens of Jerusalem tend to view rural Galilee pretty much the same way some people in New York and Boston view the residents of small West Virginia towns. Hillbillies. Country bumpkins.

The angel said to Mary, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” (Luke 1:30).

You and I can identify with Mary: we are not credentialed either, and we too have been highly favored.  We too have been invited to participate in God’s glorious plan for saving the world.

Mary has found favor with God. Many of us may have a concept of the word “favor.” We think it may involve someone in authority recognizing our good qualities. We think favor is a reward that we, in some way, have earned or merited.

And we may be right, there is a kind of blessing from heaven that causes you to stand out in a crowd. The blessing of the Lord can and does cause people to view you favorably, but that is not the meaning of the word Gabriel spoke to Mary.

Luke wrote in Greek- and extremely precise language. And the English word translated “favor” in Luke 1:30 is the Greek word charis. This word appears 136 times in the New Testament, which tells us that it is a very important concept in the New Covenant God established through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Yet only six times it is translated as “favor.” The other 130 times charis is translated “grace.” This is because deeply rooted in the meaning of of charis is the concept of a “gift”- something wonderful that is utterly free and unearned. The story of Christmas is the story of the greatest gift every given. And on this night, Mary has been informed that she has been chosen to literally deliver that gift to the world. Highly favored indeed.

I’ve been asked who is your favorite daughter? Often Sylvia calls and says, “Dad, it is me, Sylvia, your favorite offspring.” Then Lanetta says, “I am your favorite daughter because I am your firstborn.” And my quick reply: both are my favorite daughters. I think it is possible for both of my daughter to be my favorite daughters. A woman was asked, “Who is your favorite child?” Her response, “The ill, the one who is sick until she or he recovers. The one who is struggling, until she or he is restored.”

Now we know that God has given us salvation through Jesus Christ. If we were the only one on the planet, God would have sent Jesus Christ to die for you. He has brought you salvation. You are God’s favorite. In a miracle that only and all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God could pull off, we are all His favorites. We are all the focus of His amazing grace.

This is the season of grace and God wants to partner with you, too. God spoke this clearly thought the birth of His son. He spoke salvation. Then he spoke grace. This is the season of grace. And that means you’re one of his favorites.

As God’s favorites, we can love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. On this basis, you and I can pray three prayers every day:

One: “God, help me to love you fully in response to your unconditional love for me.”

The more we remember our Father’s sacrificial, passionate, absolute love for us, the more we will want to love him in the same way.

Two: “God, help me love myself as you love me.”

The more we remember what Jesus did to restore our relationship with our Father, the more we will find our self-worth, not in our possessions, popularity, or performance but in his never-ending, never-changing love for us.

Three: “God, help me love my neighbor as you love me.”

The more we experience God’s transforming love, the more we will be empowered and motivated to share it with every person we can. And the more we will love them as we are loved.

Imagine the difference it would make in the world if Christians were known for loving others as God loves us.

Now imagine the difference for the next person you meet.