Mary, did you know…that in the Bible, only two angels are mentioned by name? One is Michael, and the other is the one that appears in the Christmas story…Gabriel.
Gabriel is mentioned twice. The first time was when he shows up as a messenger to Daniel to explain a crazy vision that Daniel had. And that was about 600 years before showing up in the Christmas story preserved by the historian Dr. Luke when, as we heard a few days ago, Gabe shows up to scare the puckey out of Zechariah (okay, not the real reason), and then about six months later to drop a baby bomb on Mary.
Just from this little bit, we can observe a couple things. One, Gabe’s at least six hundred years old, but that’s being kind of silly. From the Bible we don’t know when angels were created or how many there are, but we can surmise from Genesis and Exodus that they were at least created by the sixth day of creation, so that was a few moons ago. Oh, and elsewhere we learn that while there are good ones who worship and serve God, there are some who rebelled and defected to the competition, so angels must have been given freewill like we were.
But the point here isn’t to deliver a systematic theology about all we do or don’t know about angels from the Bible. What I think it’s sometimes waaay too easy to overlook is how, if God is God, that anything within reason is possible. Let me come back to that momentarily.
In the Christmas story, here’s Gabe showing up on Mary’s doorstep. And she’s a little baffled at his greeting calling her a “favored one” and saying, “the Lord is with you.” After all, those phrases would have been weird even if she was a person of status, and in that culture being young and female meant she had no rank or status. Then Gabe tells her she’s gonna have a baby who’s gonna be the promised Messianic king, and gets the whole question, “Uh, how’s that? I know how babies come from the wild thing and I ain’t been doing any wild thing.”
So Gabe explains whattup and ends with, as we catch it in Luke 1:37,
…nothing will be impossible with God. Luke 1:37, ESV
Now here’s my question for you. Is Christianity just about some dude named Jesus who gave us some ethical aphorisms so we can live a better life? Or do you trust that miracles can happen?”
Because here’s the thing: IF there is God who created something from nothing, and I’m talking about the cosmos, THEN something like a virgin birth or a resurrection or healing your Aunt Bea’s bunion problem is all within the realm of possible.
And maybe, just maybe, this God could also have made you for a purpose, to love Him and others, to know your heart and what you need even better than you do. Mary did believe in miracles, and it’s reasonable for us to do so as well.
By the way, when I said anything’s possible with God within reason, here’s why. God is perfect and makes total sense, even if we can’t wrap our heads around Him. Somehow natural laws like gravity or anything else in the cosmos rolls up into, but does not preclude, supernatural law or intervention. But God can’t do something that makes no sense… like make a square circle or married bachelor. That’s dumb.
What’s not so dumb is that as we contemplate Jesus showing up on that Christmas morning and what it means for how we better connect with Him and others, remember that He promised to guide and guard you with the same Holy Spirit that Gabriel said would make Mary conceive the Son of God. (BTW, right here I add something in the recording…a good reminder that what’s written here is first draft stuff, and the recording is second-draft. In other words, it’s all really a podcast to listen to.)
And that, my friends, is a reason pour another glass of eggnog and sing Mary Did You Know about ten times in a row.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in communications, an award-winning author and speaker, and a passionately bad guitarist. ForTheHope equips on-the-go professionals with biblical principles to engage marketplace relationships with competent humility. On Twitter can follow him @RogerCourville and/or his podcast @JoinForTheHope, or get all updates by email subscription at www.forthehope.org.