The Announcement
The Announcement
26 Now in the sixth month [after that], the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee named Nazareth,
27 To a girl never having been married and a [v]virgin engaged to be married to a man whose name was Joseph, a descendant of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.
28 And he came to her and said, Hail, O favored one [[w]endued with grace]! The Lord is with you![x]Blessed (favored of God) are you before all other women!
-Luke 1:26-28
Mary. The announcement. One willing young blessed, highly favored one. The promise fulfilled. The announcement sent straight from the throne room. Angel Gabriel.
Announce-to make known publicly or officially; proclaim; give notice of (dictionary.com)
An announcement is the precursor to the event. It is not scientific proof or evidence of its passing. It is the advent (waiting) of a future promised miracle. The nation of Israel had a prevision of the Christ spelled out for them in the prophets. They waited for the coming king with an anticipation that may have waned after four hundred years of silence and the Roman oppression.
Remember your announcement?
“I’m going to adopt from…”
“I’m taking the foster/adopt classes and I’m going to foster…”
How highly favored did you feel?
What joy! What fear and trepidation. What a season of advent you entered. Waiting. Waiting for the call. Waiting for the paperwork to be finished. Waiting. Believing in faith that what you prophesied to come to pass would actually come to pass. There were disappointments along the way. There were naysayers who didn’t believe you could, you would. How could you love a child that was not ‘your own’? How could you travel and pick up a stranger and bring him/her home? What if it is a big hoax?
When you saw the pictures of a flesh and blood child who stood on the edge of his advent with a promise of a forever family, family and friends ask, “How can you do it?”
“Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love.
For He foreordained us (destined us, planned in love for us) to be adopted (revealed) as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the purpose of His will [because it pleased Him and was His kind intent]- Ephesians 1: 4,5
The Father who according to His will picked us out, chose us before the foundation of the world, the author of adoption, who embraced us, accepted us as His own children, will He not freely give us the Spirit of adoption to do the same for a child? He did not call us to adoption to tolerate a child living in the same home as us, but He has called us to adopt as He sees it- the Spirit of adoption by which the child cries, ABBA, FATHER (Daddy)(Galatians 4:6).
Just as Mary was chosen as the highly favored one. “The Lord is with you.” As you announce your intentions, remember God is with you. He who begun a good work will complete it, as he did with the Saviour born through the womb a girl never having been married, a Blessed virgin. Father God in heaven chose her. He chose you. He chose adoption through you.