The Annunciation and the Implications - Luke 1:26-40; Matthew 1:18-25

Only Matthew and Luke talk about the immaculate conception of the Savior and his birth and childhood. Matthew comments that Mary “was found with child of the Holy Ghost” when she was espoused to Joseph. Luke gives us a much more detailed account beginning with when the angel Gabriel “was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth.” I used to watch those Living Scriptures movies when I was a kid and the one that was about Jesus’s birth had one part that was particularly interesting to me and that’s when the angel Gabriel shows up. Mary doesn’t seem to be that surprised to see an angel, and their conversation flows pretty naturally, which makes me wonder if she had been spiritually taught to such a point that an angelic appearance wasn’t shocking to her. It’s also interesting to me that the angel came to her and not to her father. Again, I don’t know the particulars of society back then but it would seem to me that a father who found out that his unmarried daughter was pregnant could really have some outrage at that. To me this demonstrates that Mary was unique in her ability to be the mother of the Son of God. The IM quotes Elder Bruce R. McConkie as commenting, “As there is only one Christ, so there is only one Mary. And as the father chose the most noble and righteous of all his spirit sons to come into mortality as his Only Begotten in the flesh, so we may confidently conclude that he selected the most worthy and spiritually talented of all his spirit daughters to be the mortal mother of his Eternal Son.” I remember back in D&C something that said that the Lord has been watchful over the lineage of Joseph Smith for many generations, and I can only imagine the painstaking care with which he facilitated the birth of the Savior. We were able to see how important all the generations were from the time of Adam in order for the proper authority to be given in the proper way. The fact that Mary was among the most chosen female spirits in the pre-existence is a forgone conclusion. All the people surrounding Mary must have been incredibly spiritually in tune because for a young girl to become pregnant in ancient Palestine and still be protected and able to bear the Son of God, she must have had an arsenal of protection.

Let’s look at the angel’s request for her to be the mother of God from Mary’s point of view. She’s engaged to be married, she will be pregnant and Joseph will know that he’s not the father. She might hope that Joseph will be gracious with her, but all bets are off when someone is faced with a broken heart from adultery, anything can happen. She could face anything from death to Joseph still marrying her but a life of disappointment. Her parents could abandon her, the Jewish leaders could take the matters into their own hands and have her executed. I don’t think that she imagined in her mind at this moment any way that she could come out of this without at least a massive amount of life changing persecution. A Christian article I found makes an excellent point saying, “’What an honor,’ you say, ‘to be chosen as the mother of the Messiah. How could she decline?’ Wait a minute. You may be saying that because you know the end of the story, but put yourself in Mary’s place for a moment. Do you think anybody would really believe that this child was conceived of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you think more people would conclude that Mary was covering up an escapade with some Roman soldier?... Don’t you think other might conclude that Mary and Joseph had gone too far in their relationship with each other and had disobeyed the law of God? In either case, was there not the possibility that Mary could be stoned for fornication?... And what about Joseph? He would know that he was not responsible for Mary’s condition. What would he say? Would he still be willing to marry her? Was she willing to give him up if it would come to that? And what about the child? Would he not carry the stigma of illegitimacy with him throughout his entire life? In that brief moment in the angel’s presence, all of Mary’s dreams for the future flashed before her mind, and she could see every one of them shattered.” But she says anyway, in the heat of the moment, without any time to think about it or consult anyone, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” I think that it’s significant that the angel told Mary about Elizabeth’s pregnancy, I think the Lord knew that Mary would need the support of someone else during this time, someone who believed her story and who could spiritually support her in the beginning. Elizabeth’s exclamation of Mary’s condition “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Elizabeth didn’t know that Mary was miraculously pregnant with the Son of God before Mary got to her house, so for her to have this knowledge by the power of the Holy Ghost must have been a great source of strength and support to Mary. Tender mercies, God didn’t leave Mary comfortless during a most trying time for her and he doesn’t leave us alone when we need him either.

Mary can only stay with her cousin for so long, 3 months, so she returns to her father’s house and she’s at least 4 months pregnant, so there is no hiding it anymore, she has to return and face the music. I can’t even imagine how terrified she must have been for everyone’s reaction. I understand that she had strong faith and therefore had no reason to fear, but I know that I would have been absolutely terrified. We are given no insight into how her parents reacted, which was probably badly knowing how parents are, but Joseph’s reaction is the most telling of who he is and his own spirituality. I believe that he deeply loved Mary and when she showed up from her cousin’s house pregnant I could only imagine the heart break that he felt. The IM says, “When Mary was found to be with child, Joseph, knowing he was not the father, had several options. First, he could have subjected Mary to a public divorce and perhaps even execution, for people would have presumed that Mary was guilty of adultery- a crime punishable by death under the Law of Moses. Second, Joseph could have had his betrothal to Mary privately annulled before two witnesses. A third option was to proceed with the marriage. Joseph was inclined to show mercy to Mary by quietly annulling the betrothal agreement.” One reason why he might have wanted to annul the betrothal was to give the man who was the actual father a chance to take care of his responsibilities and to be a family with Mary and his child. Poor Joseph would have been heartbroken and yet was still aware of his compassion enough to be gentle and merciful to Mary.  

Before Joseph had made an official decision, “behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins… Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus.” I always wondered how the writers of these books knew whether or not Mary and Joseph had had sex while she was pregnant with Jesus, but it occurred to me while reading about Joseph that perhaps they only stayed betrothed while she was pregnant and didn’t get officially married until after Jesus was born. That’s one way that they might have known the status of their relationship. The angel came to Joseph in a dream, which to me seems a little bit more subtle than a visual appearance, and I don’t know if that means anything significant as far as spirituality goes. An angel appeared to Zacharias, but not to Elizabeth as far as we know. An angel appeared to Mary but only to Joseph in a dream. The IM quotes Gerald N. Lund as saying, “Matthew tells us that (Joseph) was of the lineage of King David, that he was a just and considerate man, that in a dream an angel told him who Jesus would be, that he was obedient, and that he gave Jesus his name, which means Savior. We know that he took Mary to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. Less than two years later, Joseph took his family into Egypt to escape Herod, after being warned in a dream. In Egypt, a dream again told him when to return, and another dream told him to go to Galilee. Four dreams from God! Joseph must have been an exceptionally visionary and spiritually sensitive man.” We always hear about Mary and what an amazing woman she was and how faithful but until I read this I hadn’t realized that it was through Joseph that God communicated and commanded. It seems that he truly embraced his role as provider, protector, and presider. I’ve never really had a good understanding of what it meant for a man to preside over his family, but this opens up a new perspective for me, I’m going to have to think about this. Jesus was not Joseph’s son, but he raised and protected him vigilantly. The IM says, “when assured by an angel that Mary’s child was the Son of God, Joseph elected to marry her, though doing so could have brought upon him public shame and ridicule.” When the angel came to Joseph, he would have been well within his right to walk away, but by electing to marry Mary and raise the child as his own, he was taking on the responsibility of raising her child. Imagine being asked to raise the Son of God as your own! That’s an incredibly loaded task. But he agreed and excelled at it. When he agreed to embrace the role of Jesus’s father and Mary’s husband he had to assume the role of the being espoused husband to pregnant and unmarried Mary. This subjected him to one of two consequences, either he was viewed as the man who married an adulterous woman or he was viewed as the man who got his girlfriend pregnant out of wedlock. One makes him appear as a wimp, the other makes him look like a philanderer, either way he’s an outcast or at least looked down up, a pariah. Luckily for us, Joseph appears to not care too much about reputations or what other people think about him because he was faithful to God and his family and raised the Savior as his own.