Why Mary?

Here is the beginning of the narrative from Luke 1 as the angel visits Mary:  26 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” 

Notice the words that the angel uses to describe Mary:  “highly favored one”…”blessed are you among women”…Later on when Mary is relaying this information to Elizabeth she calls herself a “lowly maidservant”.  Why did God pick Mary?  Contrary to Catholic doctrine or teaching, Mary was not sinless during her life or before she gave birth to Jesus.  Mary was a young girl like every other young girl except that she was chosen by God for an incredible task.  Please do not think that there was anything on Mary’s “resume” that uniquely qualified her for the role as the human mother of God.  Mary was chosen because God chose her.

To me this is very humbling and very exciting.  You see, there is nothing very special about my resume’ as far as God is concerned, and probably nothing special about yours either…but that doesn’t disqualify us from being used by God.  Your resume’, good or bad, doesn’t guarantee or eliminate the idea of God using you.  This entire week we will focus on Mary and her obedience to the Lord, but let’s not forget the fact that it is not her obedience that brought her to this point.  She was simply chosen by God…and she understood it.  Mary never let being chosen by God for this incredible “assignment” to go to her head.  She just simply walked the road that God had placed her on and she did it very, very well.

More on Mary tomorrow but my advice for all of us is to follow what God has planned for us today!