Rejoice!

Mary loved the sunrise. An early riser, she regularly snuck off to her little corner of the world to watch the sun slowly paint the shadows and fill the horizon with light. Mary always listened intently at the synagogue and stood in reverence and awe whenever she visited the temple in Jerusalem, but it was here in these moments that her heart was both most at rest and most alive.  

Like so many days before and after this one, Mary awakes with only the faintest hint of gray on the horizon. Quietly, stepping past her sleeping siblings, she slips out the door to her spot. Only this morning it isn’t the sun that greets her.  

“Mary,” speaks a voice.

Startled, Mary turns in its direction, wondering how she missed the arrival of another person. But what she sees causes her breath to catch in her chest.

“Mary,” the voice repeats, reverberating through her. “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you.”

I love to imagine this history-altering moment. Regardless of how the moment actually played out, I can’t help but marvel at the wonder contained in Luke 1:28-33. The angel’s announcement of Mary’s impending pregnancy and Messiah’s birth are some of Scripture’s most familiar verses, yet the familiarity of the words doesn’t erase any of the mystery and promise found within them: God Almighty, the maker of Heaven and Earth, the eternal one, will now reside within a teenage girl.

Mary is the only single person in the Bible to be called highly favored. In fact, the term used to describe Mary, chariotoō, is only used twice in Scripture. It means, “indue with special honor:—make accepted, be highly favored” (Strong’s G5487). The first use of chariotoō is here in Luke 1 as the angel Gabriel heralds the news that God Almighty will live within Mary for the next nine months. “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you.”

The second time chariotoō is used also heralds the news of God Almighty residing within his creation—only this time it’s not limited to a single person. The second time the term highly favored is used, it describes all of us adopted in Christ as sons and daughters. The Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians, “He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which he highly favored us in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:5,6, emphasis added).  

I love how these verses are translated in the Passion Translation: “For it was always in his perfect plan to adopt us as his delightful children, through our union with Jesus, the Anointed One, so that his tremendous love that cascades over us would glorify his grace—for the same love he has for his Beloved One, Jesus, he has for us. And this unfolding plan brings him great pleasure!”

Or, a slightly different rendering, my own mash-up of different footnotes and translations: “He marked out our destiny beforehand to establish us as his delightful children, through our union with Jesus, the Anointed one, so that his tremendous love cascades over us. His grace-plan is to be celebrated: he greatly endeared us and highly favored us in Christ. His love for his Son is his love for us.”

What distinguishes Mary as highly favored isn’t her humility or great faith—though certainly both are beautiful examples for us. No, the very thing that marks Mary as highly favored is the same thing that we in Christ now carry: God’s presence within us.

God thinks so highly of us, his disposition toward us is so kind, and his countenance shines so brightly over us that he exalted us to a place unheard of until Gabriel’s initial announcement two thousand years ago to a Jewish teenage girl. The Father’s love for Jesus is the exact same love he has for you and he is so committed to expressing this love to all who will receive his gift, that he promises to abide within you, his beloved daughter, his beloved son, beyond all the bounds of time. We are in him and he is in us. Forever.

Rejoice, highly favored one! The Lord is with you.