Greetings Favoured One

Luke 1:26-38

I can't imagine an angel coming and talking to me.  Although, at least in Mary's case, I wonder what sort of form the angel had.  The text doesn't record her being afraid of the angel, just at being puzzled by what it said to her.  So perhaps it just looked like a person?  So, if some person came up and said, "Greetings favoured one, the Lord is with you", you would probably look at them a little bit sideways.  But what a great greeting it was.  I think there's a bit of a fear of what God would say to us if He sent a message to us personally.  But here, at the beginning of this new chapter in the relationship between God and man, it's all good news.

I think of the two times in my own life when someone has had a word from God for me.  Both times were encouragements about situations the messenger couldn't possibly have known about.  They weren't world changing moments like Mary had, but for me they are important markers to look back on my own relationship with God.  There's no record of any other moments where Mary has a remarkable encounter like this, but I imagine she would often think back to that moment throughout the rest of her life.