"... such a little angel!"

"Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. – Luke 1.28-29

We’re accustomed to nice, well-mannered, and well-behaved angels. When a child is particularly well-behaved, we gush, “oh she’s such a little angel!” Our image of angels comes mostly from works of art, movies, TV shows, Christmas cards and pop songs:
She looks like an angel looks,
and she cooks like an angel cooks,
And my mind’s in a kind of whirl,
to my mind, she's my kind of girl.
My personal favorite angelic depiction is Cary Grant in The Bishop’s Wife.

But Mary knew well the Scriptures. And because she knew the Scriptures, she knew something about angels that we don’t know. Angels aren’t nice. They’re “terrible,” in the old sense of the word. The Scriptural accounts of angels are terrifying, dangerous, and often fatal. Their appearance announced the unexpected, uncontrollable and usually unwanted bursting of God into one’s life.

Mary knew that Angels never brought flowers or cake. They brought fire and sword and death, and if they spoke to you, it might be to send you into battle against overwhelming armies, with inadequate backup and poor equipment.

And so, quite rightly, “Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.” Whatever greeting this might be, it undoubtedly meant that life, as Mary had always imagined it would be, would now be over.

And of course it was. “And a sword will pierce your own soul, too.” -- Luke 2.35

God’s coming to us is never settling, but profoundly unsettling. Upsetting. Unraveling. Penetrating to the heart of the matter. A bolt of lightening into our souls. “God with us” is less about God being on “our side” than bursting into our lives. God intends to disturb our slumber and shake our world. God’s gracious favor toward us, is the opposite of calming, for God is trying to awaken us. And will move heaven and earth to reach us.

The Lord be with you!