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In the sixth month of her elderly cousin Elizabeth's pregnancy, a young, betrothed Jewish girl was astonished by a visit from an angel. It was the angel Gabriel, and he greeted the girl Mary with a reverential "Hail" and announced that she had "found favor" with God and was to conceive and bear a child to be called Jesus. Shocking enough; but there was more: the conception would occur not by natural means, but by the agency of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35-37).

Mary responded in obedience. She called herself the Lord's "handmaiden" (Luke 1:38 48)—a humble title that set the tone for the rest of the New Testament accounts and became the foundation for centuries of Marian devotion.

Mary recognized that she had become, like Enoch (Gen. 5:22) and Noah (who "found grace in the eyes of the LORD" [Gen. 6:8]), one "highly favored" by God (Luke 1:28 30). She saw that she would forever after be recognized as one "blessed … among women" (28, 42). This blessing was not for her alone, as she sang in her Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), but for all God's children. She was the one woman, out of all women, through whom God would fulfill his covenant love and promise.

How improbable! This obscure Jewish girl became, through the work of the Holy Spirit and her willing obedience, the instrument of divine grace. Through her, the majesty and unapproachable holiness of God joined the frail impermanence of fallen humanity. She was the chosen vessel of the Incarnation, at the pivot point of God's saving plan. How could Mary not loom in the imagination of the church?

Although Mary the mother of Jesus is of almost unrivaled importance in historic Christianity, and although her role in salvation history is central, she has a comparatively modest role in the Bible itself. Even where Mary does appear in the Gospels, she often has only a cameo, and in several instances, she does not even get a speaking part.

The gaps and silences in the biblical texts have invited speculation, and writers of a number of apocryphal books (p. 18) purport to reveal details of her biography not found in the canon, inspiring much art and even some doctrine.

The central importance of Mary in Christian tradition, however, is rooted in the Bible. It is in her role as the "mother of Jesus"—or, in Elizabeth's words, "mother of my Lord" (Luke 1:43)—that we meet her in the Gospels' pages.

Luke, of course, tells her story most fully (1:26ff; cf. Matthew 1:18ff). There we find not only Gabriel's Annunciation to Mary, but also her poetic response, the prayer-song known as the Magnificat (because it begins "Magnificat anima mea Dominum" or "My soul magnifies the Lord").

The Magnificat reveals Mary as, like Miriam and Hannah before her, a divinely inspired poet. This trait she also shares with her ancestor David. Indeed, her spontaneous poem recalls the Psalms (especially Psa. 111:9), just as Elizabeth's words of greeting to her, "Blessed are you among women," echo Psalm 1: "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly."

The Magnificat soon entered the liturgy of the church. Among Anglicans it continues to be recited daily at evensong, and Catholics use it in worship, where it is often sung rather than spoken, as in the beautiful version of the Franciscan singer and liturgist John Michael Talbot. In this context all of the congregation joins Mary in praise: "Holy is his name."

Mary's Visitation to Elizabeth, whose fetal child John the Baptist "leaps for joy" in her womb at Mary's approach (1:39-56), completes the story of the Annunciation. Along with Gabriel's Ave Maria and Mary's Magnificat, the Visitation confirms that the events Mary is caught up in are indeed God's fulfillment of "all that the prophets had spoken." Not surprisingly, along with the plethora of artworks dedicated to the Annunciation, Christian artists have created many images depicting this portentous visit.

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