In this third pericope of Luke 1, we meet the greatest of the elect in the history of the Christian faith—Mary, the mother of Jesus—although she is hardly exalted yet. Betrothed to Joseph, but still a virgin, Mary must have been quite young—fifteen years old, maybe even younger. She is a little girl in what was surely a man’s world, an impoverished nobody with nothing of importance to say. Like Zechariah in the prior scene, the last thing she expects to receive is a visitation from an angel, particularly