In Mary's time, all Israel was waiting expectantly for the promised One

When she was a little girl, the Virgin Mary waited with the rest of the people of Israel for the coming of the Messiah, who was announced not by a single prophet, but by a long series of men, predicting and complementing their predictions over time. 

She waited in the midst of a small nation, tossed about by history, which has survived every conflict with neighboring empires, and which in the future would be the only people to resist the dissolution of the ancient world, preserving its identity intact, and always with the unshakeable certainty of being the instrument of an eternal destiny, as broad as the whole world. 

All were searching Scripture to determine the precise time of the coming of the Messiah, mysteriously announced by the prophets. And the expectation of the fulfillment of the times had become so strong and precise, in that particular period of history, that historians have counted more than 100 would-be Messiahs. 

"As the people waited expectantly" (Lk 3:15), when John the Baptist appeared, they all asked him: "Are you the One who is to come, or must we wait for another?" (Lk 7:19). This was an absolutely unique moment in time, and this distinctive aspect of Christianity alone is enough - in the opinion of many specialists - to set it apart from the rest of the world's religious history.

Vittorio Messori, Hypothèses sur Jésus, Mame 1978