Fr Peter Helman
“Today is the beginning of our salvation; the revelation of the eternal mystery!
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin as Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.”
(The Troparion of Annunciation)
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Today it is my bounden duty solemnly to declare (or should I say "announce") to you that which even the most barbarous and unprincipled peddler of holiday cheer dare not herald so soon: Christmas is quick upon us. This very morning, a mere nine months stand betwixt us and the due date of the holy bambino. I know this with joyful surety because the Church, the world over, celebrates the great Feast of the Annunciation today.
March 25 is the auspicious day when the angel Gabriel, following the account of the Gospel of Saint Luke, was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. Gabriel hailed the Blessed Virgin Mary and "announced" unto her that she, highly favored, would conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit and bear a son. Jesus would be great, called the Son of the Most High, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
The Feast of the Annunciation always occurs during Lent, as we ready our hearts to walk with Jesus towards Jerusalem for the Passion, and serves as a glorious interlude that punctuates lenten austerity. Yet, precisely because it does fall during Lent, the feast appears and disappears rather abruptly.
Lest it pass by without notice, let us say at least a preliminary word or two about the Annunciation.
The Annunciation disambiguates a few profoundly significant moments in the plan of salvation. At the Annunciation we associate the message of the angel Gabriel to Mary with the Incarnation, or the becoming flesh, of God; and strictly distinguish both the Annunciation and the Incarnation from the Nativity of Jesus! Christmas is the Feast of the Lord’s Nativity, the birth of God in Jesus Christ in the flesh, but the Nativity is different from the Incarnation. Christmas dominates so much of our consciousness that we often overlook the splendor of the Feast of the Annunciation. The Annunciation to Mary is the moment in the plan of salvation that reveals the Incarnation of the eternal Word of God. And it is the Word's very conception in the womb of Mary that is the "moment" of the Word's "enfleshment." So, while Jesus will be born in the flesh nine months from now, according to our liturgical calendar, the very conception of the Word made flesh is the beginning of his human life as the Son of God and Son of Man. The Annunciation, then, is very good news!
I will leave you with an excerpt from a favorite sermon by Saint Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome from 440 to 461, on the mystery of God taking human form in the womb of Mary (I hope you will forgive the gendered language):
"He took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself.
"Thus the Son of God enters this lowly world. He comes down from the throne of heaven, yet does not separate himself from the Father’s glory. He is born in a new condition, by a new birth.
"He was born in a new condition, for, invisible in his own nature, he became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, he chose to come within our grasp. Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time. Lord of the universe, he hid his infinite glory and took the nature of a servant. Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering. Immortal, he chose to be subject to the laws of death.
"He who is true God is also true man. There is no falsehood in this unity as long as the lowliness of man and the pre-eminence of God coexist in mutual relationship."
May God bless you and yours on this great Feast of the Annunciation. With one voice let us offer in prayer and praise the customary response to the Troparion of Annunciation (cited above!): "Together with [Gabriel] let us cry to the Theotokos: “Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!”
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Peter