Fr.
Tony’s Mid-week Message
The Annunciation
March
25, 2015
Today,
nine months before Christmas day, is the Feast of the Annunciation, the
commemoration of the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary of Nazareth and declaring
to her that she would conceive and bear a son:
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel 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. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:26-38)
Mary is a model for the joy and
acceptance that connects us with God, Jesus, and all good. The angel Gabriel greets her with the words,
“Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you,” words that have since become
a prayer on the lips of those who see in Mary hope for a closer walk with Jesus
and God. Gabriel declares to her that she
will become pregnant with a holy child who will bring about the great setting straight
of things hoped for by Israel’s prophets.
She asks how this can possibly be, since she has never been with a
man. She obviously knows as well as we
do about the birds and bees. The angel
replies that it will be a pregnancy without any man involved—God’s power alone
will do. Despite the dubious credibility
of such an announcement and all the trouble such a pregnancy obviously will
entail, Mary focuses on the hoped-for things the angel says this baby will be
and do. So she replies, “I am God’s
servant. May it happen to me just as you have said.”
When Diana Butler Bass was here in Ashland a couple of weeks ago, she told a story of Phyllis Tickle, about a young man who answered her question “Do you believe in the Virgin Birth?” by saying, “Of course I believe it. Even if the story may not have happened just like that, it is such a beautiful story that it just must be true.” The image of Mary as a Virgin is about a woman sufficient in herself because she is in God: she does not need a man to complete her or make her able to fulfill her role.
Having the Feast of the Annunciation just before Holy Week is a nice reminder: Christmas is not the polar opposite of Easter; the Incarnation is not the polar opposite of the Resurrection. They are, in fact, two sides of the same coin.
Christians throughout the ages have honored Mary as the Theotokos (“God-bearer”) and the Mother of God to describe her bringing forth Jesus, who in his person was fully God and fully human, mixed like water and wine. The daily fore-office that our small Morning Prayer group has asked to sing each day before Morning Prayer, the Angelus, is a commemoration of the Incarnation, retelling the story, and asking our sister Mary to pray for us.
God knows we need all the prayer we can get.
Grace and Peace,
Fr. Tony+
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