Growing up in the Evangelical traditions, we were not really into celebrating a majority of the church feast days. The liturgical calendar was basically Christmas, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter, leaving every other (sun)day to do whatever the Church leadership wanted. After spending a fair amount of time as a musician in Orthodox, Catholic, and other liturgy-centric worship services, I have gained an appreciation for the movements throughout the year. Today is one of those days that most likely went unnoticed by a majority of those who do not know the traditions of the early Church. The Annunciation of Our Lord celebrates the day when the Angel Gabriel visits Mary, the Theotokos, and tell her she has been chosen to bear the Son of God. (The date comes from backdating December 25th the nine months it takes to fully gestate a human child. I know there is some discussion whether Jesus was actually born in December or in another month, but that is not the point, it the traditional date which the Church recognizes.)
In my Patristic Theology class this fall, we spent a lot of time talking about early heresies of the Church, one being that Jesus was not fully human, but only appeared as such. While I am not interested in hashing out all of the discussion in this post, I would like to reflect on how important it was that the Logos (the Word of God) became incarnate (Flesh - Jn 1:14).
If you grew up like me, your pastor probably preached a sermon about Gabriel and Mary on the first or second Sunday in advent. But the fact is, it took 9 months for Jesus to grow in her womb, because while the conception of Jesus was a miracle, he was still a human child who needed to grow in the safety of his mother's womb. The story is recorded in Luke 1:26-38
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name 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 father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" And the angel answered 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 called holy--the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.
If you are like me, you have heard and read this story dozens, if not hundreds of times. Each time I think of it, I am more impressed with the courage of Mary. Often in the Evangelical tradition we "play down" Mary in an effort to separate ourselves from those in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, but sadly, by doing that, we miss a significant part of scripture. The ESV translation above tells us that she "found favor with God," the Greek text, however uses the word charis, which is most easily translated as grace. She was driven by the divine grace of God. I refuse to believe Mary was "just like any other teenage girl" in first century Palestine. So often, she is compared to an average girl in the youth group, and we say, "It could have been you." I do not think so. Mary was special. Not divine, and I would say not even sinless, but of all the women who lived from the Fall of Man until then, a period of thousands of years, she was the one who was chosen to bear the Son. She WAS special. Not because of anything she did, but because she was humble enough to allow God to use her to change the world. The scripture says she was confused about how she was going to have a baby, seeing as she had never been with a man, but I wonder if she could have said NO WAY!!! If she would have flat out refused, what would have happened? Who would God have chosen instead? Maybe it took thousands of years because all the "other women" (purely fictitious) Gabriel went to visit all turned him down.
For your sake, and for mine, I am glad Mary said yes. I do not worship her, but I hold her up as one of the greatest examples in Christian history of someone who did all she could to serve the LORD.
Are you the handmaiden of the Lord? Do you say "may it be to me according to your word" every morning? Are you more concerned with your own interests, what people might think or say about, that you cannot serve God the way he intended? I know I fall short almost daily living up to Mary's example. This is why the feast of the Annunciation of Our Lord is important. To remember God stepping out of heaven, and the amazing
