From Monachos.net
It is said that Rome was not built in a day. True and well accepted this axiom may be, that so great a city did not come to exist in the span of a single day, yet when it comes to the matter of the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, we are all too wont to forget its lesson. How often we see the Incarnation commencing beneath the Bethlehem star , in a small cave on the day of the Nativity, where among men the pre-eternal God was born. Yes this mysterious and wonderful event, like the great city of old Rome, 'was not built in a day'. The Incarnation, the great mystery of God's salvific love, was not begun on Christmas afternoon and did not take its commencement in a stable in Bethlehem. The economy of human salvation in the incarnate Christ, the eternal plan and purpose of God and the focus of all human history, began its physical realisation nine long months before, in the town of Galilean Nazareth, in the home of an aging Joseph, in the person of a young woman who in a supreme moment of divine grace became the Mother of God.
It is hard to imagine the scene at the Annunciation, at that event commemorated in what a Syriac calendar once called 'the beginning and source of all other feasts', though Scriptures, the Fathers and the festal hymnography of the Church speak much of it. Who among us can imagine the Archangel's arrival, the sound of his voice as he announces the impossible and proclaims the ineffable? The Evangelist Luke, a man with great love for the Mother of God, famously records the scene: 'Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary'. So simple do his words sound, so straightforward; yet how far beyond understanding are the things he describes. A pure Virgin, by today's standards little more than a child, visited by a messenger of the bodiless hosts, told that she will bear in her womb Him who cannot be contained and give birth to Him who had created even her own self. A great mystery were the angel's words, and a great wonder was the Virgin's response. Mary, knowing full well that Eve had also been visited by an angel and through his counsel had fallen into sin that even in our day still spreads out across the world, made bold with innocence and purity to question the Messenger of God. 'O Angel, help me to understand the meaning of thy words. How shall what thou sayest come to pass? Tell me clearly, how shall I conceive, I who am a virgin maid? And how shall I become the Mother of my Maker?'.[1] The Fathers made much of the Theotokos' dialogue with Gabriel: her questioning, her faithful interrogation and wilful desire to discern the truth of what she heard, stood in stark contrast to Eve's unthinking acceptance of the serpent's words in the Garden. Mary is the first New Testament example of one with the spiritual discernment that Orthodox ascetics have sought ever since. Writes Jacob of Serug in the early sixth century, 'To this one who would bear the Son of God it was told, but she inquired, sought, investigated, learned and then kept silent'.[1]
And then kept silent. The Mother of God questioned her newfound call, questioned the Archangel's words, not out of lack of faith or sinful doubt, but out of a reasonable and rational desire to be sure of God's will. When that reassurance came in Gabriel's response, the holy Virgin responded with words that have ever since been almost synonymous with a definition of the term 'faith': 'Behold the handmaiden of the Lord! Let it be unto me according to thy word' (Luke 1.38
). Icons of the Mother of God at the Annunciation, among the only icons of her that do not also include a portrayal of Christ, show her with arms folded across her chest, head slightly forward and neck inclined: a pose of ultimate humility and submission which Orthodox faithful throughout the world emulate each week when approaching the chalice to receive God into their own bodies. Here is the posture that prevailed at the beginning of the human realisation of the Incarnation of Christ: humanity, the full humanity of the faithful Virgin, wholly obedient to the will and purpose of God, bowing in submission to His call. In that Galilean room--it cannot have been larger than a monk's cell or typical student's quarters--the greatest event in the history of time took form in the womb of the Mother of God.
It is difficult to comprehend the scope of what took place in that moment. A virgin did not simply conceive: the universe was turned upside down, or perhaps more aptly, was at last turned right-side-up. The natural and the supernatural were united, the result being so mysterious that human language can only begin to express it in paradox. The Uncreated was created, the Uncontainable was contained, the Illimitable was limited, the Unknowable began clearly to be known. At the heart of so great a mystery was the young Mother of God, in whom the mystery was made real. The full scope and reality of the Annunciation goes beyond human description, but one can catch glimmers of its character in the words of those who have been so daring as to attempt to speak of it. One of the best of these is found in a sermon by Pseudo-Chrysostom in the fourth century. Speaking directly to the Mother of God, he cries:
Rejoice, therefore, and dance for joy; rejoice, and tread upon the serpent's head. Rejoice, full of grace. For the curse has come to an end; corruption is taken away; sadness has passed; happiness is flowering; the blessing ever foretold by the prophets of old has come to pass. You are the one to whom the Holy Spirit referred, speaking through the mouth of Isaiah: 'Behold, the Virgin shall conceive in her womb and bear a son' (Isaiah 7.14
With the Annunciation to the holy Mother of God, the Incarnation of Christ, the economy of God ever purposed and eternally intentioned, took place in the human, created order. The event for which all humanity had longed, came to be in the womb of a human woman in response to her faithful submission. The mystery of salvation is begun. The life of God as man begins to take form. Humanity, in the person of her who can now truthfully be called its mother, begins anew its ascent into heaven.
One is tempted to wonder how the holy Virgin felt, emotionally, in response to the reality of Gabriel's words. She will have known of the prophecies in Isaiah and elsewhere as to the great suffering that the Messiah would undergo--Righteous Symeon's proclamation, many months later, that a sword would pierce her own so also, could not have come as a complete surprise. She must have known the scandal that her pregnancy would bring, even with her betrothed husband's acceptance. It is especially revealing that a number of icons of the Annunciation show Mary's heart being surrounded by daggers, swords, ominously indicating the tears that lie ahead. Yet Luke does not paint for us the picture of a woman overcome by trepidation, though she must have been afraid. We are given the image of one who, through whatever pain she anticipated, sang the praises of God's grace and compassion: 'My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour. For He hath regarded the lowly state of His handmaiden; for behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He who is mighty hath done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation' (Luke 1.46-50).
And so all generations who have received this mercy do indeed call blessed her who was and is the Mother of God. Her life is proclaimed, held up, revered, sought after as an example of the faithful obedience to which every human person is called. Her prayers and protection are sought, her love embraced. And each year, on a day that falls nine months before the Feast of the Nativity, the Church joins her in that moment when the Archangel announces the salvation of man and humanity grasps onto the first rung of the ladder that leads to Paradise. It is in this knowledge and in this spirit that the Church sings with assurance:
Today is revealed the mystery that is from all eternity. The Son of God becomes the Son of man, that, sharing in what is worse, He may make me share in what is better. In times of old Adam was once deceived: he sought to become God, but received not his desire. Now God becomes man, that He may make Adam God. Let creation rejoice, let nature exult: for the Archangel stands in fear before the Virgin and, saying to her 'Hail', he brings the joyful greeting whereby our sorrow is assuaged. O Thou who in Thy merciful compassion wast made man, our God, glory to Thee![1]
Text by M.C. Steenberg, 2002