Feast of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos

Commemoration: 25 March/7 April
Gospel: Luke 1:26-38

The Annunciation is a day of good news found among people all over the world that the Virgin, so believing God, so deeply capable of obedience and trust, that the Son of God could be born of Her.

The Incarnation of the Son of God is, on one hand, the suffering, affectionate, and salvific love and power of God; but at the same time, the Incarnation of the Son of God is a matter of human freedom. Saint Gregory Palamas says that the Incarnation would be just as impossible without the free human consent of the Mother of God, as it would be impossible without the creative will of God. And on this day of the Annunciation we contemplate in the Mother of God the Virgin, who with all her heart, with all her mind, with all her soul, with all her strength, managed to trust God to the end.

The good news was also truly shocking news. The appearance of an angel with the greeting: “Blessed are you among, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” did not only cause astonishment and trepidation, but also fear in the soul of a virgin who did not know her husband. How could this be?

And then we recall the difference between the wavering – albeit profound – faith of Zechariah, the father of the Forerunner, and the faith of the Mother of God. Zechariah also proclaimed that his wife had a son – naturally, despite her advanced age. And his answer to this message of God: “How can this be? This can not happen! How can You prove this? What kind of assurance can you give me?” The Mother of God poses the question only this way: “How can this happen to me as I am a virgin?” And in response to the angel that it was to be, She responds only with the words of full surrender of Herself into the hands of God. Her words: “Behold, the Servant (Handmaiden) of the Lord, may it be to Me according to your word.”

The word “servant” in our present usage speaks of enslavement. In the Old Slavonic language, a person who called oneself a servant was one who voluntarily gave one’s life and will to another. And She certainly gave her life, her will, her destiny to God, accepting in faith – that is, in incomprehensible trust – the message that She was to be the Mother of the incarnate Son of God. About Her, the righteous Elizabeth says: “Blessed is She who has believed, for it will be unto to Her as spoken by the Lord.”

In the Mother of God, we find an amazing ability to trust God to the end, but this ability is not inherent, not natural. Such a faith must be forged in oneself by the feat of love for God. A feat described by the fathers: “Spill blood and receive the spirit.” One of the Western writers says that the Incarnation became possible when was discovered the Israeli Virgin, Who with all her mind, with all her heart, with all her life, pronounced the name of God so that He became flesh in Her.

This is the good news that we now hear in the Gospel. The human race gave birth, offering as a gift to God the Virgin, Who was able in her royal human freedom to become the Mother of the Son of God, Who freely gave Himself for the salvation of the world. Amen!

Sermon of Blessed Metropolitan +Anthony of Sourozh
– translated from Russian

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