An icon of the Annunciation, from the Annunciation Cathedral in Moscow. It shows the Archangel Gabriel (left) delivering his message to the Virgin Mary. The annunciation is the undoing of man’s first disobedience, when the serpent persuaded Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Contrary to God’s warning, he whispered, she would not die: she would become a god herself. She ate, and Adam followed her example. But God’s warning was all too true. They were thrust from Eden, and ever after mankind was subject to death. Now Mary undoes the disobedience of Eve, by freely accepting Gabriel’s commission, and Christ becomes a second Adam, the firstborn of a new humanity that inherits from him not death, but eternal life.
Part 1 of 2
AND in the sixth month* the angel Gabriel* was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David;* and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.*
And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.*
* That is, the sixth month after the events Luke has just been recounting, in which Elisabeth and her husband Zechariah, both advanced in years, were granted a child of their own. We learn shortly that Elisabeth was Mary’s cousin.
* Gabriel is one of the four archangels or great captains of God’s angel host, together with Michael, Raphael and Uriel (Raphael appears in the Book of Tobit and Uriel in 2 Esdras). Gabriel was already familiar to readers of the Hebrew Scriptures from his appearances in the Book of Daniel, where he helps the prophet to interpret a vision. See Daniel 8.
* That is, a descendant of King David of Israel, who reigned from about 1010 BC to 970 BC. It was essential for the saviour of Israel to be of David’s line, in order to fulfil the many prophecies in the Old Testament. St Luke, who gives us this account, traces the descent through Joseph, though noting that Joseph was only Jesus’s guardian, not his real father; St Matthew, however, traces Jesus’s descent from David through Mary.
* This is the origin of the prayer known as the Hail Mary. The exchange between the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary was dramatised and extended in the Akathist Hymn of Romanos the Melodist (?490-?556), which is recited especially during Great Lent and is one of the most beloved of all hymns of the Eastern churches. It stresses Gabriel’s astonishment at the role Mary was being asked to perform, and at the sight — visible to his eyes only — of the incarnation already beginning to happen in Mary’s womb. Gabriel heaps up acclamations to Mary, each beginning ‘Rejoice!’ or ‘Hail’ (the same word in Greek), in a tour de force of Biblical learning that guides us through from the disobedience of Adam and Eve to the obedience of Mary and her son Jesus. For the hymn in Church English, see ‘Akathist to the Holy Virgin’ at OrthoChristian.com.
* The name ‘Jesus’ (which is the same as Joshua) means ‘God saves’.
Part Two
The Church of St Mary the Virgin in Souldern, Oxfordshire.
The Church of St Mary the Virgin in Souldern, Oxfordshire, is dedicated to the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The tower is twelfth-century, and the first record of a church here goes back to 1161. In Anglo-Saxon times, the Annunciation on March 25th was kept as New Year’s Day; indeed, the UK’s financial year still begins on April 6th, which at the time when that custom was established corresponded to March 25th on the old English calendar. The day of the feast always falls in the somewhat severe fast of Great Lent, but fish is eaten in honour of Mary.
HE shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever;* and of his kingdom there shall be no end.*
Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?* And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee:* therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.* And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age:* and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord;* be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
* Jacob is one of the great Patriarchs of the Old Testament, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. He was known also as Israel, and the House of Jacob is the people of Israel. Each of Jacob’s twelve sons was the head of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. See also The Story of Joseph.
* The Kingdom left to his heirs by David was ended dramatically early in the sixth century BC, when the Babylonian Empire annexed it. The grief was felt keenly in Jesus’s day, especially as Israel had now passed under Roman imperial control. This line became important in another way early in the fourth century AD, when some started to teach that the Son of God was only a temporary manifestation of the Father, not one of an everlasting Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A re-affirmation that Christ’s kingdom would have no end was consequently included in the Creed of AD 381, which is recited to this day at every communion service.
* Joseph was betrothed to Mary but according to tradition never married to her, and St Luke is clear that they had no sexual relations at any time. This is not to decry the marriage-bed: see Hebrews 13:4. It is to establish that in Mary the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son”, Isaiah 7:14. This is known as the miracle of the Sign, and a famous icon and many churches are named in honour of it. For a story about one such icon, see Sign of Deliverance.
* In Greek, the language used recalls the opening lines of the Bible, where God’s Spirit moves over the face of the formless universe prior to God’s mighty act of creation: see Genesis 1:1-3.
* Hitherto, the term ‘son of God’ had been used in the Bible to mean an angel or the King of Israel. It now took on an additional meaning.
* Elizabeth’s child was named John, and later known as John the Baptist and also John the Forerunner, as he led many to Jesus and practised a form of baptism similar to, though not the same as, Christian baptism.
* See Psalm 123:2.
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