The Rev'd Lloyd Prator

There is a good reason why the Annunciation occurs during Lent. Two good reasons, actually. Of course there is the rather cute little device of the calendar. This day, the day that Mary finds out that she is pregnant, occurs just exactly nine months before the Nativity of the Lord in December. But, there is a deeper, subtler reason. In Lent, we talk about the way in which God decided to save the world. It happens through the death and the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. And, so it seems fitting that we pause for a moment to remember the very first moment when Jesus was introduced onto the stage of salvation history, that moment when he began his life within the womb of his mother the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Annunciation is one of those events which points to the human nature of Jesus. The Church has traditionally taught that Jesus is both God and human, and today we consider the implications that he was born of an earthly mother, conceived in a unique way, but conceived nevertheless.

Leo the Great, who was the Bishop of Rome in the fifth century wrote about the mystery of the dual nature of Christ in these words:

He who is true God was therefore born in the complete and perfect
nature of a true human being, whole in his own nature, whole in ours. By our nature we mean what the Creator had fashioned in us from the beginning and took to himself in order to perfect it.

It is that last line to which I want to refer tonight. The human situation that Leo describes is like this: Our nature is holy in that God created us, it is flawed, in that we have abused and distorted it, and it is to be restored by being taken to God.

God fixes the human situation by taking us to himself. That is my point.

In the past decade or two, it has become fashionable to speak of diversifying our God images and thinking about ways to describe God which are feminine in style and perceived nature. It seems to me that this idea of God taking us to himself to fix us up is, essentially, a feminine mode of operation. It certainly is maternal. Consider this moment: A child has fallen off a swing in the back yard and is laying on the ground, sobbing in pain and frustration. Mother has been observing these events from the kitchen window and what does she do? Immediately on hearing the first cry of pain, she hurriedly dries her hands on her apron, and rushes out of the kitchen, leaving the water on and the door ajar. She rushes into the yard, leaps over a discarded skate board, and scoops up the crying child. She takes the child to her bosom and murmurs something along the line of "There, there, it will be all right." And that embrace is followed by a check of medical condition, a thought about calling a doctor, certainly a trip to the bathroom to find some antiseptic, and always, the compassionate embrace.

The annunciation is in part about the way that God gives humanity a compassionate embrace. Remember what Leo said: God took us to himself in order to restore our human nature. God took us to himself.

The annunciation is the first step in the drama of God taking us to himself. The annunciation speaks of a God who, like a mother stirred by her child's pain, scoops her up and holds her to God's ample, loving, nurturing bosom, where pain will be eased, loneliness assuaged, and hunger satiated.

The annunciation reminds us that God's feminine nature is equally as important as those images of God which speak in more masculine terms. As truly as God speaks to us as the Lord of History, the one who emerges victorious over death, the one who will rule and reign in glory at the end of time, God also speaks to us as the one who takes us tenderly into God's arms, nurtures us as a mother nurses her children, and takes us to God's own self when we are in the pain of loss, guilt, sin, and death.

In the Church's great prayer, we pray that Mary the virgin mother of the Lord will pray for us to the Lord our God, and as we say that prayer, remember too that the God to whom she prays is still the God who takes us to himself in order to restore us to the Glory which God originally intended for us.

Glory which we proclaim as we worship that God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever.