Annunciation Sermon- 11/25/7

Annunciation Sermon- 11/25/7 - Delivered by the Street Theologian at St. Gregorios - Tampa

---
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Esteemed Achen, my brothers and sisters in Christ.

I’d like to express my deepest gratitude for being able to speak before you, my home Church, once more. I am humbled and honored to be here in front of you this morning

Today we commemorate the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary by the Angel Gabriel.

Now there are many days in the Liturgical calendar in which we remember Mary the Mother of Our Lord. In fact, the actual Annunciation Feast is celebrated on March 25th, though we read this Gospel passage today as part of the season of Advent. On this day, however, we are being called to remember the young girl Mary being fearful.

“But when she saw him [Gabriel], she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was.Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”Mary, who may have been a teenaged girl at the time, was afraid. The angel of the Lord came down to her, and called her the “highly favored one,” yet she was afraid.

Being confronted with an angel is no small event. There is a saying from the Desert Fathers that, if one sees an Angel, he should make the sign of the Cross and tell that angel to leave. A true angel will understand and depart, but the Devil’s angels will continue to pursue. St. Paul says to the Galatians that Angels may even preach false gospels to mislead people. I mention this simply to point out that confronting an Angel is a very serious occurrence. Here in the Gospel of Luke we know that the Angel Gabriel is of the Lord by the fruit of His deeds and his work in announcing the coming of salvation to a select group of people.

Last week, we read that Zachariah, in the Temple, was also afraid at the site of the Angel Gabriel. In fact the narratives of the two annunciations are very similar: Gabriel tells both that they will have children who will bring the hearts of God’s people back to the Lord, in spite of all odds.

However, whereas Zacharias, though a priest serving in the Temple, has chosen to continue being skeptical about what the Angel says to him, Mary accepts the Angel’s word in complete submission. Whereas Zachariah, who Gabriel tells up front how Elizabeth, his wife, will give birth to a son, continues to disbelieve, Mary, upon hearing that the Holy Spirit will overshadow her and she will conceive, submits herself as the “maidservant” of the Lord.

She offers up no further resistance. She asks no further questions. She does not say that she is the “helper” of the Lord. She does not say she is His “representative.” The language is very deliberate. She says “Behold, the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” Mary offers up herself to the Lord as a slave.

How incredibly difficult is this for us to digest today? We live in a society that, far more than in the ancient days, places high value on justice and equality. For us, we don’t even like being employees much less being a slave. That should make the point that much clearer for us; to offer one’s self as a servant is to completely submit one’s entire self, mind, body, even independent will, to the will of another.It is an act of complete trust. For this reason, when Christ teaches us how to pray, he instructs us to say “Thy will be done.”Why? Because the Lord God knows each one of us better than we know ourselves, and knows exactly what we need when we need it. If that is the case, then God’s will must necessarily be infinitely better than my will.The Lord God, who redeems and provides for people in His own time in His own ways, will always provide better for us than we can provide for ourselves, if we only allow Him to. For this reason, we venerate the Virgin Mary, who put her own ambitions aside, who put her own ability to doubt aside, in total and complete submission to the Lord.Mary offers herself up as the Lord’s servant. Christ himself says that he who wishes to be great among men must become a servant. If we truly believed that the Lord God is all knowing, all powerful, and can do absolutely anything that we can imagine and that we can’t imagine, why is submitting ourselves to the Divine will so difficult?

We can not submit because we can’t see into the future and know that God always provides. He may not provide on the schedule that we’d like, He may not provide in the ways that we thought of, but God is always faithful to his people.

We can not submit because we fear the unknown. Just as Peter who tried to walk on water, but lost his faith when the weather began to worsen, we are easily put off our course when presented with a true crisis which tests us.

We can not submit, because we are prideful. Submission requires of us to acknowledge our own weakness. Our fallen nature tells us that all things should be understood in terms of power, and that, submission to another is a surrender of power, and therefore, a means of oppression.

However, we must acknowledge that, the universe is not a cosmic democracy, but a Divine monarchy, in which Christ is the King. Submission of our will to Christ’s is not a loss of power, but a gain. In being slave to Christ, we are truly free, because, as St. Paul writes in his Epistle to the Romans, the alternative to being a slave to Christ is being a slave to sin.

On this day, we venerate the Virgin Mary because she offered herself as the servant to the Lord, and in so doing, became the vessel of God’s work of Salvation. God, the Word, found that Mary’s womb was worthy of dwelling in and being born of. If Christ is the new Adam, than Mary in a sense is parallel to Eve.Whereas Eve did not trust God, Mary submitted.

Whereas Eve turned away from the Lord and ate of the fruit of the Tree in disobedience, Mary offered herself to God in complete obedience.
Whereas Eve, with Adam, brought about the Fall, Mary, in bearing Christ, brought about redemption.
Thus, we venerate her, the Mother of Our Lord, to Him belongs praise, honor, and thanksgiving, now and at all times, forever and ever. Amen.