Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Luc Thuku, OHC
Annunciation - March 25, 2022
‘this worldly’ interpretation of the Bible which was intergral to the church becoming open to the other was intended to make concepts such as repentance, faith, justification, rebirth and sanctification, accessible to secular people; he was not suggesting that these concepts be discarded any more than he was jettisoning scripture. Even so, there are terms that speak from ‘faith to faith’ - that is, they make sense within the life of the Church where the language of faith is understood. By analogy, there is no reason why cricket-lovers should ditch words like goooly, maiden-over, or leg-before, just because the uninitiated do not understand them.They are code words essential to every lover of the game. The same would apply to doctrines like the Trinity, Virgin birth, etc,which should not be thrust on to the world in a take-it-or-leave-it manner but taught and celebrated in the life of the Church as mysteries of faith. In this way, prayer, worship, the sacraments, and the creed remain hidden at the heart of the church. That is why Bonhoeffer says that all Christian talk must arise out of prayer and be expressed by doing justice in the world. The church would then be known by its penultimate witness to the reign of God through its service to the world rather than by the disciplines and doctrines that sustain its life of faith, hope and love. And it is in that service to the world that the church shares in solidarity with people of other faiths and those of no faith at all.
I am, therefore, unfortunate enough to stand before you this morning to preach when we commemorate one of the major doctrines or mysteries of the Christian faith, that is the Incarnation, as we celebrate this feast of the Annunciation. Although it is crucial for us to understand how God came to be human, it is also confusing at times because rarely does God, the author of nature, contradict nature but usually works with nature to achieve God’s ends… but in this case he did. I will therefore disappoint some of us by not going into the depths of the mystery of the Incarnation. That I will leave to the realm of the terms that speak from ‘faith to faith’. Instead the Spirit leads me to speaks about the motivation behind the incarnation, which hopefully will qualify as a ‘this worldly’ interpretation.
Now, the motivation behind the incarnation was nothing but pure love! God loved us from the beginning and when we failed decided to come be born, live like us and redeem us like one of us. Our salvation became God’s project throughout the Old Testament times and the message of redemption became even more intense with the prophets especially Isaiah, the prophet of hope. In the passage we heard from the first reading this morning (Isaiah 7:10-14), Isaiah is preaching to King Ahaz of Jerusalem who was under an imminent threat of attack from Israel which had aligned itself with the ‘pagan’ kingdom of Aram. King Ahaz responded with unbelief to God and His prophet that God will deliver Judah. Isaiah asks Ahaz to ask God for a sign as proof but he refuses; not so much becuase he didn't want to tempt God(because he was an evil king), but because he was trying to align himself with the king of Assyria, another ‘pagan’ king for protection. This frustrates Isaiah and he tells Ahaz that despite his refusal, God is going to give a him a sign anyway! It is in this context that the promise of a savior is given a name for the very first time (the second time during the annunciation as we heard in the gospel passage)!…The young woman shall bear a son Immanuel. Although this did not happen in the time of king Ahaz, it at least assured him that Judah will have a future, a sign of the perpetuity of the nation.
We are celebrating this feast a few weeks before the Easter triduum, when we celebrate the mystery of Christ’s suffering and death and later resurrection. At times it impossible to not wonder whether these two mysteries we are celebrating within weeks of each other, one evoking sorrow and the other joy are conflicting. The truth, however, is that they compliment each other and are explicitly brought together in today’s second reading from the letter to the Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews put words in the mouth of Jesus… “see God, I have come to do your will” and in this statement both are shown as expressions of the perfect obedience Jesus gave to his father’s will.
The question however remains why all that was God’s will. Why should the eternal son of God lower himself so much to attaining our human nature with all its limitations? Why should he begin life dependent on his mother, then undergo the whole process of growing up which includes the discomforts and inconveniencies of life that we all go through, and worse in the household of a lowly laborer and not in the comforts of a palace? Why subject himself to tempatation, hostility, rejection and betrayal? Why at the conclusion of it all go willingly and knowingly to his passion, to suffer an unjust judgement, mockery, blows and spitting and the humiliation of being stripped naked, then agree to nails being drilled into his flesh and bones? Why hang on the cross for hours, have his heart torn open with a spear and eventually end up in a tomb? Why would a loving God will all that on anyone, least of all His beloved Son?
The answer to that can only be Mercy driven by Love. Jesus did that in order to raise us with him to God. It was the price for forgiveness, out-poured love, an assuarance that we have become sons and daughters, and heirs of divine glory. It means that we are not just adopted or co-opted. We are owned, we are bought at a price and the price was, and still is, the life and blood of God Himself!
The world however has not changed an inch despite this unwavering love. I am writing and preaching this sermon during an unnecessary war being fought in Europe out of pure aggression and “big boy” or bully mentality! Innocent children and adults who just want to live their daily lives have been uprooted from their homes and lost their livelihoods and will most likely be traumatized for the rest of their lives, that is, if they live to tell the story. This is coming from a nation that has a quasi state religion that lays claim to orthodoxy, and the largest at that, the Russian Orthodox church, whose patriarch is rumoured to be a friend of the ‘Russian big boy’ and I can't help wondering if he has tried to tell him what he is doing is wrong! Forget about the current war if you can and open any newspaper or television and what hits you on the face is a confirmation of the negative judgement found in Romans 1:29-30… “they are steeped in all sorts of injustice, rottenness, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, wrangling, treachery and spite; libellers, slanderers, enemies of God; rude, arrogant and boastful; enterprising in evil, rebellious to parents, without prudence, honor love or pity”
So, are we doomed as a species and the rest of creation with us? Have we tested God’s patience and endurance to its limits? The answer to this is no because we have an example still stemming from the incarnation event. In Mary, God’s love found an answering love. The obedience of Jesus to his father found a corresponding willingness in the maiden who was to be his mother. His goodness and purity of intention, generosity, selflessness, perserverance and humility found their reflection in Mary.
Mary, however, was not your naive or ignorant every day girl. At least she was aware that for a woman to give birth, she must have been with a man. “How can this be since I am a virgin” …she asks in Luke 1:34. She did not get involved in the project blindly. She engages the angel in dialogue and sought clarity. She knew God as the creator and author of nature and hence her question is not so much an expression of doubt but a surprise and an amazement at the extent God can go to communicate his love for us and for creation. Spiritual masters tell us that God’s love is for us as individuals and that if there was only one person living on earth, Jesus would have still come to die for the redemption of that individual. For Mary alone who said yes, God the Son would still have undertaken the incarnation and accepted his sacrificial death for the sake of her alone. Mary however represents the church as the bride of Christ whose profession of love is explicit in the responsorial Psalm for today which we did not read. I would recommend you read this Psalm 45, during your personal spiritual reading or Lectio. It is a love song that would be helpful to situate in the context of the love of God and God’s people the church.
Despite our struggles and despite the sinfulness of the individual members of the church, she still remains Holy, all beautiful, all pure and united in baptism all of us become worthy recipients of God’s enduring love and mercy. We also receive grace in abundance and the Lord is with us. This enables us to respond to the obedience and love of Christ with an answering obedience of our own.
We should therefore pray hard and always so that we may in obedience and love come to know the will of God for us, and the portion of the Letter to the Hebrews that we read this morning tells us that… “God’s will is for us to be made holy, by the offering of his body, made once and for all by Jesus Christ”. Hebrews10:10.
William R. Newell, a Bible teacher and a Commentator on the Book of Romans summarizes our life with the Incarnate Son of God with the following hymn that he composed one day in 1895 on his way to teach a Bible class….
Years I spent in vanity and pride Caring not my Lord was crucified Knowing not it was for me He died On Calvary! Mercy there was great and grace was free Pardon there was multiplied to me There my burdened soul found liberty At Calvary! By God’s words at last my sin I learned Then I tremble at the law I’d spurned Till my guilty soul imploring turned To Calvary! O the Love that drew salvation’s plan O the grace that brought it down to man O the mighty gulf that God did span At Calvary! Mercy there was great and grace was free Pardon there was multiplied to me There my burdened soul found liberty At Calvary! Now I’ve giv’n to Jesus everything Now I glady have Him as my King Now my raptured soul can only sing Of Calvary! Mercy there was great and grace was free Pardon there was multiplied to me There my burdened soul found liberty At Calvary! (William R. Newell, pub.1895)
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