I love the way the Feast of the Annunciation of Our Lord almost always occurs in the midst of Lent, as it has again this week on Tuesday (the 25th of March). Among the oldest and most significant feasts of the Church Year, it does sometimes occur during Holy Week, and on rare occasions it can even occur within the first few days of Eastertide; but it normally lands in the course of our Lenten Wilderness pilgrimage. And so it is with the coming of our great Redeemer, Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. “Fast bound in Satan’s chains I lay, death brooded darkly o’er me.” But into that dire abyss strode the mighty Lord to rescue us all from sin, death, the devil, and hell, and to bring us into the Kingdom of His God and Father.
To these ends, the divine, eternal Word of God enters in and becomes Flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is the power of the Most High that does this great and marvelous work for our salvation. Yet, in Dr. Luther’s estimation, as profound and amazing as both the Incarnation and the Virgin Birth are, the even more remarkable miracle of God’s grace and mercy is the fact that St. Mary received His Word in faith and humbly submitted to His Will – not by her own wisdom, reason, or strength, but by the same Word and Spirit of God the Father. And it is likewise by His Word and Holy Spirit that any of us believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and remain in that true and saving faith throughout our life, even unto death.
In St. Mary, and in the Gospel of the Annunciation, we find not only the historical events and facts of our Lord’s Incarnation, but also a picture – a living icon – of the way the Christian Church lives as the Bride of Christ and the Mother of God’s children. The Lord sends His messengers, His human “angels,” that is, the pastors of His Church on earth, to proclaim His Word in His Name and stead. And this very Word of God, even on the lips of sinful mortals, does what it says and gives what it promises: the forgiveness of sins, the gracious adoption of sons, the blessing of divine life, and the gift of eternal salvation in Christ Jesus.
As the Archangel Gabriel announced to St. Mary, not only the conception and birth of the Son of God within and from her womb, but also the great Salvation He would accomplish and the establishment of His Kingdom of grace and glory forever and ever, so do the called and ordained servants of His Word announce to His Church – and to the world – the redemption of His Cross, the free and full forgiveness of His Gospel, and the righteousness of His Resurrection (even in the midst of this barren wilderness).
It is by the working of the Holy Spirit through the preaching, teaching, and hearing of this Word that the Church conceives the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus; and it is by the washing of water with the Word and Spirit of God that the Church gives birth to the children of God in Holy Baptism.
So, too, it is by the Word and Spirit of God in the Holy Communion that the same Flesh and Blood of the same Lord Jesus Christ, conceived and born of St. Mary, are given into the bodies of His disciples, His servants and handmaidens, within His Holy Christian Church. Thus is He “born in us today,” and so does He live and abide bodily in His Christians, who love and serve their neighbors within their own proper callings and stations on earth. None of us will ever be given the singular vocation of the Mother of God, but all of us who are the children of God by His grace through faith in the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, are given to magnify His Holy Name in our own respective places and relationships, no less so than St. Mary.
The Archangel Gabriel was sent by God to announce the Word to the Blessed Virgin Mary in Nazareth, and pastors to this day are likewise sent to announce the incarnate Word to His Church on earth. But so, too, as St. Mary bore the Word-made-Flesh within her body and gave birth to Him in the world, likewise do all the members of His Body and Bride, the Church, bear the same Lord Jesus Christ in in their bodies and their souls; and by His grace they do so in all their words and actions, to the glory of His Holy Name.
“May Thy Body, Lord, born of Mary, that our sins and sorrows did carry, and Thy Blood for us plead in all trial, fear, and need! O Lord, have mercy!” (LSB #617, st. 1)