Sermons & Homilies
There’s a story from the ancient Church, either in the era of the Desert Fathers or perhaps shortly after of a woman who was the only survivor of a shipwreck. Marooned on an island alone for decades, she lived a life of asceticism, a life of prayer dedicated to God. Finally, however, she was discovered, she was rescued and brought back to civilization. Once back, she sought out a God-bearing elder to inquire about her life and her accomplishments, to see what she attained to.
Our feast today is called Annunciation, in Greek εὐαγγελισμός. It means no ordinary proclamation but the preaching of good news, glad tidings, of the gospel. Accordingly, the Angel Gabriel begins his salutation to the Virgin with the greeting, “Rejoice!” And as we heard in the Synaxarion reading last night, this feast is above all else a feast of joy: “Rejoice, thou through whom joy will shine forth! Rejoice, thou through whom the curse will cease!” The Mother of God herself is called the “joyous one” throughout the hymns of the Church.
A dove and a rainbow followed the flood, the Promised Land followed forty years of wandering in the desert, resurrection followed the widow of Zarephath’s trust in the Prophet, the stanching of blood followed twelve years of ritual impurity, and walking followed a lifetime of paralysis alongside the pool of Siloam. Today, an instrument of torture gives life as all the references to the Cross of Christ are paralleled with His rising from the dead.
Today we go to the beginning. The Fall of our first parents is presented to us to remind us of the Paradise we lost. From breaking seemingly “the least of these commandments” Adam and Eve wrought unspeakable destruction upon themselves and all their posterity. In their own life they witnessed envy, fratricide and apostasy. The cancer of sin has only metastasized since then into every form of evil unimaginable and unspeakable.
