Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday, 25 March 2012
Holy Annunciation, Sunday of St. John Climacus
Epistle:Hebrews 6:13-20, Hebrews 2:11-18 (Annunciation)
Gospel: Mark 9:17-31, Luke 1:24-38 (Annuncation)
This is a day to rejoice! Today, the Archangel Gabriel announces to the Virgin Mary that
she will miraculously conceive the Messiah, the Christ, Emmanuel, God with us. Today, we
celebrate the beginning of God’s redemption of man by virtue of the conception of the Virgin
Mary by the Holy Spirit. God announces to us today our liberation from the captivity of our sins,
our liberation from the endless cycle of sin and death, escape from pride and separateness from
God. Today, God announces to us a better way, the way of repentance, the way of humility, the
way of healing—for that which Christ has assumed, has been healed.
By taking on human nature, Christ has vivified it, made it alive again, and reversed and undone
what we by our sin and disobedience damaged and darkened through our own sins. Christ, the
new Adam, has renewed and reversed that separation from God wrought by Adam’s pride and
Eve’s disobedience. The new Eve, the Theotokos, says “Yes” to God, “May it be done unto me
according to Thy word.”
The way of repentance has been announced to us, in fulfillment of God’s holy promise. The way
of returning to God, to our true selves, to healing, has been shown to us over and over again.
The troparion of the Feast proclaims to us that “today is the beginning of our salvation.”
Now, on this Sunday, in the beginning of the fifth week of Great Lent, having already been given
the cross we are called on to carry it the remainder of Great Lent and through Holy Week, we
can press forward. How good God is to us: through His Church, He lovingly reminds us time
and again to take stock of our time for repentance, healing, and deification. We are not propped
up for Lent, given the instructions, and then set off on our own to struggle bewildered in the
desert. Instead, God gives us sign posts on the way, He leads us, He never lets us get too far off
course before calling us back, reminding and admonishing us of our course, of the way forward.
Today is another sign-post. The Feast of the Annunciation falls outside of the Lenten cycle,
but it’s another gift when it comes, a reminder of God’s graciousness, self-emptying kenosis,
humility that His mother, the Theotokos also exhibits in her yes to God and His will being
done—even as it stands against reason, against the laws of nature.
Perhaps you’ve set some goals and disciplines for yourself this Lent. Maybe you’ve even been
able with God’s help to identify some areas of sin-sickness that need to be confessed and healed.
Maybe you’ve even recognized some of the pride that holds us back from making that progress.
Now’s the time for us to do an inventory of where we’re at with those ascetical efforts and
goals for our Lent. How are you doing with your prayers? Have you been consistently praying the Prayer of St. Ephraim morning and night? How are you doing with submitting yourself to Christ and His Church, with the way that God has established for us for our healing, growth, and salvation? Have you been listening? Have you strived to be obedient? Have you been quick to accuse yourself instead of blaming another for your problems, sins, frustrations, weaknesses? Have you seized the opportunity in recognizing your sins on a deeper level to confess them, to bring them before the Lord for healing, growth and freedom from their further oppression of your immortal soul? Have you allowed God to show you the beauty inside yourself, the glory He desires to strengthen in you and for the sake of those around you?
It’s not yet too late to bring Christ or more of Christ into the midst of your Lent. He’s here.
He awaits you. He loves you. He desires the best for us. He desires our eternity with Him,
knowing Him, His love. And His Mother stands ready to assist us, to help us learn that
same spirit of humility that she exemplified in her consent to God, saying to the Archangel
Gabriel, “may it be done unto me according to your word.”
Don’t be afraid of holding up the mirror to your soul. Our fasting and asceticism, our increased
prayers, and deprivations, yield much fruit. We see inside ourselves more clearly during Lent
because, bereft of more of our ‘creature comforts,’ our weaknesses, our sins, our shortcomings
rise to the surface, unhindered by the things we often use to silence them. They are still there,
harming us, spreading their poison, unless, with God’s help by the power of the Holy Spirit, we
can identify them and confess them, giving them over to the Lord, to heal us of them and rid us
of their spiritually cancerous effect. Only through humility can we gain such clarity.
I want to encourage you to seize the day, brothers and sisters. This fifth week is given us for
this reason. This week, we’ll be called to church more often, to hear the voice of Christ calling.
Come to the Presanctified, to the Canon of St. Andrew on Thursday, to the Akathist on Friday.
Make your confession, do what you have been putting off, what seems so hard. An abscess
is painful to the touch, but once removed, heals quickly and the pain is relieved, the patient
restored. So it is with our sins if we repent of them and honestly confess them.
Your desire for liberty from your sins starts with coming to the divine services, accepting
Orthodox Christianity not on your terms, but on God’s terms, following what in His goodness He
has prescribed for us, seeking the obedience, humility, and godly submission that the Theotokos
models for us in this Feast. If you come, you will be encouraged, you will be emboldened in
your struggle to conform to the life that Christ has given you in and through His Church.
Trust in God starts with action on our part. We put ourselves into an environment where we can
be convicted, encouraged, challenged, and changed for the better. We take a step forward in
response to God’s outpouring of grace and He gives us much, much more in return.
May our response to God this Lent with all that He reveals to us through our ascetical efforts:
our prayers, our fasting, our worshipping, our repentance, our confession, our readings,
our obedience, grow us in love for God and our neighbor, may we find ourselves renewed,
reinvigorated in our desire to live for God and not merely for ourselves, may we seize on the
opportunities to come outside of ourselves to love and to serve.
We do so, laying hold of the hope set before us, which is God’s promise of His desire to save our
souls by healing us of our sin-sickness and bringing us to the joy of the Kingdom, life with Him.
We have only to answer as did the Virgin when God’s will was made known to her concerning
her miraculous conception, “Let it be done unto me according to your word” for “He who is
mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.”
