Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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THE ANNUNCIATION OF OUR LORD

25 March Anno + Domini 2009

"He Shall Reign”

Luke 1:26-38

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

So, we're a week and a half from Holy Week and the Church puts before us the Festival of the Annunciation of Our Lord.  Seems strange.  But, it's not really.  It's actually quite appropriate.  Today, March 25 is exactly nine months before the Church celebrates the Nativity of her Lord.  Imagine that.  A date that actually makes a whole lot of sense.  So, our celebration of the Annunciation, in which we remember the immaculate conception and mysterious Incarnation of our Lord, comes at just the right time.  But, there's another reason - a far more important reason - that it is appropriate for us to have the Annunciation put before us as we prepare to embark on the holiest week of the Church Year, namely that Jesus came down from heaven and assumed our human flesh to live and die for us, the very thing that will capture our focus during Holy Week.  

"He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."  That's what the angel Gabriel told the Blessed Virgin Mary about the Son she would conceive by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit overshadowed the peasant Virgin of King David's line. The Word of God entered into her ear and impregnated her with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Eve had a Seed. And by that Holy Seed in her womb St. Mary found favor with God and was freed from fear. In this way, by the Word announced to her by Gabriel, God took up human flesh to redeem mankind by self-sacrifice in perfect love, whose Name can only be: Yahweh saves, that is Joshua, Jesus.

"He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."

St. Mary, most blessed of all women, is of the house of Jacob. She is an Israelite of Israelites, of the tribe of Judah, the tribe through which the Messiah would come. Her Son rules her with servile compliance. Making water into wine to please her before His time, handing her over to the disciple of his love, so that she would be taken care of. He rules forever in the House of Jacob by washing the feet of His disciples, turning the other cheek, and submitting to Pilate's true words but false judgment, "King of the Jews." He makes new Israelites, adopts heathen people into Jacob's House that they too would learn to wrestle with Him and receive a blessing. He calls the sanctified Canaanite prostitute Rahab mother and daughter, the Syro-Phonecian woman, sister, and the Roman Centurion an elder.

"He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."

Let it also be unto us according to this Word, that the Church in her old age might still conceive and bear sons of grace, a people who were no people, who are defined not by continent of origin, country of habitation, or color of skin but by the promise made to Abraham; that we might enter the kingdom of glory by way of the cross and be ruled forever in mercy; that we, too, should be free from fear and ever eager for the completion of what He has begun in us in Holy Baptism. Let us be, dear friends, handmaidens of the Lord, doorkeepers for the House of God, lap-dogs eating the crumbs that fall from the Master's table! Let us be those who find favor and reconciliation in the everlasting goodness that has sent "God with us" in the Son of Mary, "God for us" on Rome's wicked cross, and "God in us" through the Body hidden in bread that descended into Hell, was raised from the dead, and now rules at the right hand of His Father.

"He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."

Let us ever be overshadowed by that Holy Spirit, impregnated by that Holy Word, and begotten anew by the Holy Father, that we might ever bear the title of all grace: Christian!  And thus, live in that House of Jacob forever, in the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, which has no end.  In Jesus' Holy and Precious Name. Amen.

Now the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, unto life everlasting.  Amen.