Augustine Sokolovski, Doctor of Theology, Priest
Today the Church celebrates the Annunciation. In ancient times, the Annunciation was considered a feast of the Lord since it means the celebration of the Church in honor of the economy of salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ. This celebration falls on Great Lent, so it lasts only two days, so that the second day of the feast is simultaneously the Afterfeast of the Annunciation and its solemn Ending. Therefore, already on the second day of the holiday, April 8, the Church says goodbye to the celebrated celebration until next year if it pleases the Almighty God to prolong the existence of the world.
The event of the Annunciation is an article of faith. Therefore, it is spoken of in the Creed. I believe in the Lord Jesus, Christ, the Son of God, "incarnated of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary." The Lord Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit because the New Creation begins in the history of the world with Him. It took place in time to redeem the creation that took place at the beginning of time. Theological science managed to establish that during the Earthly Life of the Lord Jesus, the biblical people had the conviction that the Righteous, the Messiah, His Servant sent by God, had to die on the day of his conception. Representing Christ, the Sufferer, who became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13), the righteous Job "opened his mouth and cursed his day" (Job 3:1). Of the ancient authors, Tertullian, John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria believed that Christ was conceived and suffered on the same day. Today, the day of the death of the Lord Jesus on the Cross is calculable. And this is most likely ... April 7. So, it turns out that the beginning of the salvation of our salvation in the event of the Annunciation, at the same time, is also its completion - the historical day of the Death of the Cross of the Lord Jesus.
In the Event of the Annunciation, the lines of the earthly biography of the One who, surpassing any biography, found it in humans, come together. The One Who, transcending the human, the natural and the transcendental, deigned to become limited, enter history, acquire biographical lines and details. Thus, in Him, the limited human being overcomes its limitations and in God becomes limitless.
Gnostics and false teachers of all times and peoples tried to neglect history, flesh, and humanity. To overcome, to get rid of everything visible and audible. But God identified himself with this seeming insignificance of the visible world to refute those who refute the flesh Almighty God united Himself with weak people so that His omnipotence would fill us. Human infirmities were made His property, so that His strength might be the property of man. Language is the angel of death. Modern philosophy leads us to understand that knowledge of death separates us from the animal world. The knowledge of death is transmitted through human words. The event of the Annunciation heralds the displacement of death from words. In the Event of the Annunciation, God makes the impossible possible, and the limited - limitless. God enters history; He becomes the Good News of the Gospel. God, speaking in simple, human, profane language, becomes news, He is proclaimed. From now on, “no word will be powerless with God” (Luke 1:37). In the Annunciation, the divine and the human meet, never to part again. The community of man and God now becomes an example, a paradigm, an image, and a criterion for any other subsequent joint existence. The Annunciation is the abolition of farewell. In the book of the Apocalypse, John is warning: “When the Gentiles become furious, Your wrath will come, the time will come to judge the living and the dead, and to give retribution to Your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear Your name, small and great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth” (Rev. 11,18). In today's celebration, the Church celebrates that God has visited His world. Thus - finally and irrevocably - the world became a topos of divine economy, a place of redemption. There is no salvation outside the world. In this will of God about us humans and about all His Creation is the essence of the event of the Annunciation.