Today we celebrate the Annunciation—the announcement by the Archangel Gabriel to Holy Mary that she would be the Mother of Christ, the Messiah. Tomorrow the Church remembers the Archangel Gabriel, so it is appropriate to consider this morning how Gabriel approached this assignment from God to tell Holy Mary that she was to become the Theotokos—the Mother of God.

Angels are messengers. As one modern Biblical commentator has written: “According to the Scriptures, although [usually] hidden from us, angels play a significant role both in our lives and in the whole course of human history.” Certainly, in the opening chapter of the Gospel of St Luke, the Archangel Gabriel played an important role in the lives of both Zachariah, the father of St John the Baptist, and of Holy Mary. Gabriel used the same words to both Zachariah and Holy Mary, “Do not be afraid.” Just as he told Zachariah that his “petition has been heard,” he told Holy Mary that she was a “favoured one” and that “the Lord is with you.” However, the two recipients of Gabriel’s messages responded quite differently. Zachariah asked how he could “know this for certain,” while Holy Mary said simply, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” 

Gabriel delivered different messages to Zachariah and to Holy Mary, yet both messages offered incredible blessings. We face the same choice as Zachariah and Holy Mary. When we are offered a blessing by God, whether or not we see an angel, how do we respond? Do we suspiciously ask, “Lord, is this for certain?” Or do we say in our hearts, “Behold, I am the handmaid [or the servant] of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

Archangel Gabriel was fulfilling tasks assigned to him by the Lord. When Zachariah doubted the message of blessing that Gabriel was delivering, the Archangel told him in no uncertain terms in the Gospel of St Luke, chapter 1, verse 19: “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.” However, Gabriel did not identify himself to Holy Mary, although St Luke cites him by name, as does the book of Daniel in the Old Testament in Daniel 8:16 and Daniel 9:21. In appearing to both Zachariah and Holy Mary, Gabriel is carrying out the same role as the angel in Exodus, chapter 23, verse 20 of whom the Lord said to the Hebrew people coming out of slavery in Egypt, and I quote: “Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared” [end of quote]. Angels can do that for us too, without our awareness of their presence. They can “guard [us] along the way and … bring [us] to the place which [the Lord has] prepared [for each of us].”

The seventh century Greek Orthodox theologian, St John of Damascus has written in Book 2, Chapter 3, “Concerning Angels,” from An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith that, and I quote: “The angel’s nature … is rational, and intelligent, and endowed with free will…. They are mighty and prompt to fulfil the will of the Deity, and their nature is endowed with such [swiftness of action] that wherever the Deity[‘s] glance bids them there they are straightaway to be found…. They have Heaven for their dwelling place, and have [two duties], to sing God’s praise and to carry out His divine will” [end of quote]. The Protestant theologian Karl Barth has joked: “Whether the angels play only Bach in praising God I am not quite sure; I am sure, however, that en famille [that is, as a family] they play Mozart.”

The hymn that Holy Mary sings in the Gospel of St Luke, chapter 1, verses 46 to 48 at the house of Elizabeth and Zachariah offers praise to God with words that both the angels and us can still hear: “My soul magnifies the Lord,” said Holy Mary, “and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.” Of Holy Mary’s song in which she rejoices about how God has blessed her, the theologian Origen has written, and I quote: “[I] ask how a soul can magnify the Lord….My soul is not directly an image of God. It was created as the image of an Image [that is, as an image of God Himself] that already existed…. Each one of us,” writes Origen, “shapes his soul into the image of Christ and makes either a larger or a smaller image of Him. The image is either dingy and dirty, or it is clean and bright and corresponds to the form of the original. Therefore, when I make the image of the Image—that is, my soul—large and magnify it by work, thought, and speech, then the Lord Himself is magnified in my soul, because [my soul] is [then] an image of Him” [end of quote]. Therefore, this sermon is called, “Become an Image of the Lord.”

So for Origen, for Holy Mary and for us, through “our work [and] thought[s] and speech” it really is true, the Lord Himself is magnified and glorified in our souls. In other words, the presence of the Lord is evident when we praise Him and rejoice with Him and remain humble. So tomorrow it is right that we remember the Archangel Gabriel by singing the Troparion in Tone 4: “Gabriel, commander of the heavenly hosts, we who are unworthy beseech you, by your prayers encompass us beneath the wings of your immaterial glory, and faithfully preserve us who fall down and cry to you: ‘Deliver us from all harm, for you are the commander of the powers on high!’” When we sing that Troparion, we can be confident that the Lord will “faithfully preserve us” and “deliver us from all harm,” just as He did in empowering Holy Mary to become the Theotokos.