Lady Day 2004
Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary: 25th March, 2004
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
Today we honour a great mystery, a wonder, a gift. Today we see again the covenant relationship re-asserted, re-expressed. 'You will be my people and I will be your God'. Today we honour what was probably a whispered and awe-struck response of a young woman to the shockingly specific call of God in her life. Would she say yes? Would she even hear that call in the midst of everything else that goes on in a life? Could God actually have something to say to her? How would others around her respond who had not been part of this remarkable conversation? Would she be cast out and rejected? Might she even be killed? God's grace powerfully at work. A human free response powerfully honoured.
On March 25th, nine months from December 25th, the clock starts ticking in the unfolding narrative of the incarnation of our Lord. Today's announcement, today's Annunciation, is the occasion of a joyful celebration in our Church year – often lost in the even greater wonder of Holy Week or Easter Day, so soon to be upon us. But this year, just before Passiontide begins, we have this chance to say thank you: thank you to God, and thank you to this remarkable human being, who is in herself the sign and focus of so much encouragement and strength: a model of discipleship.
There is much raging controversy about the Mel Gibson film "The Passion of the Christ". But I do not think that I have heard any criticism at all of the quite remarkable portrayal of the Mother of the Lord in that film. She was simply magnificent. She was there, throughout. She was watching, taking everything in with those dark eyes, while herself carrying an appalling personal burden. She exuded spiritual strength and a most powerful integrity and even in her grief and from time to time bewildered struggle , there was still an underlying faith and trust and conviction in the ultimate presence and victory of God, in and through her son. This was indeed compelling and utterly memorable.
And it is that Blessed Virgin – plainly and roughly dressed, a woman of the people, the mother right in there, the one who understood, the one who understands – this is the one who some 33 years before said yes to God and the archangel Gabriel, at the start of this whole process. God with us. God in us. God beside us. God saving us. God loving us.
In the Gibson film, all the characters called Our Lady 'mother'. That is partly a respectful courtesy to an older woman that is common in the East. But is also a recognition and an honouring of something far deeper. This festival is an honouring of the mother of our own potential faithfulness. Here is one who models inner strength and deep integrity. Here is compassion and love. Here is one who has to suffer insult and indignity – and the torture and killing of her son. Here is one who we are told came out the other side of all that and shared in the joy of the resurrection. And that journey began today.
May the Mother of our own faithfulness journey with us through our own trials, onwards together towards our own resurrection hope.
The Lord be with you.
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