The various depictions of the Annunciation have always fascinated me, so in preparing for this sermon I went on the Internet and found a catalog of all known artistic representations of the Annunciation – 117 of them. And I looked at every one of them, and was simply astounded at the myriad ways in which the mythology of this event has been portrayed. My favorite has always been the one where away up in the left hand corner is the shape of a tiny child sailing down towards the Blessed Virgin on a ray of light. Many of the paintings have a dove – representing the Holy Spirit doing the “overshadowing” business. A lot of them have sort of delicate heavenly spotlights shining down on Mary. One of them has a little child actually carrying a cross floating down from heaven. In some, the angel Gabriel bows and humbles himself before the Virgin. In others, Mary bows and humbles herself before an imposing and majestic Gabriel. In one or two, Gabriel is sort of dive-bombing down on the Virgin, and she actually seems to cower beneath what almost looks like a nearly-savage attack. In one of the more modern ones (by Carol Bloch) the angel is very misty and ghostlike. And another of my real favorites is a sketch by Michelangelo that shows Gabriel hovering very close and whispering in the ear of the Virgin.

After that sight-seeing trip through some nearly thousand years of art, I went back to the text itself, trying to read past our obvious ways of thinking, and I became aware of several things:

First, we need to recognize that this account appears ONLY in the Gospel of St. Luke, and absolutely nowhere else among all the early witnesses. It is almost certainly a fairly late addition to the tradition, and it somewhat suspiciously seems to follow a literary tradition of the miraculous birth of heroes that appears in both Hebrew and Greek traditions. It “feels” a lot like mythological ex-post-facto back-filling. If it were central to the story, it seems likely that other Evangelists would have recorded it. That is certainly why radical critics (like Bishop John Spong) tend to question the historicity of the event. I personally have no problem with accepting it at face value, but I also recognize that there are sincere and valid questions to be asked about it. I am particularly troubled by the fact that it does not appear anywhere in the Johannine writings since, presumably, the Blessed Virgin lived her life out in St. John’s house, and only she could have told the story. Legend has it, of course, that St. Luke became close friends with Mary (and even painted her portrait) and it was she who told him about it.

But there are several other things about the event that deeply interest me: For one, the Gospel says: “The angel went in and said to her….” That means that the event apparently took place indoors. (There is an apocryphal gospel tradition that Gabriel accosted Mary first at the well, and she fled away from him in terror into the house where he followed her and again spoke to her.)

Also, there is no indication in the text that Mary actually SAW anyone or anything. The angel “spoke to her” but the text does not say that he appeared to her or took a shape or anything of the sort. So perhaps Mary is simply hearing a voice in her own mind – not unlike some of Julian’s own Revelations. (I enjoyed learning that in his famous painting of the Annunciation, Leonardo da Vinci apparently modeled the angel’s wings on a bird’s wings, and some later artist apparently decided they were not big enough, and enlarged them.) I suppose that if I were an artist painting the Annunciation, my Gabriel would probably be something like a very bright blur or shimmer.

Also, it is widely held – notably by Saints Jerome, Cyril, Ephrem, Augustine, and Aquinas (and I myself preached several times on the theme in the past) – that Gabriel was somehow asking Mary’s permission to serve as the mother of Jesus. But, again, the text does not imply that: there is no question in Gabriel’s message. He simply says, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus….etc.” There is no request involved: it seems to be a grand and regal statement of what-will-be. Out of curiosity, Mary asks how it can happen since she’s a virgin, and when Gabriel explains the spiritual technology, she says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” But Gabriel doesn’t really give her a chance to say, “No”. He speaks with the indisputable authority of God (in fact, his name in Hebrew means “God’s strength” or even “God’s master”), and Mary, like a servant receiving the orders of a lord – even using the “servant” metaphor herself – consents: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord”. So I don‘t think we have a situation here of God depending on approval of his plans by his servant Mary. Gabriel gives her the information and properly assumes her acceptance.

It is also interesting that Mary’s answer “Here am I” is, in Hebrew or Aramaic, hineni, a word which appears some 30 times in the Hebrew Testament whenever God has called on someone to do something special: Moses at the burning bush; Abraham when told to sacrifice Isaac; Jacob in two of his dreams; the child Samuel in the Temple; Isaiah in his vision of heaven when God says, “Who shall I send?” hineni, “Here I am” was the absolutely classic word of submission to God’s expressed will, and any Jew would have known it by heart.

The next interesting dynamic in this encounter between the angel and the saint is the language used to describe Mary’s impregnation. (In fact, by the way, it would be entirely appropriate to call this feast “The Impregnation of Mary”, for that is what it is.) The word used is “overshadowed” – “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”

The word in the St. Luke’s Greek is episkiázo, but if one takes that word back into the original Aramaic (in which it was presumably originally spoken), we find it related to the Aramaic word tsélem. The word means “reflection” or “shadow” or “image”, and, interestingly, it is the same word used in the book of the Genesis where God created human beings in God’s own “image”-- as God’s own “shadow” -- God’s own tsélem. So, philologically speaking, the Annunciation can be subtly seen as a new parallel to the original Creation, a fresh Creation, a new imaging of God, a new showing forth of the divine Shadow or Image, a new emanating of the Divine into the world.

So, it seems to me that this entire event we remember liturgically today is probably a far more mystical event than we have tended to think of it, a far less technological or mechanical matter than even the great artists have seen it.

I think, for instance, that it was far less clear to Mary herself than we tend to portray it. I think the matter was much more confusing and nebulous in her own mind than we tend to think. After all, shortly after this angelic visitation, Mary literally “runs away”-- flees -- up into the hill country to her old aunt Elizabeth – I suspect motivated by fear and doubt and what must have been an almost unbearable, bewildering confusion. And to my mind it is only when Elizabeth, with her more mature and inspired insight, recognizes that Mary is pregnant with the Messiah (which, by the way, was the great hope of every Hebrew woman) and Elizabeth says so, only then is Mary finally able comprehend what has happened to her and to celebrate it by singing her New Testament version of Hannah’s Old Testament song, the Magnificat, which we continue to sing at every Evensong.

Sometimes, as in Mary’s case, our own vocation is announced to us, indeed, is demanded of us in a way we cannot understand or possibly even in a way we resent and rebel against. And sometimes it is someone ELSE’s word which gives us the clarity and the push we need to recognize that the angel of God has spoken to us and simply told us what is to happen. Like a contemplative vocation! And sometimes, we even find ourselves asking incredulously, “How can this be? I’m an egregious person; I’m not a hermit! I’m a talker; not a strong, silent type! I’m an activist; not a passive person! How can this be?” And God’s answer to us is the same as Gabriel’s answer to the Blessed Virgin: “The Holy Spirit will overshadow you…for nothing will be impossible with God.” What possible response could there be except: “Here am I, the servant of God. Let it be to me according to your word.” And then we, too, can expect the confusing, bewildering, sometimes almost unbearable overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.