“What?  I’m pregnant?”

The angel Gabriel had just finished telling Mary she was going to have a son who would be great, the son of God, and God would give him the throne of David from which he would reign forever.  “Of his kingdom there shall be no end.”

In a very human response, Mary didn’t comment first on greatness or kingdoms.  She couldn’t get her head around suddenly finding out she was pregnant. The rest did sink in eventually.  It just took some time.  This story is told in Luke 1:26-38 and is known as the Annunciation, the announcing that Jesus would be born.  In the church calendar, March 25 is designated as the day to celebrate the Annunciation. 

There are many theories about such a story, as well as about the actuality of events such as the virgin birth and the physical resurrection.  I suspect there is a range of ideas among the readers of this post.   This, however, does not detract from the significance of the event foretold in this narrative, for the child Mary would bear turned out to be a highly significant person.

That the Annunciation is being celebrated this year, as it often is, during the Lenten Season links Christmas and Easter and offers a fusion of the themes of joy and suffering.  We tend to associate only joy with the Christmas event, which Gabriel is said to have foretold, while the Lenten Season is, for the most part, connected with sacrifice and suffering.  Yet there is a joy inherent in the Lent because of the promised resurrection. Sacrificial love leads to something better.   And, too, the Christmas story does not lack suffering.  This was the time of an oppressive census/tax imposed by the Roman Empire; there was no room in the inn; and the child was threatened with death even at birth.

These two events bookend the life of Jesus of Nazareth.  The Annunciation announced the Incarnation, which allowed us to see that power, force, phenomenon we call “God” at work in a human being.  Humanity, made “little lower than angels,” (Psalm 8) attained its full potential in the “anointed” or the “Christ.”  The Easter event, then, was the ultimate example of this potential: self-giving love, even unto death. 

And yet, these two events, significant though they are, would have no significance were it not for what came between them.  To be able truly to celebrate the Incarnation and the Resurrection, however you interpret either, we must follow the example given to us by the Life in between.  This is a life of self-giving love, even of “the least of these,” described in the first four books of the New Testament.  This is a life of joy, as well as of suffering.  Jesus inspired and “commanded” us to follow his example.  He also promised that the spirit/power/psychic energy that allowed him to live such a life could be ours as well.  

The essence of Christianity is between the bookends.