There’s something simple and beautiful about today. An angel speaks to a girl and she listens. And more, of course. “The Word himself was waiting on her word” (Malcolm Guite), and with her word, her “yes”, the Word became flesh. And nothing is the same again. A broken connection is restored. The rusty bolt is pulled back and the door swings open. The light switches from red to green and the traffic starts to move again. The ancient nay-saying of Adam and Eve is reversed by the Son obeying his Father and Mary the angel. “I come to do your will…I am the servant of the Lord.” And so, the heavens drip down dew, the clouds rain righteousness, the earth opens and a Saviour springs forth. God and man tie the knot. No wonder that in calendars this day has often been a New Year’s Day. It chimes well with spring too. And how insightful of Tolkien to set the destruction of the ring of power on this date!
A second thought is the link with Easter. It’s such a teaching to have this feast just now. It grounds everything we’re about to move through. Today the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us. It’s a beginning. It reminds us who Jesus deeply is. And the mission he begins in his mother’s womb will reach its climax when he rises from a tomb. He is one and the same throughout. He is God and man, divine and human. And his death and resurrection are what they are and do what they do precisely because of who he is, this unique combination of divinity and humanity. The God-man, able through being human to enter into our tragedy, and able through being God to transform it from within. Able to take away the sins of the world and introduce grace. Able to offer himself with a love that can outweigh all our miserable un-love, all our hatred, and breathe the Holy Spirit into a fallen world. Able to die and to rise and to take us with him back to the Father from whom he comes. An early Council of the Church said that because Jesus is who he is, the true Son of God, we can call Mary the Mother of God. Another Council took a further step and said we can look at the man on the Cross and say, “One of the Trinity was crucified for us.” The great Passover we’re about to pass through, from Palm Sunday to Easter Day, is the Passover of the Lord, of God himself, God made man. This is why we bother, why we kiss the Cross, why we worship Christ in the Eucharist and proclaim with Thomas, “My Lord and my God.” Today makes Easter possible. A distinguished cardinal, now an elderly man, tells a beautiful story from his own life. He was studying theology as a young man, and he came across the theory that the title Son of God didn’t really mean that Jesus was God; it was just a way of saying he was kind of special. He excitedly told his mother this. She looked at him astonished and said, “But if Jesus is not really the Son of God, our faith is meaningless.” “To this day, he says, I thank her and the Lord for [her saying] this.” Today we thank our mother Mary for what she said, and we thank God the Father for the gift of the Son and for faith in him.
And so today feasts the Lord and the Lady. We worship the gift and we kiss the graceful hands that welcomed it on our behalf. Today means that now every day can be an annunciation for us. Every day, and some especially, have their angels and bring their messages. Every day has a word and the chance to respond. Let’s not be an Ahaz and miss the opportunity. Let us be sons who come to do their Father’s will, delighting in it. Let’s be Marys who say “yes”.
“And the angel departed from her.” That last line of the Gospel always gives me a jolt. Imagine he had had to go back to God, and say, “I’m afraid she said, ‘no’. Too busy, too scared.” I’d love to think that every evening an angel goes home to God from us, and says, “Father, can you believe it? She / he actually listened, took it, gave a ‘yes’”.
St Mary’s Cathedral, 25 March 2026
