Today's reading is devoted to an event described by two evangelists: Matthew (Mt 1:18-23) and Luke (vv. 26-38). It is reasonable to think that Luke used in his Gospel the testimony of the Virgin Mary herself, unlike Matthew, who relied on Joseph's account. In addition, in Luke's presentation the story of the Annunciation is joined to the story of the Virgin Mary's visit to Elizabeth (vv. 39-56). Using such a composition, the evangelist, as it were, compares and relates two events: the birth of John the Baptist and the Nativity of Christ.

At first glance, such a comparison can appear rather conditional: after all, the birth even of such a prophet as John is still incomparable in significance with the birth of the Messiah-Christ. And yet this comparison has its own meaning. For every miracle is nothing other than God's intervention in nature and history, changing, though not completely stopping, the course of natural and social processes. From this point of view, the Nativity of Christ too could be considered an ordinary miracle, if only the word "ordinary" were appropriate in this case. For even the birth of the Messiah-Christ and the entry of the Kingdom into the world are not something absolutely external to this world; otherwise Christ would have had no need to be born, and the Incarnation of God would lose all meaning.

The Kingdom is amazing precisely because it includes our world and does not destroy it. Perhaps for this reason the Incarnation of God was absolutely necessary: by containing Himself within the bounds of human nature, which is by definition limited, God enters the world not from outside, but from within; now His greatness does not prevent Him from becoming wholly, to the end, part of the world He Himself created. Apparently, in a fallen world it was not possible to act otherwise; it was possible to set it right only from within, and God resolves on this step for the sake of His love for people.

But even before this He did not abandon humanity, and above all His people. Every miracle, every theophany, was a step toward the world and toward the human person. Therefore Luke quite rightly relates John's birth to Jesus' birth: all "ordinary" miracles find their meaning only in the main miracle - the birth of the Messiah and the manifestation of the Kingdom.

 

The Gospel according to Luke does not begin as the other Gospels do. Usually the Gospel narrative opens with events connected in one way or another with Jesus Himself; Luke, however, prefaces his account with the story of the miraculous conception of John the Baptist. Of course, John the Baptist will play his own, extremely important and entirely unique, role in the Gospel events. And yet none of the evangelists gives him as much attention as Luke. Usually the Gospels describe John already as a preacher, appearing as if from nowhere, as if he had been born in the very wilderness where his preaching sounded. Luke, as we can see, wants to set this mysterious figure within the real history of which John's activity was a part. But he by no means denies the miracle in what is happening: John's conception and birth were undoubtedly connected with God's direct intervention in the events taking place in Jerusalem, in the family of the priest named Zechariah (vv. 5-20).

Here before us is a situation described more than once in the Old Testament: a child is born to a childless married couple when, in the natural way, it is completely clear that he can no longer come into the world. It is no surprise that the birth of such a child was perceived as a miracle, as the direct action of God, who in this case makes real an event that is, if not directly impossible, then at least nearly incredible. And of course, like every miracle of God, the miracle of John's birth remains for us in many ways a mystery - the same as, for example, the mystery of Isaac's birth. But this mystery has nothing in common with the aura of obscurity with which popular rumor surrounded the figure of John when he went out to preach.

Perhaps Luke begins his Gospel with the account of John's miraculous birth precisely because by the time he wrote it too many legends had already appeared both about John and, perhaps, even about Jesus Himself (vv. 1-4). Later these legends, born of a stormy Eastern imagination, became the basis of apocryphal literature, where the image of Christ often acquired completely fantastic features and miracles took on chimerical forms. Luke lets us feel the breath of a true miracle, for which there is always room in the world - a miracle that is near and at the same time does not cease to be mystery. Like the Kingdom itself.

 

Today we celebrate the beginning, the starting point of our salvation. This feast, which arose no later than the 5th century, was originally called the Day of the Incarnation; its modern name appeared later, not earlier than the 7th century. This ancient name expresses for us both the main meaning of the feast and the main Person who acts in it. We rejoice today because Almighty God desired to become incarnate in order to save us, and He fulfilled this will of His. And today we rejoice over Her who received Him in Her womb, over His Mother. We are not celebrating the anniversary of the event, because we do not know exactly when it happened: the date was set quite conventionally, simply exactly 9 months before Christmas. But we rejoice over the Incarnation as an accomplished fact. Once proclaimed by the prophets, it became an event of real history, and because of this everything became a participant in eternity. Let us cite the words of two great saints about this event, in translation from Greek.

Here is what St. John of Damascus says: "Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice: for He who is coessential with the Father, without beginning with Him and sharing His throne, in compassion and man-loving mercy emptied Himself, by the good pleasure and counsel of the Father, and dwelt in a virgin womb, purified beforehand by the Spirit. O wonder! God among human beings, the Uncontainable in a womb, the eternal in time: how glorious are the seedless conception, the ineffable self-emptying, and such a mystery! God is made small, and is incarnate, and is formed, when the angel tells the Pure One of the conception: Rejoice, O favored one, the Lord is with you, He who has great mercy."

And here are the words of St. Andrew of Crete: "Now is the joy of the Annunciation, the virgin celebration; earthly things are joined with heavenly things, Adam is renewed, Eve is freed from the ancient sorrow, and the dwelling of our nature, deified by the One who took our composition, becomes God's temple. O mystery! Incomprehensible is the way He made Himself small! Ineffable is the manner of conception! The angel serves the wonder; the Virgin womb receives the Son; the Holy Spirit is sent down; the Father from above is well pleased; reconciliation for all is created by [His] will! In Christ, saved by Christ, together with Gabriel let us cry out to the Virgin: Rejoice, O favored one, through You the Lord has come, our salvation, Christ our God, who received our nature and raised us to Himself; pray to Him for the salvation of our souls."