Happy Annunciation Day

Luke 1:35

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Can you think of a holiday in the church year that is celebrated on the 25th of a month? Christmas, of course! December 25th, that’s the celebration of Christmas, but take that back then nine months. And what do we get? The 25th of March. It also is a special holiday and festival day in the church year. It’s what we call the Annunciation of our Lord. And here in the middle of Lent, we get a little celebration, a little oasis day, where we get to be reminded of Christmas and of the main theme of Christmas, the incarnation of our Lord Jesus.

Incarnation. What a wonderful, mind boggling thing this is that God was willing to come into our world to take on our human flesh and blood, to become one of us, to have a God who is down to Earth. And really, it’s a fitting thing for us to consider, especially during the Lenten season, that as we, in this season, consider how our Lord Jesus was willing to march with dedication to Jerusalem and to the cross and to his death. We see that same kind of loving heart of our Savior, even before his birth in his incarnation.

At that moment, when Gabriel appears to Mary and he says to her,

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35 EHV)

And then, of course, Jesus is conceived in the womb of Mary. But we see the same kind of loving heart, even at the incarnation. As Jesus is marching to the cross. God, the Son possesses this willingness to step off of his throne on high to leave behind the perfection and all the glory of heaven to step into this world that he had created into a world that we had ruined with our sin. He takes on our human flesh and blood. He humbles himself, as the Bible describes it, to the point that he even suffers. And he goes through extreme torment and suffering and pain. He understands sorrow and sadness like we do. He comes here as our substitute. What a wonderful thing. As we consider the Annunciation, our Savior comes to be one of us.

And that’s also then reflected throughout this season of Lent. As we see him marching to the cross. He has this heart that wants to be here for us to help us, that he’s willing to undergo these things. He’s willing to live a life that suffers. And yet through all of it, he does not sin. He endures through it with complete and perfect love, and he does that for us in our place. He earns righteousness that he shares with us, and as he goes to the cross, Jesus takes all of our unrighteousness, all of our sins. He takes it with him and he suffers tremendous suffering and pain. He suffers hell itself as he’s forsaken by God in the darkness of the cross so that we don’t ever have to experience that kind of suffering. He pays for all of our sins and he opens eternal life for us.

The Son of God has entered into our world. He has a heart of love for us and we see then we celebrate that, especially on the 25th of March, as we consider the Annunciation of our Lord, how he’s willing to step off his throne in heaven come into this world to rescue us.

And we pray thank you, Lord Jesus, for your willingness to enter into our world, to come as our brother so that you, by going to the cross, might save us from our sins and open heaven to us. Amen. Happy Annunciation Day.