Annunciation

‘I must try to sort out what I believe’, ‘I must try to read the Bible’, ‘I’ll make the effort to get to church more often’: in seasons such as Lent when discipline is to the fore, these effortful resolutions can strike us as what’s needed, even if we do little about them. It’s as though faith grew from trying; as if by thinking or studying or praying harder we could finally make God real for ourselves.

But we can’t, of course, make God anything; God is what God is. We don’t draw him down by effort, however religiously worthy. It’s worth recalling that the story of our faith begins, not with theologians or Bible classes or even prayer groups, but with the Annunciation, with the angel telling Mary that she is to have a child. Whatever we make of the Virgin Birth, this is plainly a story about God taking the initiative.

We are familiar with that Annunciation from many works of Christian art. But there are many annunciations: God telling Abraham to leave his home and Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, Jesus declaring the coming of the Kingdom and his new life in the Resurrection. Annunciation, with or without the capital letter, is the dynamic of our faith. In what happens between God and us, he speaks first. We don’t construct him from the ground up.

But when God declares himself, it is our part to respond: ‘the angel of the Lord brought tidings to Mary, and she conceived by the Holy Spirit.’ God offers his life, and we take that life into ourselves. That is the pattern; not working harder on God-things, firming up the God who slips through our fingers.

Nevertheless we have to hear our annunciations, which may be very quiet, and certainly unexpected. There has to be a readiness to listen, and a place in ourselves that God can enter. Rather than effort, it is learning to leave effort behind, to be open and quiet, to notice when God has something to say. We probably won’t see an angel. But in those moments when we feel a joy not our own and a peace we haven’t earned, or when we love someone unlovable or see sense in the senselessness of our lives, we feel God’s approach and hear the beating of his wings.