2 Samuel 7:4,8-16 Ps.89
Romans 16:25-27 Luke 1:26-38
Lectionary Link
The Annunciation is the account of the angel Gabriel addressing Mary with the "Hail, Mary." "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you." And in this account we can find the entire mystagogy of the church encapsulated.
Mystagogy is the instruction into the mysteries of Christ. The Jesus Movement was built upon the continual happening of the sublime experiences which were occurring within many persons who were having them following the preaching and teaching of the followers of Jesus Christ.
St. Paul, who wrote long before the Annunciation story came to its mystagogic form, wrote "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Christ in you, the experience of the interior sublime identity whereby one realizes that one is a child of God.
Paul wrote mystical theology for these interior events which were spontaneously occurring in many people, even as he himself who never saw Jesus had a profound interior event with the Risen Christ. The Jesus Movement was founded upon the mysticism of these profound interior experiences and the interpretations given for these experiences was the experience of the Risen Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
By the time the Gospels were written, there were gathering communities of people who had had this sublime experience of interior identity and they understood this as knowing themselves following Jesus, as beloved children of God.
The presence of the Gospels, written in an accessible language to many people in the Roman Empire, represents the institutionalization of the message because of the recurrence of these experiences of being identified with Christ.
How could this spiritual experience be promulgated and taught? How could it be hidden within a narrative, a story about exterior events which encoded the interior event of "Christ in you, the hope of glory?" How did they believe that these recurring interior Christ events were happening? They believed that they occurred because of a heavenly word and message. They believe it happened because of what they called a baptism, an immersion, in the Holy Spirit. They believed that each person could be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and have the life of Christ conceived within their interior beings.
The mystagogues of the early Jesus Movement were Gospel writers. They encoded the very mystery of Christ in you, within a narrative of Jesus of Nazareth. The origin of Jesus is also the origin of each person who is conceived or born by the power of the Spirit, who becomes like a reiteration of the Spirit combining with mere dust creating the human being as God's child.
The word angel means messenger, and Gabriel is the personified messenger, signifying that each person is given a unique initiation into their identity event with God. One is hailed by God's messenger into the reality of our realization as children of God. Mary, is paradigmatic of the Christ in you experience. Christ became in Mary, conceived by the over-shadowing of the Holy Spirit; it was not physical event involving the male seed. One's spiritual birth is not one's physical birth, but it is a birth which happens because we are physically born with the potential of realizing our spiritual deep down God identity.
The Annunciation account is spiritual word art of the Jesus Movement encoding the reality of mystical union with God in Christ as the Christ nature arises within those who are willing to let that identity become the chief identity of their lives.
Mary is hailed by the messenger, she is favored by God because of the event which is going to happen within her, and this event which replicated in the souls forever will bespeak the blessedness of this event for all generations.
The Annunciation is the proclamation par excellence of "Christ in you, the hope of Glory!" The Gospel for you and I today is to humbly embrace this sublime event within us and say with Mary, "Let it be according to your word." Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment