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Annunciation, calendar, fulfillment, God's Word, Good Friday, Incarnation of Christ, John Donne, Lent, liturgical calendar, poetry, Virgin Mary
Today is a fairly rare occurrence in the liturgical calendar: it’s Good Friday, but it’s also Annunciation, March 25. The next time this will happen is 2157, if that gives you any idea. The Church holds off on celebrating Annunciation if it falls during Holy Week, and I’ve seen varying opinions on where to move it to, but just the fact that they both fell on the same day this year is incredibly fitting.
On Annunciation, we ponder how the Angel Gabriel came to the Virgin Mary and told her that she was to be the mother of the Savior. Through the word Gabriel spoke, the Virgin Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit — yet another example of how God’s Spirit is always present with and active through God’s Word. (March 25 is nine months before December 25, Christmas — get it?) So this is the day that the Word became flesh for us. Jesus took on a fully human nature, assumed from the Virgin Mary, which meant that now He would be born, grow, learn, eat, breathe, play, worship, live — and finally, die.
That’s what Good Friday is for. We focus on the death of Christ, the Lamb of God, who paid for all sins of all people of all time — including you, gentle reader. Yes, you! He looked ahead in time, and with you on His mind knew that one day He would go to the cross, and die. Just like we do, He too had a definite span to His days — only He did not stay dead. The celebration of that comes on the “third day”, Easter Sunday, but today, we meditate on just how much free forgiveness costs — the unutterably steep price Christ paid to redeem us for God.
Annunciation and Good Friday. On one, He takes on a human body, to share our human nature; on the other, He sacrifices that body on the tree of the cross and dies, so that we might be free from sin and death forever. Take off your shoes, friends, for here we stand before the central mystery of our faith: the Word made flesh, dying so that we might live. The eternal Son of God lays down His life, that we from death might be free forever. It deepens your appreciation for the gospel, doesn’t it?
John Donne wrote a poem on this same occasion in his lifetime. Read it, and take a moment for yourself to appreciate what really happened on Good Friday.
Annunciation, Good Friday — the focus is the same. The heart of the gospel: it’s all about Jesus. A blessed Annunication, and Good Friday, to you all.
On Annunciation and Passion Falling on the Same Day, 1609
by John Donne
TAMELY, frail body, abstain to-day ; to-day
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur ; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came, and went away ;
She sees Him nothing, twice at once, who’s all ;
She sees a cedar plant itself, and fall ;
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive, yet dead ;
She sees at once the Virgin Mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha ;
Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen ;
At once a son is promised her, and gone ;
Gabriell gives Christ to her, He her to John ;
Not fully a mother, she’s in orbity ;
At once receiver and the legacy.
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
Th’ abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one—
As in plain maps, the furthest west is east—
Of th’ angels Ave, and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God’s Court of Faculties,
Deals, in sometimes, and seldom joining these.
As by the self-fix’d Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where th’other is, and which we say
—Because it strays not far—doth never stray,
So God by His Church, nearest to him, we know,
And stand firm, if we by her motion go.
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar, doth
Lead, and His Church, as cloud ; to one end both.
This Church by letting those days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one ;
Or ’twas in Him the same humility,
That He would be a man, and leave to be ;
Or as creation He hath made, as God,
With the last judgment but one period,
His imitating spouse would join in one
Manhood’s extremes ; He shall come, He is gone ;
Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall,
Accepted, would have served, He yet shed all,
So though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords.
This treasure then, in gross, my soul, uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.
Whenever the topic of a person’s life work comes up, or the good that each of us hopes to accomplish before we leave this world, inevitably someone says, “Oh, if only I can help one person — just reach one person! If only I tell one person about Jesus and that person is saved, or my sufferings and my sacrifices can benefit just one person, then my life will have been worthwhile! Then everything I’ve gone through will not be in vain!”
Now He has sent His ministers into all the world to proclaim forgiveness for these sins of the tongue – this lying, cursing, anger, dishonesty, the violence of our words and our hearts – and that forgiveness comes through the holy absolution. The announcement of Jesus’ forgiveness to the sinner is the loosing key that takes away your sins. It is the glowing coal that touches your lips and purifies them, even as it stings and sears. It’s painful and scorching to hear from God’s Word that you’re a sinner, but that same Word has a healing and a purifying heat. God’s law condemns our sins and it condemns us. It stings and burns as it sounds the death sentence over us, but His gospel also burns away the uncleanness and the impurity. It burns away all the guilt, the liability to punishment that we inherited and that we exercise every day. It leaves us with holy burns, the scars where our sin was. We are forgiven and healed. Nothing is hidden from its heat, because nothing has been left undone by Christ. He leaves no sin unsearched for or unforgiven in your heart by His Word. All is right now between you and God again, and we can call on Him as our heavenly Father once more.
Simon is called the Zealot in several places, and also Cananean, which is an Aramaic version of a Hebrew word that means, zealous. So one way or another, this is how he was known: Simon the Zealot. This could mean that he belonged to a radical political party called the Zealots. They were extreme Jewish nationalists, who hated the Romans worse than anything and were ready to attack them at times. In the eyes of most people the Zealots verged on being terrorists. Simon could have belonged to that group. Or he could have just been very eager and fired up to follow Jesus. Or he could have been very laid back and easygoing, and the other apostles called him that to rib him about it. We don’t know for sure. All we have for sure with Simon is his name.
With Jude, we have a little more, but not much more. It seems that Judas not Iscariot’s name was shortened slightly over time to avoid confusing him with Judas Iscariot, which no one wanted to do. Jude or Judas or Judah – all those names are basically the same, — was also called Thaddeus, which is a Greek form of his Hebrew name. Scholars debate whether or not the New Testament epistle of Jude was written by him. It certainly could have. The Biblical evidence fits. What’s more intriguing, although not much more certain, is that both Jude and Simon could have been half-brothers or cousins of the Lord Jesus. In Matthew 13:55, the people of Nazareth name Jesus’ brothers as James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas (or Jude). So both Simon and Jude could have been related to Jesus in some way. They may have followed Him and only later, after He rose from the dead, did they realize who their Brother really was. Or the Simon and Jude mentioned as brothers of the Lord might be different than Simon and Jude the apostles. It’s intriguing, and the Biblical evidence could be taken either way. Again, we don’t know a whole lot about Jude beyond that.
Simon and Jude understood all this far better after Christ rose from the dead, and after Pentecost. They understood how God’s kingdom truly grows and He is glorified. It’s not by big, flashy, outward results, at least not usually; it’s by a lifetime of faithful, joyful confession of His Word and living out that Word every day – believing in His Word and keeping His commands, despite everything the world throws at you: opposition, hatred, sneers and whispers, and even the threat of a martyr’s death. Maybe even an actual martyr’s death. Simon and Jude were killed because of their faith in Christ, just like all the apostles except John, and he died in exile, far away from his home and family.
Today is the feast of Ignatius of Antioch, a bishop (pastor) who was killed for his confession of the faith in the first century. Even though they’d never heard of him, I told the catechism students his story tonight, and we talked about how his whole life was oriented toward the simple prayer, “Hallowed be Thy name.” That was the whole goal of his life, of what he taught, and ultimately of his death. I also tied Ignatius’ teaching to the 4th Commandment, which some of the students also studied tonight, because if you read his letters his constant refrain is, “Do nothing without the bishop” — i.e., listen to your pastor and do as he says because he’s teaching and leading you in God’s Word. The same faith that he confessed and died for is what you students are learning now, I told them. As I related his story, I was reminded again of the power of a good example. Here is someone who did not back down from confessing Christ, even to the point of death — and he went gladly. His letters bear no trace of panic or regret or sorrow at his impending martyrdom. He simply accepts it, and rejoices, based on the promises of Christ his Lord. That’s what we’re trying to instill in you, I told the students: that you would live your whole lives in service to God and be ready to lay down your life for Him, if it comes to that. The saints who went before us are useful chiefly as good examples. They encourage us to take up our duties and face our challenges with renewed vigor and strength, and if our challenges are not equal to theirs in severity, neither is our strength equal to theirs — but we all have challenges to our faith. Each of us can be faithful in his or her own little way, in whatever corner of God’s kingdom we’re in. (God grant it.)
