Homily for the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos
By Fr. Daniel Sysoev
By Fr. Daniel Sysoev
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
Today is the joy of the Annunciation. Today heaven and earth are united. Today the ancient curse disappears, Adam’s transgression is erased, and sorrow is turned into joy. Today is the day when God became man so that man might become god. Today the heavens have broken through the barrier set by human sin, through the humble consent of the Virgin and her creative word: “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
God became man so that man might ascend to heavenly heights. God took on weak, sinful, mortal human nature in order to grant it sinlessness, incorruption, and purity. God receives flesh from the most pure Virgin in order to teach us divine purity. And today is the day of the Gospel, the day of the Good News, when we hear of the hope for which we live. This is the hope of deification, because we are called to become gods by grace.
The first man fell because of a false hope of becoming like God, and even now many want to become “gods” without God. They want to decide for themselves how to live, what is good and what is evil, without regard for God. As a result, people fall into suffering and misfortune. It cannot be otherwise. A person who rejects the good news of salvation inevitably hears the bad news of his own destruction. This is inevitable in the fallen world into which we have been plunged through original sin.
But today, into this dark world, the heavenly light of paradise breaks in — the Annunciation. Today the Lily of purity, the Most Pure Mother of God, blossoms with beauty in this mortal world and gives us the fragrance of incorruption. Today we are given the possibility not of a false, but of a true deification. We are truly called to become gods. As Basil the Great said when he was urged to worship creation: “I cannot worship creation, for I who am called to become god.”
We must become gods by grace. What does this mean? What is the main hope of our calling, spoken of in Scripture and by the Holy Fathers, and sought by all true Christians?
The goal is not merely to escape hell or avoid punishment. Our task is to become gods.
God possesses immeasurable and astonishing qualities. God is everywhere present, all-knowing, all-powerful, loving, merciful, gentle, and humble. God is the infinite fullness of every good, and man is called to partake of this fullness. Man must be united with God so that he becomes a participant in eternal life, so that within him flows the beginningless life of God.
As the Lord said: “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.” He spoke this about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive (John 7:38–39).
This became possible because God became man, and divine life became accessible to humanity.
How could we describe divine reality if God had not become man? We could not.
How could we experience divine power if we had not tasted it?
And could we have endured it if it came in its full glory, without being veiled in human flesh?
We would not have endured it. We would have been consumed by that immeasurable light, before which even the Cherubim tremble and the Seraphim veil their faces. We would not withstand such fire — we would be burned. When Moses saw God in the burning bush, he fell to the ground, afraid to look. God’s glory is so overwhelming that we would be blinded and overwhelmed by it. God is invisible not because He is absent, but because He is too radiant for our weak eyes to behold. We cannot even look at the sun for long — how then could we look at the One who created the sun, who is light beyond all light?
Because of the Incarnation — because God became man and took human nature from the Most Pure Virgin Mary — we are able to see God and partake of divine life through the flesh of Christ the Savior, which He received from the pure blood of the Blessed Lady, the Mother of God.
This is truly the mystery of mysteries — something greater than the creation of the world. It is the miracle of miracles. As Saint John of Damascus said:
“The name ‘Theotokos’ (Mother of God) is the only truly new name under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes says:
“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
But the event of the Incarnation — when God entered history, when God became man while remaining God — is absolutely unique. It has never happened before, and it will never happen again. It is a complete transformation of everything.
As the Church sings today:
“The Father from above is well pleased, the Holy Spirit descends and sanctifies the Virgin, the Son of God becomes the Son of man; and the transformation of human nature is accomplished by the common counsel of the Trinity.”
The Holy Trinity determined to renew and transform human nature: from weak to strong, from corruptible to incorruptible, from mortal to immortal, from foolish to wise, from self-centered to God-loving.
So that man might once again become the true image of God, as he was originally created to be.
For this reason, the eternal Image of the Father — the Son of God — comes to earth and restores in Himself the original image that He Himself created in the beginning.
And today is the day when we rejoice and celebrate the true feast of the Annunciation — our liberation. We rejoice that the unimaginable has happened: not a visitor from another world, not an angel, but the Creator of all worlds, the Lord of the universe, has come and become one of us.
As we contemplate and rejoice in this mystery, we ourselves must rise upward, as the Church sings:
“Christ has descended from heaven so that we might ascend to heaven.”
Imitate God. Cleanse yourselves according to the original image that has come to renew us. Let the purity of the heavenly Queen — the divine Lily — also blossom in our hearts. Let divine love, beauty, humility, and quiet obedience to God’s will open our hearts to the abundant streams of the Holy Spirit. Let them wash us, cleanse us, and lift us above the heavens, just as they exalted our radiant Queen, the most blessed Mary, the Queen of Heaven.
May the Almighty Lord help us!
May the Lord preserve you all!
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
