By Fr. George Dorbarakis
1. We celebrate their synaxis on account of the birth of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos. And they became the agents of the salvation of the whole world through their all-holy daughter, the Theotokos. Their repose from this world, however, is commemorated on the twenty-fifth day of the month of July.
2. In the aftermath of the Nativity of the Theotokos (September 8), we celebrate the feast of the Synaxis of the Righteous Joachim and Anna, following the beloved custom of the Church to honor, after a great event, the persons who played the leading role in it. Joachim and Anna are honored as the parents of the Theotokos, that is, as those who cooperated so that, by the will of God, their daughter Mary, who had been predestined to become His Mother, might come into the world. And certainly, it is only natural that such a noble fruit as the Panagia should have parents who were not ordinary, but who were indeed characterized by intense reverence for God and absolute obedience to the law of God, and for this reason surpassed all others in their parental calling. “O blessed pair! You surpassed all parents, because you caused to sprout forth her who surpasses all creation,” as our Church also sings.
The Nativity of the Theotokos, however, did not come without suffering. Her parents lived for many years with the “stigma” of childlessness, since at that time every Jewish couple who was unable to have children was considered in some way to bear the “curse” of God, since surely the expected Messiah would not come from them. In other words, every Jewish couple was potentially also the Messianic couple; consequently, a childless couple was excluded from this blessing. And yet God overturns this logic. Through Anna’s barrenness He creates the conditions for the greatest fruitfulness in childbearing in the world, for all ages, an event that signifies the miraculous origin of the Panagia, as a kind of new creation: just as by the will of God the world is created from nothing, in a similar way, by the will of God the Panagia is created from barrenness. And this impels the Hymnographer to “see” her Nativity in another way as well: on the one hand, as the beginning of man’s barrenness with respect to sin — for man is now able not to sin — and, on the other, as the dissolution of the barrenness of human nature — for from that time onward man can bear the fruit of the virtues through the grace of God. Thus, with the Nativity of the Theotokos, we find ourselves before events that transcend the natural order and initiate us into the mystery of the divine economy, that is, God’s plan for the salvation of the world. The Church guides us to “touch,” in humility, in fear and trembling, the “footsteps” of God as the hour of His entrance into the earth approaches.
The Hymnographer makes this astonishing ascent, which embraces the whole spiritual history of human existence, through many images and figures, but also in clear language, as in the Kontakion of the feast:
“Joachim and Anna were freed from the reproach of childlessness, and Adam and Eve from the corruption of death, O Immaculate One, through your holy birth. Your people also celebrate this, having been delivered from the guilt of their transgressions as they cry out to you: the barren one gives birth to the Theotokos and the Nourisher of our Life.”
The Nativity of the Theotokos, then, does not move only on a specific historical level, that of the time of Joachim and Anna, when the couple is freed from the reproach of childlessness, but also reaches back to the beginning of humanity, to what happened with the fall of Adam and Eve into sin. Death, as the penalty of sin, is transcended, because she was born who would give birth to the Redeemer of man, precisely out of the conditions of sin and death. And further: her Nativity now acts throughout all the ages. For through Him whom the Panagia gave birth to, man was saved from every guilt, since her Son and God, through His sacrifice upon the Cross, bore the sins of the whole world, of all ages.
We contemplate these events, gathered together in silence, “touching,” as we said, the mysteries in fear and trembling. And how could it be otherwise? A Jewish couple, without understanding what was taking place in its depths, becomes the instrument of God for the greatest mystery that could ever exist: the revelation of Him to the world as man.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
