The Annunciation
[The Saviour of the World] [Volume I] [Book I]
[Poem V] Poem VI [Poem VII]
The Annunciation. Visit to Elisabeth. Magnificat.
(The Gospel History, Section 6)
Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee. But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this might be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. And Mary said unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elisabeth thy kinswoman, she also hath conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her that was called barren. For no word from God shall be void of power. And Mary said, Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
The Annunciation
(The Saviour of the World, Vol I Book I Poem VI)
The angel Gabriel went forth once more
On that high errand: came to Nazareth,
Planted ’mid streams and trees, whose careless folk,
Content, in darkness sate—the shadow of death;
There dwelt a son of David, Joseph named,
Betrothed to Mary, virgin of that house.
Alone upon the housetop knelt the maid;
Once more her urgent, passionate prayer she prayed—
“Send us Messias!”—When, lo, the angel came,
As friend, familiar, called her by her name.
“Hail, Mary!” said the seraph—in the word,
Angelic love and reverence were heard—
“All hail, thou happy Virgin, full of grace,
Who hast high favour found before the face
“Of God; the Lord be with thee; fear not thou!”
For she was greatly troubled; questioned how
(Within herself) had she offended; hold—
Had she made her petitions over bold?
Gentle, he reassured her; “Nay, fear not!
No word of thine in heaven hath been forgot:
Thou shalt conceive, and bear a Holy Son,
The very Son of God; whose reign, begun
“Within thy womb, in time shall have no end,
And over all the tribes of men extend:
Jesus, His Name; the Son of God Most High,
Yet shall He on thy breast, an infant, lie!”
. . . . . .
As men walk forth by day, nor ever know
That all the air with colour is aglow,
Till here, black clouds, and there, a blushing rose
Lend surface, hues of beauty to disclose;—
“The rose is red,” then say they; “see the arc
The multi-coloured bow spreads o’er the dark
Rainclouds opposed to the sun!” Nor recognise
That all the purple, crimson, orange dyes
Are held in the white light, till broken rays
Let loose on this or that the hues they praise.
So is life held in God; nor needs, at best,
The will of any two to manifest.
“Let there be Life,” His primal word; and straight
His creatures lived; endowed to propagate
Each after his own kind: so men grew used
To the one way; and, all their thought obtused
By long-continued custom, ne’er foresaw
That He who made the first, a second Law
Might bring forth from His counsels—for a Birth,
Should quicken all the recreant sons of earth!
Again the mandate issued: Be there life:—
And she whom no man yet had ta’en to wife
Conceived and bare a Son: the Virgin-born,
Come, after heavy night, the promised Morn!
But Mary understood not yet; nor we.
. . . . . .
Not querulous, nor doubting—meekly, she,
Asking direction, did the angel show
That which perplexed her: “Seeing I no man know,
How shall this be after the wont of men?”
For great the mystery: the angel, then,
Showed how by immediate power of God Most High
The thing should come to pass; and how thereby
The Child born unto her should holy be,
The Son of God.
Because her hallowed glee
Must in her heart lie hid, the angel, kind,
Perceiving that to tell would soothe her mind,
Spake of Elizabeth, and her great hap—
How she, grown old, should soon have child on lap—
For every word of God shall be with power.
And Mary—scarce perceiving all her hour
Might bring—“Behold the handmaid of the Lord!
Be it to me according to thy word.”
St. Luke i. 26-39
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | RSS
Commentary by J. R. Dummelow
Lk 1:26–38. The Annunciation (see on Mt 1). Wonder and awe and adoring praise are the emotions with which Christians have ever regarded the unspeakable condescension of Him who, ‘when He took upon Him human nature to deliver it, did not abhor the Virgin’s womb.’ That Mary fully understood who her child was to be, cannot be supposed. The thought of such a condescension of the Author of nature as is implied in the words of the Creed ‘conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,’ is overwhelming even to us; to Mary it would have been so appalling that she could not possibly have performed the duties of a mother. Hence the angel was only permitted to reveal to her, that her son would be the Messiah, and the ‘Son of God’ in some specially exalted yet human sense. The whole narrative moves within the circle of Jewish OT. ideas, and this is a proof of its truth, for an invented story would certainly show marks of a Christian origin. The grace, modest reticence, and inimitable simplicity of the narrative, are in marked contrast to the vulgar details of the Apocryphal Gospels. The festival of the Annunciation (the day on which our Lord became man) is kept on March 25th.
Lk 1:26. The sixth month] i.e. from the conception of John, v. 24. > Mt 2:23 Nazareth] or Nazara, was a town of lower Galilee, in the tribe of Zebulon. It lay in a lofty valley among the limestone hills to the N. of the plain of Esdraelon, or Megiddo. It was quite unimportant (Jn 1:46), and is not mentioned in OT. or Josephus.
Lk 1:28. Came in] Local tradition states that Gabriel appeared to her as she was drawing water at the fountain of the Virgin outside Nazareth, where the Church of the Annunciation now stands. But, as the angel ‘came in’ to her, she must have been in the house, perhaps engaged in prayer, as painters are fond of representing her. Two well-known devotions have been founded on this incident: (1) the ‘Ave Maria’ (‘Hail, Mary!’); (2) the ‘Angelus.’
Highly favoured] or, rather, ‘endued with grace’ (RM), not, as the Vulgate has it, ‘full of grace.’ She is addressed not as the mother of grace, but as the daughter of it (Bengel). The angel recognised in Mary a holiness of an entirely special kind, which God had given her to fit her to be the mother of the Holy One. Sinless in the absolute sense she probably was not (see on Jn 2:4), yet we may reverently believe that no one approached the perfection of holiness and purity so nearly as she. Blessed art thou among women] These words are omitted by many good authorities: see on v. 42. 32. His father David] This seems to imply the Davidic descent of Mary: cp. v. 27, which is ambiguous, and v. 69.
Lk 1:34. How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?] The traditional view of this passage, which sees in it a proof of the perpetual virginity of our Lord’s mother, is perhaps correct. Unless Mary had resolved to remain a virgin after her marriage with Joseph, and had obtained her husband’s consent to do so, she would not, as a betrothed woman, regard it as impossible that she should have a child: see on Mt 1:25 12:50.
Lk 1:35. The Holy Ghost, etc.] Mary would doubtless understand ‘the Holy Ghost’ impersonally, as the creative power of God, but St. Luke’s readers would understand it personally, as frequently in the Acts. The Holy Ghost, (1) miraculously forms and hallows our Lord’s human body and soul at His conception; (2) descends upon Him with an abiding unction at His baptism, consecrating Him to the Messianic office and preparing Him for His ministry; (3) brings about the mystical union of the ascended Christ with His people.
Overshadow] like the Shekinah in the Temple, or the cloud of glory at the Transfiguration, which symbolised the divine presence. We have here ‘a new, immediate and divine act of creation, and thus the transmission of sinfulness from the sinful race to him is excluded.’ That which is to be born, etc.] Mary would probably understand from this that her Child was to be sinless, but not that He would be divine, because the Son of God was an accepted title of the Messiah.
Lk 1:36. Unasked, the angel gives Mary a sign. He who has caused Elisabeth to conceive contrary to nature can make good His word to Mary also. Thy kinswoman] It does not follow from this that Mary belonged, like Elisabeth, to the tribe of Levi. Male descent alone determined the tribe, and Mary may have been related to Elisabeth on her mother’s side.
Lk 1:38. Behold the handmaid (lit. ‘the slave’) of the Lord] In these words of humble submission Mary accepts her great destiny. She does so freely, with full understanding of the difficulty of her position. The future she leaves in God’s hand. Be it unto me according to thy word] This sacred moment, which marks the beginning of our Lord’s incarnate life, should be contrasted with Gn 3:6. There the disobedience of a woman brought sin and death into the world. Here the obedience of a woman brought salvation, reversing the effect of the Fall.
Lk 1:39–56. Mary’s visit to Elisabeth. The Magnificat. This beautiful narrative must be derived from Mary herself, probably directly. It is told as vividly and minutely after a lapse of half-a-century as if it were an event of yesterday. Clearly it was one of those things which the Virgin mother kept and pondered in her heart.
Lk 1:39. Into a city of Judah] or, ‘into a city called Judah’ (i.e. possibly Juttah, a priestly city near Hebron).