Entry of the Theotokos

   If a tree is known by its fruit, and a good tree bears good fruit (Mt. 7:17; Lk. 6:44), then is not the Mother of Goodness Itself, She who bore the Eternal Beauty, incomparably more excellent than every good, whether in this world or the world above? Therefore, the coeternal and identical Image of goodness, Preeternal, transcending all being, He Who is the preexisting and good Word of the Father, moved by His unutterable love for mankind and compassion for us, put on our image, that He might reclaim for Himself our nature which had been dragged down to uttermost Hades, so as to renew this corrupted nature and raise it to the heights of Heaven. For this purpose, He had to assume a flesh that was both new and ours, that He might refashion us from out of ourselves. Now He finds a Handmaiden perfectly suited to these needs, the supplier of Her own unsullied nature, the Ever-Virgin now hymned by us, and Whose miraculous Entrance into the Temple, into the Holy of Holies, we now celebrate. God predestined Her before the ages for the salvation and reclaiming of our kind. She was chosen, not just from the crowd, but from the ranks of the chosen of all ages, renowned for piety and understanding, and for their God-pleasing words and deeds.

So begins a homily on todays Feast of the Presentation of the Mother of God in the Temple by St. Gregory Palamas.

It is fortuitous that this Feast comes one week into the Nativity Fast.  For we find ourselves in ‘new territory’.  Not that we haven’t fasted before, not that the season is unfamiliar to us, not even that what lay ahead is not totally known. Rather, the unknown territory is our encounter with things Divine, and attempting to embrace them with human arms and hearts—fleshly members not suited to the task, attempting to understand things which are beyond our understanding.

“What things Divine?”, you ask.

How is it that this child finds such favor with God?  How is it possible that a small female is carried by a priest into the Holy of Holies, a place into which he himself is not permitted to go on this day according to the Law of Moses?  The Holy Spirit will not come until the day of Pentecost, some roughly 40 years or more into the future, and yet He works here today—in the Temple, and dwells caring for the ‘throne’ of the King Whom He knows is coming.  How is this possible?  How is it that God the Son will come forth from her body?  How is it that God will allow Himself to be contained in a human body.  How can God allow Himself to submit that body to human death?

Today’s Troparion teaches openly, “Today is the prelude of the good will of God…”  God’s good will extends to His creation to create the means by which He will take on our flesh.  He of His own free will chooses to put on that which by our sins we have caused to be fallen, our human nature.  Today’s child is His means by which He will fulfill His divine plan of salvation, not for one, not for the few.  His plan for salvation He makes available to all who choose to seek Him with their whole heart.  The Theotokos is the “divine plant” from which God’s life-giving food will spring forth for all of mankind.

Five weeks from this day we will encounter that fruit, that divine plant, which proceeds from the flesh of the Mother of God.  Let us, like the angels and the virgins, rejoice in today’s prelude.