Today’s feast of the Annunciation can seem, at first glance, to be incongruous, falling as it does in the last weeks of Lent. While we are meditating on Jesus’ Passion, does it make sense joyfully to celebrate the Incarnation?
In fact, there are good reasons why this celebration falls precisely around the time of Holy Week each year. First of all, we might notice that in the Creed, the words “[He] became man,” are followed immediately by these words: “For our sake, He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered death and was buried.” Nothing is said about his teaching or healing ministry. We go directly from His birth to His death.
Medieval Christians had a lively sense that the purpose of the Incarnation was precisely that it allowed Christ to suffer for the forgiveness of our sins. And indeed, historians of the liturgy believe that March 25 was chosen as the date of the Annunciation because it was also believed to be the date of Good Friday. This followed a belief in the early Church that Jesus’s conception and crucifixion happened on the same date, nicely demonstrating their interrelation.