I want to say something, which I think is both blatantly obvious and really very wonderful.
But people fail to see the obvious.
It is not just an interesting fact, such as that the annunciation, the revelation to Mary about her child, is celebrated in Islam, or that in Lebanon it is a national holiday for Muslim and Christian.
And it is not a belief either.
Nor is it a thing of aesthetic beauty, like the Orthodox hymn of the annunciation, which goes like this:
Today is the beginning of our salvation,
And the revelation of the eternal mystery!
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin
As Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos:
"Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!"
The annunciation necessarily comes nine months before Jesus’ birth, and from a particular point of view in the Church year this seems to clash with the Easter narrative. Either Jesus is about to be conceived, or he is about to be crucified. So what is it to be?
But to be is not to be stuck in a particular point of view or a narrative.
It is not time bound.
Thomas Merton said the spiritual life is not a long path where we eventually get somewhere. It consists in opening your eyes and seeing you are already here.
No, this is really wonderful.
The word Theotokos means God bearer.
That’s Mary, but it is also us.
Today is the beginning of our salvation, and the revelation of the eternal mystery.
Being stuck in time is not being in the now. And being in the now is encountering God, being, if you like, a God bearer.
St Augustine described eternity as the now which does not pass away, and when you are in the now which does not pass away, you are in eternity.
The Latin for the eternal present is Nunc Stans, which means Now Standing, or the now that remains, it does not pass away.
In a sense, this is eternal life. We are God bearers in the now because humans can experience eternity, and then really exist, because to exist means to stick out, or stand out, provided we are in the eternal present.
You see, the word exist comes from the Latin ex sistere – ex, meaning out, and sistere, meaning to set or to stand in place.
So when we do really exist now, we stand out, we stick out of our place in mere time, we are above thought, we are in eternity, we are, now.
NOW, this moment may include planning for the future, remembering something from the past, but is very different from being caught up in past or future.
It is the difference between having ones attention centred and having ones attention captured.
Not to be here today, where salvation is, is to bewail what happened, to long to bring it back, to fear what might happen, to fail to wait for it. In other words, not to be in the now is to be lost, and to be really present is to be saved.
Saved people give the impression that they are really present, and they make you really present too. Because today is the beginning of our salvation.
That is, being present now, is not being caught up with the past and future, which is our little ego, and not our true self.
When we are present in the now, we notice those who are not.
Somehow they don’t fully exist. They are not in eternal life.
So be here now, and you will be full of grace. The Lord will be with you.