Being a homily on the Feast of the Entry of the All-Holy Theotokos into the Temple – Luke 10:38-49;11:27-28 – Being the first official homily of Deacon Fr. Matthew.
On this Holiest of days, we the church gather to commemorate the entry of Our Lady Theotokos into the temple.
Joachim and his wife Anna, parents of Mariam All-Holy for many years, attempted to conceive but were unsuccessful.
Unfortunately, due to the stupidity of people's imaginations, when something is not understood or does not make sense, people concoct a recipe of fodder in order to make sense of a situation and how it best suits or benefits them. In regards to a couple being barren, it was considered to be a curse/punishment from God for the sins committed by the couple.
Although a priest, Joachim was not permitted to conduct rituals or offer sacrifices onto God. His fellow presbyters treated him and Anna as defiled and unclean people who, more or less, had become outcasts for this very reason.
In faith, they approached the Lord and beseeched Him to bestow upon them a child despite there old age as He had granted Abraham and Sarah in the Genesis (Genesis 17:16).
Furthermore, the recount of Abraham and Sarah's conception Is the prefiguration of the conception of the Theotokos!
Thus the Archangel Gabriel appeared to both Joachim and Anna and announced that they would bear a daughter,that she would be called blessed for many generations, and that through her would come the salvation of the World.
Once a year on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifice for his transgressions, those of his family and those of the people, as was the Jewish custom. No other priest was permitted to enter, and especially if one was a layperson for God had stated it was the high priest only who was allowed to enter on this holy day.
In this particular year, Zechariah was the high priest of the temple. As the clergy gathered and prepared themselves for Joachim to present the child Mariam, they beheld the child (Mariam) ascending the steps of the temple into the sanctuary.
As one would expect, the priests began to ask one another, "what is going on? Who does Joachim think he is, allowing a child and a female at that, to ascend the steps of the temple and enter the Holy of Holies? And Zachariah allowing it to happen!"
Simeon, (who was promised by the Holy Spirit that he "would not taste death until his eyes beheld the Messiah - Luke 2:29-32".) silenced the priest's because he knew that this was no ordinary child. There was a mysticism about Her, something Holy about Her, for when anyone would gaze upon the child, they would immediately be in awe.
Joachim and Anna offered the child Mariam as a temple virgin onto the Lord, where She would grow and deepen Her faith until She had reached the age of marriage.
The reason why She (Mariam) ascended the stairs and entered the sanctuary was in order that we would understand that She IS the Holy of Holies. For when the time had come for Emanuel to immerse Himself into our humanity, She was the only one who could contain God the Word in Her womb; She was the only one whom the Lord could take flesh from and fully incarnate Himself into fallen humanity to become the Son of man.
It is not possible for us to behold our Lord in all His Glory due to our fragile state. If the Heavenly Hosts veil their faces and cover their feet at the Lord's presence, (as we hear in the Divine Liturgy at the Cherubicon) we, fallen humanity would burn as stated in Psalm 104 ("when your presence passes us by we are dismayed for you withdraw the gift of life from all created matter and all perishes - returning to the dust from which such was made.")
Last Wednesday, my wife, Archdiaconisa, and I welcomed our second little baby girl into the world.
As some are aware, my wife and I find it extremely hard to conceive; one could even go as far as saying that it is medically impossible for us to conceive.
However, through prayer, Divine Services, being together with our family (the Church) and most of all our FAITH, we have been blessed by the Lord our God with our little daughter Lucia, named after our Patron Saint St. Lucia of Siracusa.
To sum up everything in one word, FAITH!
The faith that Christ teaches us about in the Gospel of Matthew chapter nineteen verse twenty-six:
"With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
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