Tuesday, September 7, 2004
The Venerable Kassiane the Hymnographer
2nd at Vespers, Nativity of Theotokos: Ezekiel 43:27-44:4 Epistle: Galatians 2:21-3:7
Gospel: St. Mark 6:1-7
26-44:4 LXX, especially vs. 27: "....from the eighth day onward the priests shall
offer upon the altar your burnt offerings; and I will accept you says the Lord God." The
Church, being illumined by the Holy Spirit, carefully selected three Old Testament lessons for
our meditation at the Vespers of the Nativity of the Theotokos. The selected readings should be
received with open hearts for the transforming teaching which they offer concerning the birth,
person, and work of the most Holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary. The reading from Ezekiel is
part of a vision of a perfect Temple, a divinely created place of worship for the People of God in
the last age. Though Ezekiel's description relied upon the structure and furnishings of the ancient
Jewish Temple for the various elements of the vision, what the Prophet disclosed has immediate
application for the Church as the earthly Temple of the Holy Trinity.
Only one small step more and faith perceives that, for the brief months between the Annunciation
of the Theotokos (March 25) and the Nativity of Christ (December 25), the Virgin herself served
as that ideal Temple for God-with-us. Even before the coming of Christ into the world - from her
own Nativity as an infant to her Annunciation as a young women - the years of maturing and
preparation were much like the very early hours immediately before the dawn of any day; for the
approach of "the true Light which gives light to every man" (Jn. 1:9) was already manifest in the
Virgin's life, the details of which are provided to us by Holy Tradition and Prophets like Ezekiel.
For now, let us see what Ezekiel teaches us.
It was clear to God's Prophet that the Temple and all its furnishings must be pure and consecrated
(Ezek. 43:26), and as a priest himself, he described how this would be carried out. Similarly, the
miraculous birth of an infant to a barren couple, both well past the child-bearing age, required the
intervention of God and provided grace for the child to live a pure life. The child Mary, like the
child of the parents of the Forerunner and Baptist, John, clearly was a consecrated vessel from
birth. At the Feast of the Presentation of the three-year-old child Mary (November 21st), the
Church reminds us that "the fruit of Joachim and Anne the righteous...[was] offered to God in
His holy Temple as a babe in the flesh whom the noble Zachariah blessed." Ezekiel knew that
for the People to be accepted of God, they would have to offer themselves fully to God, like the
"burnt offerings" of ancient Temple worship. Likewise, in the perfect Temple, God would accept
His people as they gave themselves to Him as holocausts, as total offerings holding back nothing
(vs. 27). At every juncture of her life, the Theotokos did offer herself in this way, as a holocaust,
placing herself fully as a vessel in the Lord's hands to carry out His will. Thus at the
Annunciation by Gabriel the Archangel, she naturally said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord!
Let it be to me according to your word" (Lk. 1:38).
The Prophet Ezekiel continued his description of the perfect Temple by noting that the East
vestibule and Temple gate, which alone would be used by "the Lord, the God of Israel," would
ever remain shut thereafter, since "only the prince may sit in it to eat bread before the Lord...[and]
enter by the way of the vestibule of the gate, and...go out by the same way" (Ezek. 44:2-3). Here,
again, we have a foreshadowing of the ever-virgin state of the Theotokos, who "remained
incorruptible after giving birth to Immanuel."
Not surprisingly, Ezekiel saw "the glory of the Lord [fill] the temple of the Lord; and [he] fell
upon [his] face (vs. 4). Of course the Church, in her iconography now reveals the Theotokos
filled with the glory of the Lord and, accordingly, offers her its praise in hymns and songs.
O thou who hast given birth in the flesh to thy God, intercede for those who praise thee.