December: Day 9: Teaching 1: Feast of the Conception of Saint Anna, When the Most Holy Theotokos was Conceived

December: Day 9: Teaching 1:
Feast of the Conception of Saint Anna, 

When the Most Holy Theotokos was Conceived
 
(On Fidelity to Vows Given to God in General and in Particular on the Fidelity of Christians to Baptismal Vows)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy and Righteous Joachim and Anna, now being glorified, lived to a ripe old age without having children. They were both very pious and God-fearing, but the Lord was pleased to strengthen their faith and patience through the grief of childlessness, in order to subsequently show them His greatest mercy and make them instruments of His dispensation. The pious spouses lived to a ripe old age, but did not lose hope and faith in the almighty power of God, capable of resolving their barrenness. They fasted and fervently prayed to the Lord to remove the reproach from them, promising to dedicate the child born to them to the service of the Lord. A special incident increased their grief over childlessness and, at the same time, their prayer to the Lord to remove the reproach from them. On one of the great feasts, Joachim came to Jerusalem with his usual sacrifice, but because of childlessness he was excluded from bringing the sacrifice until the Israelites who had children came to the altar. Grieved by this to the depths of his soul, Righteous Joachim did not want to return home, but withdrew to the mountains where his flocks grazed, and there he spent time fasting and praying to the Lord for the resolution of their barrenness. His spouse Anna also tearfully asked the Lord for the same thing, having heard about what had happened to Joachim in Jerusalem. The Lord heard the prayer of the righteous. One day, when Righteous Anna was immersed in her heavy thoughts, an angel appeared to her with the following words: “Anna! your prayer has been heard: you will give birth to the Most Blessed Daughter Mary, from whom will come the salvation of the whole world.” The Righteous Joachim was also gladdened by the same news: an angel appeared to him and commanded him to go to Jerusalem, where, as a sign of the truth of the Divine promise, he was to meet his spouse at the golden gates of the Temple. The angelic message was not slow to be fulfilled: the Lord granted Joachim and Anna the Most Pure Daughter Mary, who became the living temple of God.

All the efforts of the pious parents were now directed towards preserving the child given to them by God in purity and moral perfection from the day of birth. An ancient tradition tells us that Saints Joachim and Anna allowed only pure and immaculate Jewish maidens to see their blessed daughter. For three years they raised the Most Immaculate Virgin Mary at home, and then, fulfilling their promise to God, they took Her to live in the Jerusalem Temple. Here, far from the vanity of the world, the Most Pure Mary prepared for the great lot of becoming the Mother of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.

II. The life of the Holy Righteous Grandparents of God Joachim and Anna is instructive and edifying for us Orthodox Christians.

a) They give us all a living lesson on how we should treat vows given to the Lord! To promise something to the Lord is a great thing. We must remember that we are making our promise before the Most High and Almighty Being, before Whom heaven and earth tremble, Whom armies of angels, many-eyed cherubim and six-winged seraphim surround. How terrible and sinful it is, having given a vow to the Lord, not to fulfill it later! This means showing complete inattention to Him, the most merciful, showing a lack of reverence for the Lord of heaven and earth. What has been promised to the Lord already belongs to Him, and what has been promised and not fulfilled is the same as what has been given to God and then arbitrarily taken from Him. If it is generally a sin to break one’s good word, then it is even more criminal not to fulfill one’s promise to the Lord. In the history of the Old Testament Church of God we see many examples that all who made a vow to God fulfilled it exactly, no matter how difficult it was for them.

Let us remember that the Righteous Joachim and Anna, having given a promise to dedicate their newborn child to the service of God, did not delay in fulfilling this promise. They parted with their only daughter, they gave away the greatest consolation of their old age, not having yet had time to enjoy it sufficiently.

Let us remember that the mother of the Prophet Samuel did the same, promising even before his birth to dedicate him to the service of God. The holy saints of God and ascetics of the Church of Christ have always been distinguished by the same fidelity to their vows, not renouncing their vow of fidelity to Christ even in the midst of terrible torments. Oh, if only this main vow of ours were unforgettable in our eyes! Oh, if only we could arrange our whole life according to it! Unfortunately, many of us violate the commandments of Christ every minute, and some even forget about them completely and live as if they were not obligated to anything before God.

b) Now let us ask ourselves, brethren, how do we fulfill our vows given by us at baptism? Conceived in iniquities and born in sins, we were unclean before God, guilty before His highest righteousness; in baptism we were granted the remission of sins, we are cleansed and sanctified by the Spirit of God, washed and made white by the blood of Christ.

Receiving holy baptism, we ourselves have renounced the devil and all his works, and all his service and all his pride; confessed our faith in the holy, life-giving and life-creating Trinity - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and pledged to keep this faith until our last breath; promised to worship and serve the one Lord Jesus Christ all the days of our lives, to fulfill His holy will in everything, to walk in all His commandments blameless; pledged to preserve in ourselves the grace of justification, purity and innocence given to us freely, in order to appear before the face of the Lord Jesus Christ pure and blameless on the day of His terrible and glorious Judgment. Then we will be asked: is that innocence, purity and holiness with which the Holy Spirit clothed us on the day of our renewal by the bath of rebirth, that righteousness which the Lord Jesus Christ imputed to us, who died on the cross for our justification, intact?

Having renounced all the works of the devil, i.e. sin and resistance to the will of God, self-will and transgression of the commandments of the Lord, did you not return again to these works of darkness and wickedness, did you not do the lusts of the devil in all lies, unrighteousness and lawlessness?

Having committed ourselves to serving the one Lord Jesus Christ, did we not work for two masters, did we not serve self-love, greed, carnal pleasure and other countless passions aroused in us by the spirit of malice, which thus receives worship from people devoted to passions?

Having promised to fulfill the commandments of God, have we always and in everything acted according to these holy and life-giving commandments, or according to our lusts, according to the inclinations of our impassioned heart, according to the customs of that world in which the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life reign? Looking for eternal life in Christ, have we always directed our mind and heart to this endless and all-blessed life, have we thought about it, have we prayed for it, preparing for our departure from this world and an unashamed answer at the terrible judgment of Christ; or has our whole mind been occupied incessantly, our whole heart agitated without rest by the vanity of this life alone, by the joys and sorrows of life alone?

III. Christian brethren! “What you vow to God, do not delay to perform,” says the word of God. Let us strive to fulfill sacredly and inviolably the vows we made at baptism. Let us not be like those who “profess to know God, but His works shall be rejected” (Titus 1:16). For whoever is not with Christ is against Him (Matt. 12:30). Let us be with Christ here in this world, let us do His will, as we promised to do at baptism, and in the age to come we will be together with Him, according to His true promise: “Where I am, there shall My servant also be” (John 12:26). Amen.

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.