The Annunciation

When evenings fell, Miriam would sit cross-legged at the entrance of the chamber surrounded by the circle of attentive parents, relatives, and neighbors, and sing songs of her own composition, in which she mixed words borrowed from psalms and prayers solemnly recited by Jehojakim on holidays and the Sabbath, with her own ideas, parables, comparisons, and metaphors, as a result of which they could be safely described as inspired variations on a chosen theme. No one in Nazareth composed psalms and melodies. Therefore, her relatives and friends nodded their heads recalling from their biblical memory the figures of women composing songs – Miriam, the sister of Moses, Hannah – the mother of the man of God – beloved by the Lord, Samuel; and Judith, the blessed widow. Nevertheless, it was difficult to tell whether they were praising or criticizing the poetic skills of Miriam, a poor man’s daughter.

That day, as mentioned, when Jehojakim and Hana went to work, Miriam was doing her household chores from the early morning. She beat mats outside, fetched some water from the well, washed the dishes, and subsequently, went outside the house. She knelt down and ground the wheat grain singing to Elohim and synchronizing her song to the rhythm of her work. The quern was borrowed from her neighbor, and the wheat was a gift her father had received from his employer. She performed her work calmly, without haste, and with that monotonous patience being so characteristic of the daughters of Israel when work manually.

Slowly but effortlessly, she turned the upper stone with her left hand, and with her right she poured the wheat into the opening. Then, she shook the sieve, separating the bran from the flour, which to her delight, ever so often flew up and fell as white dust covering her hands. Looking at her wet fingers, she remembered her father’s story about distant Mt. Hermon, which was covered with snow all year long. Although she had only known snow from that story, she imagined it must be very beautiful and extremely white. After all, it was a gift from the Ancient of Days and was used in one of the psalms that Jehojakim particularly loved to use for a comparison escribing immaculate whiteness. She smiled, remembering the words of her father who used to say: “And my daughter, Miriam, is swarthy, for the sun has burned her. However, despite her swarthiness, she is purer and whiter than snow.” Pondering the difficult question of how one could be whiter than snow if one’s skin is sunburnt, Miriam got up from her knees and went into the room to fetch a clay jug for the flour.

She rubbed her eyes with her fingers. The smile slowly faded from her face. She felt uncomfortable.

A cold shiver ran through her body. She turned toward the door and wanted to run out, but she could not take a step. She stood motionless, stunned. Suddenly, she saw some illumination within herself, but it was not due to sunlight or moonlight, neither was it the light of an oil lamp, because it was not lit. It also bore no resemblance to any light at all, as it was only that what it was not, and what it would never be, but what it Is. So, within herself, she saw as The One Who Is was walking toward her from a distant-close space, unlimited by any boundary or definition, for He was Himself the boundary and all the definitions. Therefore, walking towards her, He did not actually walk, for he was beyond all time constrains – but rather he was becoming before her eyes.

Actually, He was not becoming, because He Who Is cannot become. Therefore, to make it easier for little Miriam to comprehend what was happening, He Who Is adapted and bent His actions, not so much to certain human concepts, but rather to the forms of human language – He simultaneously formed Himself before her eyes as the Messenger in a white linen tunic, girded with a silk belt, interwoven with gold threads and decorated with sapphires. He was the confirmation of what was happening inside her and what she saw in her inner delight. It was caution – typical of Elohim, Who knowing man’s fondness for visual perception, wanted to make it easier for the young girl to understand the extraordinary Mission. Thus, He did not limit Himself to just an internal action, but spoke to her in reality.

Hence, He graciously multiplied His presence appearing before Miriam’s eyes as the Messenger of Himself, since it is well known that the emissary bringing the news, constitutes the one who sends it. Miriam was carefully observing the Messenger, whose somewhat sluggish movements, so characteristic of angels clothed in human flesh, confirmed the difficulties he had moving around on earth. The girl listened attentively and humbly to his greetings as He began to speak in human speech. Opening His mouth, The Messenger translated into a human language everything little Miriam heard in the unspoken language, in an intricately simple manner. He greeted Miriam in the Name of Grace, with which she was filled, and in the Name of Elohim, who blessed her among all women. Focused and tense, Miriam was marveling at each word separately, subsequently combined those words into a sentence which, admittedly, possessed an undeniable charm; however, she couldn’t understand why a small, insignificant girl, a daughter of tired laborers, the fiancée of Joseph the carpenter, should be full of the Grace of Elohim and blessed among women.