The Bible really happened.
Real people with real experiences in real places.
This principle can be hard to apply to the event we know as
“the Enunciation”. Which is a big fancy Latin word for the announcement of the birth of Jesus.
Yes, a young girl (probably in her teens) was approached by an angel who told her that she would be the mother of the Messiah. She was standing in the dirt and her feet were dusty.
Sometimes when I think of these stories, I revert back to the flannel graph images of my childhood. Somehow it’s easier to accept the story when it’s in such a childish form.
But to illustrate that this really DID happen, the big religions have decided to build churches on the spot where they think it happened. The Roman Catholics picked the spot where Mary’s house was rumored to be located. The Greek Orthodox chose to build their church on top of the spring in the town of Nazareth.
I don’t know how the Catholics figured out the location of Mary’s house. But the Greek option comes from an extra-biblical story that Mary met the angel Gabriel while drawing water. I at least understand the logic of this.
I’ve been to the Holy Land a couple times and have visited Nazareth. We went to the spring. It’s the only spring in the town, so if the angel met her while she was drawing water, this was the spot.
I have to admit, however, that the experience was somewhat ruined by the smell of diesel from the enormous queue of tour buses that were bringing other people to have the same experience I was enjoying. The church itself had sort of grown around the spring, so that we had to walk down a little tiled corridor to get to the very fancy basin they had built around it.
It wasn’t a very clear image of what Mary would have seen. The setting was very modern. But it was all because of what happened more than two millennia ago.
The point is that it’s been decades since I went there and I can still remember it like it was yesterday. I can’t read the story of Mary getting the news without thinking of a REAL place. And from that real place it’s a very short step to think of real people.
Poking around the internet, I found this YouTube video of the site that I visited.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?…
It shows how the spring (or well) is literally located in/through the church. It’s not that fancy, but it anchors the story and puts it a real place where real events could happen.
In the video you will get the text of the “Prototevagelium of James” telling the story that Mary was on her way to the well when the Angel approached her. That’s an account of the gospel that was not accepted into the Bible (In part because it was not associated to one of the apostles). I am not very familiar with everything in it so I don’t know how to assess it theologically. But it serves here to give us a story that provides context and a reason for why there is a church at that site.
My point here is not to advocate for the value that site over any of the other sites that claim authenticity. Not to favor one church over another. Not to argue for the validity of the account by James.
No. If you take anything out of this little email, it should be this:
The story really happened.
An actual angel spoke to an actual girl and told her that she would be the mother of the Savior.
When you read the story in your Bible it’s not a fairy tale. It’s not like a fairy tale. It’s the truth. And you can believe in it. You should believe in it and live your life shaped by it.
Videos and visits are tools to help you remember that.
Oh, come all ye faithful…
Dennis
