Unable to hold his heart with his own hands, man leaned it against the surrounding creatures and things. But whatever a person leaned his heart to, it got dirty and damaged because of it.

O poor human heart, the property of many illegitimate owners, pearls among swine! How you are petrified by long slavery, how you are darkened by the heavy darkness! God Himself had to come down to free you from bondage, to save you from darkness, to heal you of sinful leprosy, and to take you back into His hands.

The descent of God to people is the most fearless act of God's love, God's love for mankind, the most joyful news for the pure and the most incredible event for the impure in heart.

Like a pillar of fire in the thickest darkness - such is the descent of God to people. And the story of this descent of God to people begins with an angel and a Virgin, with a conversation between heavenly purity and earthly purity.

When an impure heart converses with an unclean heart, it is war. When an impure heart converses with a pure heart, this is war. And only when a pure heart converses with a pure heart, this is joy, peace and miracle.

The Archangel Gabriel is the first herald of human salvation, or the miracle of God; for there would be no salvation of man without the miracle of God. The Most Pure Virgin Mary was the first to hear this gospel and the first of human beings to tremble with fear and joy. In Her heart the sky was reflected like the sun in clear waters; under Her heart the Lord, the Creator of the new and the Renewer of the old world, had to bow His head and put on His flesh. This is what today's Gospel reading says.

After these days, Elizabeth his wife (Zachariah) conceived, and hid herself for five months, saying, "Thus hath the Lord done me in these days, in which he looked upon me, that he might take away from me the reproach among men." In these days, in what days? In the days preceding the great day of the Nativity of Christ. When the fullness of time came; when all the great prophecies have overtaken one another in their fulfillment; when the terms foretold by Daniel had expired; when the prince became poor from the tribe of Judah; when the feeble human race sighed together with the feeble nature surrounding it, no longer expecting salvation either from man or from nature, but from God alone, at that time Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias, conceived. But how is the eldress Elizabeth, the barren wife of Zachariah, connected with the salvation of the human race? It is connected by the fact that she will give birth to the Forerunner of Christ, who, like a warrior, will go ahead and announce the coming of the Voivode. A barren old woman could only give birth to a herald of salvation, but not a Savior. It is an exact image of the old world, which was in old age and barren, did not bring forth harvest and fruit, hungered and thirsted; an image of a parched world, which, like an old and withered tree, could still miraculously turn green, announcing the onset of spring, but in no way bear fruit.

At that time, as at all times, the barren woman felt her reproach, ashamed of God, people, and herself. What is the use of marriage if the spouses do not have children? And Paradise can become a place of temptation and perdition for the childless, even more so the earth. Childless spouses are most ashamed of each other. In each other's eyes they look like fig trees covered with green foliage without fruit, and in the depths of their souls they fearfully and secretly feel the curse upon themselves. And what is most bitter, as in our days, they usually suspect each other of lust and impurity, both, willingly or unwillingly, considering their marriage to be legal lust and uncleanness, especially if they do not yet know about God and do not feel the hand of God upon them. Therefore, childless marriages are short, and happiness in them is even shorter. For nothing in the world disappoints people more than a fruitless desire that has already been more abundantly satisfied. The original commandment of God, "Be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28), weighs down like a mountain over barren spouses, even if they do not even know it. Even if they do not know it with their minds, through teaching, they cannot but know it with their hearts, through a feeling that has placed an indelible seal on every human soul, as well as all the fundamental commandments of God. Enough is known about the sorrow of barren spouses both from the Holy Scriptures and from the everyday experience of all peoples and all times.

However, miraculously, in those miraculous days, Elizabeth conceived in her years old age. "How is this possible?" ask those who glide their senses over the surface of things, as if on ice over a lake full of strength and life. Those who themselves feel in their souls and confess with their tongues that this world cannot be saved except by a miracle of God, usually, when the miracle of God appears, shake their heads and do not recognize it, asking themselves: "How can this be?" nothing could happen at all. Then neither a fertile woman nor a barren woman could give birth. But since there is a living and omnipotent God, then all things are possible; all the more so since God is not bound by the laws of nature given by Him. Let Him bind not Himself but others with them, not to limit His power, but to make His mercy necessary. In the same way, the tool that man has made with his own hands does not restrict the freedom of man to work in one way or another, using the tool or not using it - behold, the world created by God with its lawful dispensation does not limit the freedom of God to act in one way or another, in accordance with His mercy and human needs. As if those who give birth give birth by their own power, and not by God's! God is a very zealous when it comes to life, and He endows it as He wills; life is conceived where He wills, and is not conceived where He does not will. That is why it happens that sometimes young spouses, in the fulfillment of all the laws of nature, do not have children; sometimes elderly spouses, contrary to the laws of nature, have children. The living God is the only Lord of life; and over that over which He rules, neither nature nor its laws have power, much less healers and sorcerers, to whom barren women often turn for help, not knowing that healers and sorcerers are servants not of the light power of God, but of the dark power of demons.

A person expects a miracle from God, but when a miracle comes, he does not believe in it. Nature has become a tree of temptation for man. Hiding because of his nakedness in the shadow of nature, man would like God to visit him, and he fears God's visitation. When God does not visit him, he complains, and when he does, he does not admit it. As in Paradise Adam was placed between two trees: life and knowledge, so the descendants of Adam are again placed between two trees: God as the Tree of Life and nature as the tree of knowledge. May man's freedom, his obedience, and his humility be tested now, as then. Let the wisdom of man be tempted. Let the heart of man be tempted. Let the will of man be tempted. For if there were no temptations, there would be no freedom. And if there were no freedom, there would be no people as people, but there would be only two kinds of stones in the world: immovable stones and moving stones.

All these simple and clear truths, which souls with earthly reason do not know and cannot know because of the darkness of spiritual vision by sin, were known only by a simple but righteous old woman, Elizabeth. That is why she was not surprised, having conceived in her old age, but immediately gave a ready-made and only reasonable explanation for her unexpected pregnancy: "Thus hath the Lord done me in these days." And why? She does not yet know, and in her humility does not dare to think how rare and great will be the fruit of her womb. She does not know about the lion's role in the history of human salvation played by her son: the Prophet, the Forerunner and the Baptist. And she does not know the deep visions of God, calculated to the end of time, and she does not yet penetrate into how God silently conducts these visions through His servants and handmaidens, silently and unhurriedly, but unhindered and unstoppable. She knows only one modest and touching reason for God's favor towards her: "Thus hath the Lord done me in these days," she says, "in which He looked upon me, that He might remove from me the reproach among men. She interpreted the miracle of God as a sign of God's mercy to herself. And this is true - but not all. If she had interpreted this miracle as a sign of God's mercy to the entire old world, which was barren, then she would have said everything. Behold, by this miracle God prepared another, greater miracle, by which He wanted to remove the reproach among the angels from all the barren human race.

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to the city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man, named Joseph, of the house of David; and the name of the Virgin was Mary. This refers to the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, or the sixth month from the conception of John the Baptist. Why in the sixth month? Why not the third, or the fifth, or the seventh? Because the creation of man was on the sixth day, after the creation of all nature. Christ is the Renewer of all creation. He comes as the New Creator and as the New Man. In Him everything is new. In this new creation John is the forerunner of Christ, in much the same way as in the first creation of God all nature was the forerunner of the old Adam. John presents before the Lord Jesus Christ the entire earthly creation together with the old man, who has only repented of him. In the name of the human race, he will precede before the Lord as a repentant and preacher of repentance. This sixth month, in which the infant John leaped in his mother's womb, corresponds to the sixth period of time when the Saviour was born, and to the sixth seal of the Revelation of the Apostle John the Theologian (Rev. 6:12).

And so, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God. In the great drama of the first creation, the angels appear first: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1). By heaven is meant the angels of all ranks of the heavenly hierarchy. And so, at the very beginning of the great drama of the new creation, the angels are again the first to appear. The angel, through the mouth of the prophet Daniel, predestined the time when the King of kings would be born; the angel, through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah and other prophets, spoke how He would be born; the angel informed the high priest Zachariah about the birth of the Forerunner; the angel now announces the birth of the God-Man Himself. When the God-Man is born, angelic faces will sing over the cave of Bethlehem. Every creature is a joy for God, for God does nothing out of necessity and compulsion, as some gloomy philosophies and pagan fabulous religions assert. Every creature is a joy for God, and God loves to share this joy with others. For joy in purity and out of love is the only thing in heaven and on earth which, being shared, is not diminished, but increased, if it were possible at all to speak of an increase in joy from love with God, the Source of both joy and love. Therefore, having created the angels at the first creation, God immediately makes them co-workers in His further works. Having created Adam, He immediately takes him as a co-worker in the management of Paradise and all creatures in Paradise. In the same way with the New Creation: before Christ, the New Man, the angels go; in the building of His Kingdom, the Lord immediately takes the Apostles as co-workers, and then other persons who work together with Him, not only while on earth, in earthly life, but also after their bodily death. And to this day God makes His co-workers the saints, martyrs, and all others who have been and are vouchsafed this.

But to whom was the great Archangel Gabriel sent? ("A soldier was sent to proclaim the mystery of the King, a mystery which is known by faith, but is not tested; a mystery that befits to be worshipped, and not measured by human reason; a mystery by which the mind of God, and not of man, can interpret." St. John Chrysostom. Discourse on the Annunciation.) To a virgin betrothed to a man, whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The great Archangel of God appears to the Virgin, for through the Pure Virgin, the Most-Pure, the First Beginning of the New World, the New Creation, must pass and come. The new world must be purity itself, purity itself, in contrast to the old, decayed world, which has become unclean because of its stubborn disobedience to its Creator. The Virgin must serve as the gate through which the Saviour of the world will enter the world as His workshop and His abode; A virgin, and not a wife, for a woman, no matter how exalted in spirit she may be, is attached to the old world and the old creation, being attached to her husband, and therefore is not free from worldly desires and worldly partiality. Therefore she is not a woman, but a Virgin, the Pure, the Most Pure, completely devoted to the one God and separated from this world by Her heart. Such a Virgin grew bodily in the perishable world, like a creep on a fester, but remained untouched by the corruption of the world.