In the midst of Lent, we pause to celebrate what may just be the most extravagant moment in the history of the whole universe.  Today is the feast of the Annunciation of the Lord.  The feast commemorates the moment when, according to Luke 1:26-38, the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, who gave her consent to becoming the mother of the Incarnate Word.  With her “yes,” Mary enabled God to enter our world, in her womb.  On this feast I am thinking about what one theologian has called “deep incarnation.”  Here is how he construes this: 

“In Jesus Christ, God became part of the nexus of the entire cosmos . . . As a human being he was also a material being.  His body was composed of material particles coming from the explosion of stars.  His blood was red due to the iron running in his veins.  And, like any other mammal, he was hosting a great hidden microbial world (bacteria and other microorganisms) that he carried with him, and without which he could not sustain his life as a human being.” [Niels Henrik Gregersen, “Deep Incarnation & the Cosmos,” God and Nature (Summer 2017)].

Today, as we celebrate, once again, God conjoining divine life and the material conditions of all creaturely existence, how can you, in your own life, honor this Annunciation of a deep incarnation?  If you want to continue with your Lenten abstentions on this feast day, why not abstain from plastic or from the use of a car or from eating anything other than plant-based food -- in care of the earth that God not only created but also entered, ever so deeply.