Today is the beginning of our salvation, and the manifestation of the mystery from the ages; for the Son of God becometh the Son of the Virgin, and Gabriel proclaimeth grace. Wherefore, do we shout with him to the Theotokos: Hail, O full of grace! The Lord is with thee.
Troparion of the Annunciation from antiochian.org
J.R.R. Tolkien built many subtle messages into his Lord of the Rings trilogy. One of the key ones to understand his theology is found in the chronology of the third book, The Return of the King. There Appendix B points out that the Ring was dropped into Mount Doom on the 25th of March. There it says, “Frodo and Samwise reach the Sammath Naur. Gollum seized the Ring and falls in the Cracks of Doom. Downfall of Barad-dûr and passing of Sauron.”
On the 25th of March the “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them” was destroyed and Sauron was not simply laid low but was thrown finally and completely out of Middle-Earth as a power who could directly affect events.
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
Though they did not realize it, all dwellers of Middle-Earth were under either the control or the influence of the One Ring. But, the 25th of March is an important day in the way the Early Christians looked at salvation history. The 25th of March was the day in which Our Lord became incarnate on this Earth, the day in which the handmaiden said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” It was on this day that new Adam and the second Eve were obedient to the Father and began the reversal of the disobedience of Adam and Eve. St. Jerome said in his 22nd Epistle, “Death by Eve, life by Mary.” St. Justin Martyr said the following:
[The Son of God] became man through a Virgin, so that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same way it had begun. For Eve, who was virgin and undefiled, gave birth to disobedience and death after listening to the serpent’s words. But the Virgin Mary conceived faith and joy; for when the angel Gabriel brought her the glad tidings that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and that the power of the Most High would overshadow her, so that the Holy One born of her would be the Son of God, she answered, ‘Let it be done to me according to thy word’ (Lk. 1:38). Thus was born of her the [Child] about whom so many Scriptures speak, as we have shown. Through Him, God crushed the serpent, along with those angels and men who had become like the serpent.
Dialogue with Trypho 100, quoted in Mary and the Fathers of the Church, by Luigi Gambero, Ignatius Press, 1999, pg. 47
Yet, there was also an ancient belief, both among the Jews and among the Romans, that prophets (in the case of Romans that great men) were both born and died on the same day on the calendar. Thus, in the Western side of the Church, the 25th of March was viewed as both the day of the Incarnation and the day of the death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Both the Incarnation and Death had equal importance. Jesus both had to live a life that reversed what Adam had done and also had to die for our redemption. Both are true and both were seen to have begun/been accomplished on the same calendric day.
So, when you read Tolkien you need to realize that he was sending out one of his famous subtle messages, of which there are many. The 25th of March (both Incarnation and Death) was the key date of our salvation. The Son of God had to come and be the new Adam. He had to die, but the enemy did not realize he would be resurrected. There is even a verse in the writings of St. Paul which says, “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
Let us celebrate today the Feast of the Annunciation. Let us remember the great sacrifice wrought on our behalf. Let us remember the Virgin Mary through whom our salvation came, in one sense, and Our Lord Jesus Christ who deigned to come on that day. Let us remember the handmaiden whose obedience was crucial to the victory. And, let us note that in Tolkien’s writings even Gollum had his part. In the end, evil tried to wrest the victory from Frodo. In the end, evil actually helped to further the destruction of the One Ring. “… had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
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