Annunciation of the Lord

Nine months before the celebration of the birth of the Lord on December 25, the Christian churches recall the biblical tradition that the angel Gabriel brought the message from God to Mary that she would conceive a child while remaining a virgin. The church calendars therefore follow the natural observation that a woman's pregnancy should ideally last nine months. This announcement to Mary (Annunciation Domini) has been repeatedly depicted and interpreted in Christian-influenced art over the centuries. In the chimes of Christian church bells, the faithful are also invited three times a day (at 6:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 6:00 PM) to pray the "Angelus" prayer, which also commemorates this announcement of the birth of Jesus to Mary.

From a historical-religious perspective, the Christian festival draws on biblical narratives of biblical Israel, according to which, for example, Sarah, the wife of Abraham, is announced by three men, who are generally interpreted as angels of the Lord (Christianly also as the three persons of the divine Trinity), that despite her advanced age, she will bear a child—namely Isaac.

In the reception of this Christian narrative, an interesting interaction between the three monotheistic religions has emerged: While Christian texts referred to the prophecy of Isaiah that the "virgin" would bear a child with Jesus, Jewish rabbinical writings rejected such a reference. The Quran, however, like Christianity, knows the narrative of the virgin birth of Jesus. It thus rather adopts the Christian interpretation of the scripture but interprets Jesus—unlike the Christian texts—not as the Son of God, but as a prophet sent by God.