“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14)
Any mother holding her infant is an eye-catcher. The baby, not long having been within the woman, becomes a projection of self love, a reminder of the love that produced the fruit of her womb and her gratitude for the joy of holding evidence of her love for her husband, her gift to him and the fulfillment of maternal love in the new creature held in her arms—an earthly reflection of the Holy Trinity.
In the icon of the holy Theotokos cradling in her arms the Son of God, the theology of the Holy Trinity expands to a greater level, because time and space enter as new factors in the process of our salvation. This unique birth is not the result of passion as we know it, but rather a timeless decision to redeem humanity by taking away the indelible sin of Adam, the impulsive act of defiance in Eden against the Lord. In that the first woman was a partner in the decision to heed Satan’s suggestion, only a perfectly pure woman would have to be found to blot out Eve’s transgression. Here is the reason for the glory and honor the Church pours out to the one selected, Mary the virgin of Nazareth.
But what man could be found to undo Adam’s failure? None such on earth—He would have to come from heaven. Even an angel would not do. Angels are heavenly beings of another order from mankind. None other than the only-begotten Son of God could erase the taint from the first sin that affected and infected humankind since Adam. So the Son of God entered time and space, yet He would need to be as totally human as He is in all ways divine. To be born in the conventional way as an act of human passion? Hardly. Still, He must be born of a woman; but in some way without the sexual act as we know it. Not an Extraterrestrial being as in contemporary fiction or from another galaxy. Such fantasies had been around centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ. He must come from a source beyond space and time.
The Father would send His unique Son to the pure virgin, and she would become pregnant without any conventional “help.” For that reason the Father sent the Holy Spirit to her, but not without Mary’s consent and her awareness of her role in the divine plan of the Holy Trinity for mankind’s salvation. This profound mystery is before us in the icon of Mother and Child. It welcomes us to ponder so deep a theological truth in so ordinary a scene. The multitude and variety of icons depicting Christ in His mother’s arms invite us to see with the eyes of the soul the eternal musings of St. Rublev’s Holy Trinity icon, the Annunciation of Archangel Gabriel to Mary, the Nativity of Christ, and the glory of the Holy Spirit revealed in the face of the Christ child. Indeed, in all of this a contemplation of glory.
In some icons the face of our Lord Jesus is just below that of Mary as they gaze out together on the world now ripe for salvation. At the other extreme are the much-adored icons of “Tender Love,” where their eyes are transfixed on one another with great compassion, reading each other’s heart. Most others blend the relationship—the Mother Mary looking upon Christ and He out at the world, or she with a foreboding half glance out at us, potential for danger, He all innocence, trusting in the safety of her arms, as in the famous Vladimir icon. Often she makes a throne of her left forearm and with the right pointing the Way and the Source of our salvation.