EARLY CHURCH SERMON - ST MELITO OF SARDIS
Sharing a Good Friday sermon by a second century bishop, St Melito (died 180AD).
He was bishop of Sardis, Asia Minor. Much of the work of this early Church bishop was lost, and what little survives exists in quotations in the works of others or in fragments. One of his best-known work is the Peri-Pascha, a Holy (Good) Friday sermon pieced together from manuscript fragments in the 20th Century which shows parallels between Easter (the new passover) and the Passover.
The writings of the early Church is as close as we can get to the original thoughts among Christians at the time close to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. What we take so much for granted today about the kerygma, these early Christians proclaimed to the ridicule of others, and at the risk of their lives. The works of the early Church writers and Fathers of the Church are precious treasures for us as we seek to make sense of the mystery of our faith.
THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN HAS DELIVERED US FROM DEATH AND GIVEN US LIFE
(Paragraphing/line breaks added by me)
"There was much proclaimed by the prophets
about the mystery of the Passover:
that mystery is Christ,
and to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
For the sake of suffering humanity
he came down from heaven to earth,
clothed himself in that humanity
in the Virgin’s womb,
and was born a man.
Having then a body capable of suffering,
he took the pain of fallen man upon himself;
he triumphed over the diseases
of soul and body that were its cause,
and by his Spirit,
which was incapable of dying,
he dealt man’s destroyer, death, a fatal blow.
He was led forth like a lamb;
he was slaughtered like a sheep.
He ransomed us
from our servitude to the world,
as he had ransomed Israel
from the hand of Egypt;
he freed us
from our slavery to the devil,
as he had freed Israel
from the hand of Pharaoh.
He sealed our souls with his own Spirit,
and the members of our body
with his own blood.
He is the One who covered death
with shame and cast the devil into mourning,
as Moses cast Pharaoh into mourning.
He is the One who smote
sin and robbed iniquity of offspring,
as Moses robbed the Egyptians
of their offspring.
He is the One who brought us
out of slavery into freedom,
out of darkness into light,
out of death into life,
out of tyranny
into an eternal kingdom;
who made us a new priesthood,
a people chosen to be his own for ever.
He is the Passover that is our salvation.
It is he who endured every kind of suffering
in all those who foreshadowed him.
In Abel he was slain,
in Isaac bound,
in Jacob exiled,
in Joseph sold,
in Moses exposed to die.
He was sacrificed in the Passover lamb,
persecuted in David,
dishonoured in the prophets.
It is he who was made man of the Virgin,
he who was hung on the tree;
it is he who was buried in the earth,
raised from the dead,
and taken up to the heights of heaven.
He is the mute lamb,
the slain lamb,
the lamb born of Mary,
the fair ewe.
He was seized from the flock,
dragged off to be slaughtered,
sacrificed in the evening,
and buried at night.
On the tree no bone of his was broken;
in the earth his body knew no decay.
He is the One who rose from the dead,
and who raised man
from the depths of the tomb."
Taken from the Office of Readings,
Maundy Thursday, 14 April 2017
Comments
Post a Comment