Easter Sunday: Melito of Sardis — On Pascha

TranscriptioN

Introduction

Well, good morning again. It is good to be with you on this Easter morning. And I'm Father Morgan Reed. I'm the vicar here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church.

It has been a full week. Just last Sunday, we were celebrating Palm Sunday, if you can remember all the way back to last Sunday. And then we celebrated the Lord instituting the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday, His death on the cross on Good Friday.

And last night, we started in the darkness of the tomb in the great vigil of Easter and made our way to the resurrection together. And we celebrate the resurrection again this morning. It has been a really good, good and full week.

And one of our values of this church that we talk about is wanting to live out the church's tradition. And we're gonna do something this morning I haven't done before, which is that I'm going to help us to get to know someone in the church's tradition. One of the ways that we live out church tradition is by getting to know the mothers and the fathers of the faith that have gone before us.

So this morning for our Easter homily, I'm going to read us a historic homily. This is from a famous bishop in the year who died in the year 190, so the second century. His name was Melito, M-E-L-I-T-O.

So kids, if you're taking notes, you can write down Bishop Melito. He was the Bishop of Sardis, which is today Sart in Turkey. And this city was one of the cities, you'll remember from the book of Revelation, John had written to seven churches.

This is one of the churches that John the Apostle had written to. This was the center of Jewish civilization in Roman Asia. And so Melito, he was actually Jewish by birth at some point, he became a follower of Christ.

Like I said, he died around 190, within one century of the Apostle John having died. And so it's easy to imagine that maybe Bishop Melito's forerunner was the bishop that the Apostle John wrote to. These are the friends of the Apostles, the second generation.

This is an 1800 year old sermon. And Melito is from an ancient group called the Quartodecimans, it's a fancy word. That word means that they celebrated the passion and the resurrection of Jesus in the same liturgy together on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, which is the first day of Passover.

Passover, פֶסַח in Hebrew, is transliterated into Greek as πασχα. So if you've ever heard the word Pascha, it comes from Hebrew Pesach, meaning Passover. To this day in the Orthodox tradition, they still call it Pascha, they don't use the word Easter.

And so the Quartodecimans that Melito is part of would celebrate this Paschal festival on the 14th of Nisan, connecting the Passover lamb with Jesus and what he has done for all of humanity, whether or not the 14th of Nisan was on a Sunday, kind of like we do with Christmas and Jesus's birth. Exodus 12 was part of their liturgy, so they would read the Passover texts together, and the events of the Passover were interpreted as a type of the saving acts of God through all of Scripture, culminating in the work of Jesus. And one helpful cultural note that I want to make, in case this isn't familiar to you, is how deeply entrenched Christianity was in Jewish ritual in the second century.

You can feel, when you hear Melito's words, you can feel the Passover Seder behind it, as the text for Melito. And he's going to refer to Christ as the coming one. Also, whenever I say the coming one in this sermon, there's a Greek word, in case you can write this down, Afikomenos.

Can you say that with me? Afikomenos! All right, it's an important word. There's a Jewish tradition in the Passover Seder of breaking off part of the main bread and hiding it somewhere in the room, and that broken piece of bread is called the Afikomen. And in modern Judaism, it's kind of like a kid's game to find the Afikomen somewhere in the room by the end of the night, and according to some scholars, then the Afikomen was originally this reminder that the Messiah is coming.

We don't know where he is, we don't know when he's coming, but he will come. And so it's a good reminder that as we hear Melito's hymn, and you hear the coming one, his Greek word there is Afikomenos. It's a play on words with the Passover liturgy in Judaism.

And so you can think of that little morsel of matzah, when you hear it, being found by a child by the end of the Seder, and with a smile on their face, they're declaring, “I found it!” Right? That's what the coming one means. So this might just be what Melito wants us to feel when we think of Jesus as the coming Messiah, the one who rose from the dead for us. Now I realize it can be challenging to listen to an old homily.

It's not something that we're attuned to doing, but it's also really helpful because it reminds us that we belong to the body of Christ, this body that has been begun in the work of Jesus and has been going for over 1,800 years. We're rooting ourselves in an ancient tradition. It gets us out of some of the anxieties of the cultural moment, and it invites us to see things more clearly, and to be more rooted into the tradition of the church.

If something goes over your head, it's okay. Just let it go and keep listening. That's okay.

You can go back and listen to this, or if you want to get the book yourself, the book that I'm reading from is Alistair Stewart's translation of On Pascha: Melito of Sardis. So we'll take a moment, and then we'll begin. God, in the beginning, having made the heaven and the earth, and all in them through the word, formed humanity from the earth and shared his own breath.

Homily on Pascha

“He sent him in the garden in the east, in Eden, there to rejoice. There he laid down for him the law through his commandment. Eat food from all the trees in the garden, yet eat not from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

On the day that you eat it, you shall die. The man was susceptible by nature of good and evil, as a clod of earth may receive seed of either kind. And he consented to the wicked and seductive counselor, and stretched out for the tree, and broke the commandment, and disobeyed God.

For this he was thrown out into the world, condemned as though to prison. Strange and terrible was the destruction of people on earth, for these things attended to them. They were grasped by tyrannical sin, and they were led to the land of sensuality, where they were swamped in unsatisfying pleasures, by adultery, by lust, by love of money, by murder, by the shedding of blood, by the tyranny of evil, by the tyranny of lawlessness.

And sin rejoiced in all of this, working together with death, making forays into human souls, and preparing the bodies of the dead as his food. Sin had set his sign on everyone, and those on whom he etched his mark were doomed to death. All flesh fell under sin, and every body under death, and every soul was plucked from its dwelling of flesh, and that which was taken from the dust was reduced to the dust, and the gift of God was locked away in Hades.

What was marvelously knit together was unraveled, and the beautiful body divided. Humanity was doled out by death, for a strange disaster and captivity surrounded him. He was dragged off a captive under the shadow of death, and the father's image was left desolate.

For this reason is the paschal mystery completed in the body of the Lord. Thus the mystery of the Lord, prefigured from of old through the vision of a type, is today fulfilled and has found faith, even though people think it's something new. For the mystery of the Lord is both new and old.

Old with respect to the law, but new with respect to grace. But if you scrutinize the type through its outcome, you will discern him. This is the one who comes from heaven on to the earth by means of the suffering one, and wraps himself in the suffering one by means of a virgin, a womb, and carries forth a human being.

He accepted the suffering of the suffering one through suffering in a body which could suffer, and set free the flesh from suffering. Through the spirit which cannot die, he slew the manslayer, death. This is the Pascha of our salvation.

This is the one who in many people endured many things. This is the one who was murdered in Abel, tied up in Isaac, exiled in Jacob, sold in Joseph, exposed in Moses, slaughtered in the lamb, hunted down in David, dishonored in the prophets. This is the one made flesh in a virgin who was hanged on a tree, who was buried in the earth, who was raised from the dead, who was exalted to the heights of heaven. 

Listen, all of you families of the nations, and see a strange death has occurred in the middle of Jerusalem, in the city of the law, in the city of the Hebrews, in the city of the prophets, in the city reckoned righteous. And so he is lifted up on a tall tree, and a placard is attached to show who has been killed. Who is it? Well, to say is hard, and not to say is more fearful.

So listen, then, shuddering at him through whom the earth shook. He who hung the earth is hanging. He who fixed the heavens in place has been fixed in place.

He who laid the foundations of the universe has been laid on a tree. The master has been profaned. God has been killed.

The king of Israel has been destroyed by an Israelite right hand. Oh, mystifying death! Oh, mystifying injustice! The master is obscured by his body exposed, and is not held worthy of a veil to shield him from view. And for this reason the great lights turned away, and the day was turned into darkness to hide the one who was stripped on the tree, obscuring not the body of the Lord, but human eyes.

For when the people didn't tremble, the earth shook. When the people didn't fear, the heavens were afraid. When the people didn't rend their garments, the angel rent his own.

When the people didn't lament, the Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High gave his voice. The Lord clothed himself with humanity, and with suffering on behalf of the suffering one, and bound on behalf of the one constrained, and judged on behalf of the one convicted, and buried on behalf of the one entombed. He rose from the dead, and cried aloud, who will take issue with me? Let him stand before me.

I set free the condemned. I give life to the dead. I raise up the entombed.

Who will contradict me?

It is I, says the Christ, I am the one who destroys death, and triumphs over the enemy, and crushes Hades, and binds the strong man, and bears humanity off to the heavenly heights. It is I, says the Christ. So come, all of you families of people adulterated with sin, and receive forgiveness of sins.

For I am your freedom. I am the Passover of your salvation. I am the lamb slaughtered for you.

I am your ransom. I am your life. I am your light.

I am your salvation. I am your resurrection. I am your king.

I shall raise you up by my right hand. I will lead you to the heights of heaven. There I shall show you the everlasting Father.

He it is who made heavens and the earth, and formed humanity in the beginning, who proclaimed through the law and the prophets, who took flesh from a virgin, who was hung on a tree, who was buried in the earth, who was raised from the dead, and ascended to the heights of heaven, who sits at the right hand of the Father, who has the power to save all things, through whom the Father acted from the beginning and forever. This is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the ineffable beginning and the incomprehensible end. This is the Christ.

This is our King. This is Jesus. This is the Commander. 

This is the Lord. This is He who rose from the dead. This is He who sits at the right hand of the Father.

To Him be the glory and the might forever and ever. Amen. Hallelujah.

 Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Edited by the author.