“The Virgin has Begotten the Wonderful; Let us go and Behold Him” Reflections on the Nativity of Christ

Introduction

When the Creator saw that man, who He had made with His own hands, perish, He was so moved that, “He bowed the heavens and came down”. The Feast of Nativity is the reconciliation of heaven and earth. The birth of Christ has united those on high and those below. Today God has come down to earth, and man ascends to heaven. Today the invisible God, manifests himself in flesh for the sake of His creation. Let our souls and lips cry out – Christ is Born, Glorify Him! Today the Creator has come down into the full reality of His creation.

The Feast of Nativity is a time of joy and celebration – of much giving – but we need to ask ourselves, what is the true meaning of the Feast? If we look around, Christmas in the world today is heavily commercialized, and how much do we as Orthodox Christians contribute to the cheapening of this great Feast? Today, Christmas is about everything but Christ. To a lot of us, the Feast is just an opportunity to have a jolly good time with mulled wine and sumptuous food. It is important for us to step away from the noise and hear the real significance of this Feast. In the words of Isaiah the glorious Prophet: “… to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’” (Isaiah 9: 6).

The words of the popular Christmas carol echo a great truth, “O holy night! The stars are brightly shining, it is the night of our dear Savior’s birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, ‘Til He appear’d and the soul felt its worth… It was not until the coming of the Son of God, that man/the soul realized his/its true worth, meaning and significance. The mystery of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ speaks to us of something so deep and impossible, today God who fashions everything, cries and breathes the breath, which at first He gave to man, now as a babe. The coming together of God and man is at the heart of this great mystery, this great Feast. The Fathers of the Church say, “In the glory of the Incarnation, the divine and the worldly are suddenly, triumphantly, united and transformed.” This Feast is an opportunity for every believer to behold the Wonderful, and be struck with awe because, “today the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, rests in a cave.”

The Feast of God’s Embracing Love: Christmas is a time of coming to terms with God’s all embracing and redemptive love for us, in spite of all our failures and betrayals. When we journey to Bethlehem, this redemptive love becomes so visible. The truth is not only that God became man, not just that the eternally begotten second Person of the Holy Trinity took flesh, but in the manger lies not only God, but also ME. God took my nature for Himself, this is the all embracing and redemptive love. A love that is so beyond description, where me, who am but clay, we, who are but dust are made perfect in Christ.

The Feast of the Greatest Mission: Today is the day of the greatest mission the world has ever seen. In the New Testament you will not find the word “mission” but there are numerous references to God sending his Son, and Jesus sending us. The Nativity Feast proclaims the act of the Father sending His only begotten into the world. The Father does not send Jesus Christ into the world simply to speak, but He sends Jesus Christ to share the life of His people. He sends Christ to give His life for His people, and to give new life to the whole world. Christ shares in the sufferings, the struggles, the hopes and the joys of the people around Him and the Gospels bear witness to that on numerous occasions. We too are sent to give our love and our compassion. St. Paul says that Jesus is sent into the world to “destroy the power of death, and to bring everlasting life to light”. And so we are sent in order to challenge the power of death, and to bring life. Our mission is always more than words – our mission is the sharing of life – life that transforms another life.

The Feast of the Greatest Surprise: The greatest thing about Christmas morning is the surprises of the gifts wrapped and placed under the tree. As Charles Swindoll so beautifully put it, “Surprises are woven through the very fabric of all our lives. They await each one of us at unexpected and unpredictable junctures.” This Feast is an amazing surprise in that God himself decided to become man. “God comes to us, gives Himself to us, and not only in deed and action. Our very nature is taken up into His, and to our mortal frame is imparted a portion of the divine life.”
The Feast of God Descending into Our Reality: The Incarnation is about God becoming man, God descending into the world, but more so He descends into the deeper reality of our hearts – our life. The reality of our weakness. Christ becomes the very center of our life, the source of our energy in the world and the purpose of our life in this world. The sin of Adam banished him from Paradise and today that exile is banished and man is set free and Christ unites in His Person what is fallen in man and what is perfect in His. Today Eden is opened and the fullness of salvation is made manifest: “salvation enters the world, and the curse is destroyed.”

The Feast that Refuses to Compel Us: God has given Himself away so completely that we meet Him in poverty and weakness, with no splendor or glory. The whole of creation “lives by a love that refuses to bully us or force us or compel us, it is the love of the cradle and the cross.” Christ is the “the fire in the equations” that sustain everything. We live in a world where power is everything, in fact we are so obsessed with power that as Christians we have failed to see the two most vivid images of love – that of the helpless babe in the manger and the dying man on the cross. God empties Himself in the manger and the cross. He gives away all that He is to restore mankind. We live in Him, from Him, and through Him. God never held back His love, instead extended it unconditionally to man. “The eternal God, utterly unknowable, unfathomable, incomprehensible in His innermost being, deigned to enter into the sphere of our daily life, to assume the burdens and suffering of people like ourselves, He did so for one purpose only: to rescue us from the consequences of our sinful rebellion against the Author of Life, and to raise us up from death and corruption.” St. Athanasius puts is so well when he says, “He became what we are, so that we might become what He is.” The eternal Son of God “took flesh” and “became man” so that we might participate now and forever in all the joy and all the glory of His divine Life. Bethlehem points us to Jerusalem, there is no manger without the Cross and Resurrection – all the services in the Orthodox Christian tradition points to the salvific sacrifice of Christ and the glorious Resurrection.

Conclusion

St. Ephrem the Syrian writes, “The Lord of David and Son of David hid His glory in swaddling clothes. His swaddling clothes gave a robe of glory to human beings.” The Son of God is a gift to mankind, and He take up residence in the world. “This dwelling in the midst of Creation, as a part of it, makes God the Son close to, and available to, the surrounding creatures in a way that was not possible before. The presence of the Son here is a “personal” one that involves Him as a complete whole.” Exchanging gifts has become a universal Christmas tradition. I leave you with a question – “What is the best Christmas gift you can give another person?” For what God has given to us, what do we have to give back to Him and to His world?
I personally think the best gift we can give another person is ourselves. I am sure that I will not win many friends by such a statement, what I mean is love and genuine relationship. “The best gift is the gift of self, because in giving oneself, one is giving everything else.” This is what Christ Himself did. In His Incarnation, He gives Himself. He is Immanuel – God With Us. The real meaning of Christmas is to have Christ born in us, indwelling in our hearts.

The Nativity of Jesus Christ is a “crossing of paths” where God meets humanity and in love transforms the fallen human condition. The love of God lays in a manger in the House of Bread (Bethlehem), to feed humanity that hungers for love. It is the birth of that love into our world that we celebrate today. Christ becomes the very center of our life, our faith and our existence. The babe in the manger becomes the light of the world, even when the world is in shambles, for in Christ the Divine and the human cross paths. “No matter where we are in life, no matter in what condition we find ourselves, no matter how far we might stray away, or how unfaithful we are, God, the supreme lover, will pursue us in love for eternity!” God’s love never stops shining on us, and never stops searching for us.

“On this day when the Rich One was made poor for our sake, let the rich man also make the poor man a sharer at his table. On this day a gift came out to us without our asking for it; let us then give alms to those who cry out and beg from us. This is the day when the high gate opened to us for our prayers; let us also open the gates to the seekers who have stayed but sought [forgiveness].”

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

References
Troparion from Canticle 1 of the Matins Canon for the Nativity.
Fr. Matthew Steenberg, “He Bowed the Heavens and Came Down”, in http://www.monachos.net/content/liturgics/liturgical-reflections/101.
Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, Divine Intimacy, Volume 3, (Ignatius Press, 1987), p. 292.
Charles Swindoll, The Finishing Touch: Becoming God’s Masterpiece, (Word Publishing, 1994), p. 268.
Witness Lee, God’s New Testament Economy, (Living Stream Ministry, 1996), p. 63.
Fr. Thomas Hopko, Winter Pascha: Readings for the Christmas-Epiphany Season, (SVS Press, 1984), p. 89.
Archbishop Rowan Williams, Christmas Sermon, December 2004, http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/000950.html.
Kitty Ferguson, The Fire in the Equations: Science, Religion and the Search for God, (W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1997).
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Glorious Christianity, (Crossway, 2004), p. 105.
Very Rev. john Breck, “Celebrating Christ’s Nativity” in http://legacy.oca.org/CHRIST-life-print.asp?ID=121, December, 2006.
The Incarnation of the Word by St Athanasius. Trans. by Rev. A. Robertson; Modernized, abridged and introduced by Stephen Tomkins. Edited and prepared for the web by Dan Graves.
Paul Russell, “The Image of the Infant Jesus in Ephrem the Syrian”, in Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 2002, http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol5No1/HV5N1Russell.html#S4.
Bill Steigerwald, “Christ, Christmas and Capitalism” in Front Page Magazine, December, 2006, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=889
Fr. George Morelli, “Christmas and Its Significance” in Christianity Today, http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/MorelliChristmas.php.
Rev. Bill Adams, “The Original Love Story” in http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermons/b-ch00-adams.php.
Hymns on the Nativity 1. Translation in Ephrem the Syrian Hymns, translated and introduced by Kathleen E. McVey New York: Paulist Press 1989. Syriac text at Des Heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Nativitate (Epiphania), herausgegeben von Edmund Beck Louvain: 1959 CSCO 186.

Queen Helene, Mother of Roman Emperor Constantine, was the one, who ventured a pilgrimage to Palestine to discover the Holy Cross in the year c.326-328, though she was nearly eighty years of age at that time. She was able to find the Holy Cross and the ‘Church of the Holy Sepulcher’ was built, where the Holy Cross of our Lord was found out. Tradition says that a dead person was made to touch the three crosses that were found in a pit down the outskirts of Jerusalem and at the touch of the real and holy Cross of our Lord the dead person came back to life. We get a notion of this legend in the song ‘Sleebaye vandippanaay Helene Rajnji…’ as well.

Holy Cross is the means of salvation that drives away all evil spirits because the Lord carried it upon His shoulders to Mount Calvary during His ultimate fight with evil. There beyond He ornamented it with His very own human body. Holy Cross is the symbol of peace and the flag of victory. It is in the Holy Cross that our glory confides. It is the fortress for all, who take their refuge in, including churches and monasteries. That is why we all ornament ourselves with a Holy Cross, mostly gold though!

Let us sing once again with optimistic and positive trust in the symbol of peace, the Holy Cross that ‘sleeba pallikal dayaraakal kkellaamaakatte kotta’!

Worship in the Orthodox perceptive does not simply mean prayer alone. It is beyond prayer. Prayer means communion with God in a rather personal way. Worship means doing prayer collective. When two or more people join together in prayer (cf. St. Matthew 18:20) under the same well defined framework and structure, it is worship in the Orthodox understanding. Liturgy means worship elevated to the Holy Eucharistic service or services on special feast days like, for instance, Christmas, Palm Sunday, Holy Friday or Easter. Holy mysteries like baptism, matrimony or ordination can only be administered in a liturgical setting as well. Culmination of all prayers, worship and liturgy is in the Holy Eucharist.

For the Orthodox worship and liturgy include some or all the five senses, namely, the sight, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting. One sees the worship going on, one hears the prayers, jingling of bells, melodious music etc., one smells the incense, one touches each other at the kiss of peace, and tastes the eternal food at receiving the Holy Eucharist.

However, in the Orthodox point of view worship does not limit itself to the five physical senses, rather goes on to the five spiritual senses as well. Wherefrom do we get the concept of five spiritual senses? Nowhere, but from the Holy Bible itself! David in Psalms repeatedly speaks about it (cf. Ps. 33:2; 92:3; and 144:9) that he will sing with the ten-stringed lyre to the Lord. Fathers have always interpreted the ten-stringed lyre as ten senses, the five physical and five spiritual senses. The five spiritual senses are the ‘mind, intellect, reason, discernment and will’. When the priest exhorts the congregation during the Holy Eucharistic service to lift up their minds, thoughts and hearts to the high place, where Christ sits at the right hand of the Father’, nothing but this very concept of ten senses resonates. Said more precise, intellect and reason are alluded with thought and discernment and will are referred to with heart.

Burning candles, various shades of lights, incensing, singing and reciting prayers loudly and quietly, jingling of bells, shuddering of Marbahsa to symbolize the fluttering Angels, processions, kiss of peace and wishing of peace, elevation of mysteries, and disbursal to go into the world with divine power to face with forces of dark are mystically embedded in the Orthodox worship and liturgy.

In short, the Orthodox perceive a total communion with God and seek the best from God for the whole creation, especially for their fellow beings with actions of worship, prayer and liturgy.

Recently a United Methodist bishop was reprimanded by his church for his heretic view that Christ did not resurrect from His tomb. In recent times there were many western theologians, who had proposed that the resurrection of Christ was just a myth. We wonder why these so-called theologians and liberal clergyman are speculating against resurrection when Paul clearly says that our faith has no meaning without resurrection. If a theologian attacks the virgin birth of Christ and His resurrection what else is there for a theologian to theologize! If Christ is stripped from His virgin birth and resurrection, what else is there for us to BELIEVE in!

The apostles of Christ were terrified of what had happened in connection with the crucifixion of Christ. They were even afraid of getting out, because they thought that they lost their leader and His movement. They were a defeated group. Even after the resurrection of Christ, which was reported by some lady-disciples of Christ, they were still afraid of getting out. Jesus Himself had to appear to them in order to convince them of His resurrection when they were hiding in a basement. But it took a mighty wind blown by the Holy Spirit to power them for preaching the resurrected Jesus. All, but one, were martyred for this faith. Who is going to show his neck to the sharp edges of a sword if he does not have a convincing reason to die! Who is going to stretch his hands for crucifixion, if he does not have Master, who conquered the cross and death on it! Yes, the suffering of all apostles demands a convincing reason behind it. The reason is that unique event in the history of mankind: Christ conquered death by His resurrection. That is what gave them hope.

Our Christian life is meaningless without our resurrected Lord. It is also meaningless without a resurrected life. We are all buried under our sins, our voluptuous desires, our carnality, and our selfishness. Our resurrection takes place through true repentance. It is not enough that we are sorry about our fallen lives. It is important that we convert to Christ, by rejecting our sinful and carnal way of life. It requires determination and resolution; the determination for conversion to Christ, and resolution not to sin again. Then only can we be sure of our own resurrected life.

In our Liturgy of Resurrection, there is a moving component, which is the announcement of resurrection to the public. Immediately after the announcement the faithful attending the liturgy greet each other with the following: Christos Aneste (Christ Is Risen)! The response is also suggestive of the great joy every Orthodox experiences when listening to this glad news: Alithos Aneste (Indeed He Is Risen)!

WE WISH ALL OUR READERS A VERY BLESSED EASTER AND A JOYFUL SPRING SEASON!

God told Abraham one day to sacrifice his only begotten son Isaac. The place was specified as the top of the Mount Moriah. It was somewhat three days away from where Abraham lived. Third watch of Tuesday night vigil has a very detailed description of this event, which includes the promion and sedra. We attempt here to have a close look at the event on the background of the above mentioned prayer to better understand salvation effected by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Word Meanings

Abraham means ‘merciful father’. Isaac means ‘he laughed’. Moriyah means ‘my Lord is Yahweh’ or otherwise ‘considered or ordained by the Lord’. Yahweh Yireh means ‘Lord is the provider or the Lord will provide’. However Yahweh Yireh in Hebrew has other derived meanings as well, like ‘the Lord will look after or the Lord will take care of or the Lord will foresee the goodness’ etc.

The Event in a Nutshell

After the Lord took care of Abraham and proved that He is the Lord to him, He wanted to test Abraham to make sure of his commitment. The Lord said to him to sacrifice his only son Isaac as a burnt offering at the top of a Mountain at the land of Moriah. Next day, Abraham saddled his donkey and set out early in the morning with his only son Isaac, some young men as servants with wood for burnt offering, fire and a knife to kill the animal to offer.

Abraham saw the place at a distance and he said to his servant men to remain there with the donkey. Once he worshipped, he would come back, he said to them. He took the wood, laid it on his son Isaac and he himself took the fire and knife.

Isaac asked his father, “Father, the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”

Abraham replied, “God Himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”

When they came to the place that God had shown them for the offering, Abraham made the wood in order on the altar that he maid, caught hold on his son, laid him on the wood and tied strongly thereupon. Took his knife and swung it to cut his son before the burnt offering. At once, an Angel of the Lord appeared and told Abraham to not to kill his son. “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son form me”, said the Lord.

Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. He went, took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place Yahweh Yireh or ‘the Lord will provide’.

The Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said; “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for them, because you have obeyed my voice.”

Thereafter Abraham and the young men went back.

Exposition

Jesus Christ was called ‘Son of David, who was Son of Abraham’ (Mt 1:1). The same Jesus said to the Jews that being God He was God Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (cf. Ex 3:6, 15, 16; 4:5; Mt 22:32; Mk 12:26; Lk 20:37; Acts 3:13; 7:32). Abraham wished to see His day and has seen to be happy, and before Abraham I was (Jn 8:40, 52, 57, 58). Jesus, therefore, was surely the God of Abraham. Yet, in the above mentioned event Abraham stands for God the Father. The name Abraham means merciful father and Isaac stood for Jesus. Just as the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, is the Only begotten Son of God the Father, Isaac was the only begotten son of Abraham, the Patriarch.

Isaac was seated gloriously on the donkey until the Land of Moriah and Jesus was seated on the donkey until Jerusalem. The young servants took care of Isaac until he reached the land of Moriah and the people of Judah, especially young ones, shouted Hosanna to the Son of David, Son of Abraham until Jerusalem. Just as Jesus carried the wood of the cross, Isaac carried the firewood, the wood for the burnt offering upon him. Just as Jesus said to the Father, “My Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want, but what you want”; Isaac inquired about the animal for burnt offering to his father. Just as the Son laid foundations to the earth in complete accordance with the Father, Isaac made the altar for the offering with his father Abraham. While binding him on to the wood Isaac was quiet and silent, Jesus did not resist his crucifixion. Just as a ram was miraculously made visible from a thicket, Jesus was born from the virgin in a fashion only known to God. Just as the ram saved Isaac from destruction, Jesus saved the whole humanity from destruction and dissolution. Just as Sarah was pleased to see Isaac again, the virgin was pleased at the resurrection. Just as Isaac means ‘he will laugh’, the humanity was happy and content at the final result of Jesus offering on the cross. It is also a proof that the Lord will provide, will look after or will take care or will foresee the goodness for the humanity, Yahweh Yireh.

Some notes on Mount Moriah

In the course of time the mountain had acquired an aura of sanctity and the subject of many traditions. Indeed, its sacred status may date back to the early Canaanite period, when it perhaps was the cultic center of ‘El Elyon,’ god of Melchizedek, king of Salem: “And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High (El Elyon). He blessed him, saying, Blessed be Abram of God Most High, creator of heaven and earth” (Gen 14:18).

The tradition of ‘Jacob’s Dream’ is also identified with Mount Moriah: “He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it. And the Lord was standing beside him… Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God and that is the gateway to heaven” (Gen 28:10-18).

This is perhaps the most colorful representation of the essential nature of the site which some would later claim was the ‘navel of the world’. At the summit of Mount Moriah, traditionally, is the ‘Foundation Stone,’ the symbolic fundament of the world’s creation, and reputedly the site of the Temple’s Holy of Holies, the supreme embodiment of the relationship between God and the people of Israel.

The northern area of Mount Moriah’s summit lay desolate for long after Zion’s capture by David. It was in fact still the private property of Araunah, the city’s former Jebusite king. For various reasons David did not confiscate the site but preferred to buy it from Auranah for full value: “So David paid Ornan (Auranah) for the site 600 shekels’ worth of gold. And David built there an altar to the Lord and sacrificed burn offerings and offerings of well-being” (1 Chr 21:25, and a slightly different version at 2 Sam 24:18-25). Traditions say that Abraham wanted to offer Isaac exactly on the same place, where David built the city of Jerusalem.

Upon the completion of King Solomon’s Temple, famed for its sumptuous splendor, the Ark of the Covenant was placed within its confines. The sanctity of the site is reflected in the graphic description provided by the Book of Kings: “the priests came out of the sanctuary for the cloud had filled the House of the Lord and the priests were not able to remain and perform the service because of the cloud, for the Presence of the Lord filled the House of the Lord…” (1 Kg 8:11).

Solomon built his palace in the ‘miloh’ (infill) area which separated the summit of the mountain and the Temple from the city below. This was also a concrete expression of the divine inspiration that was attributed to his kingship. Other palaces were also built nearby, such as the “House of the Forest of Lebanon” and the House of Pharaoh’s Daughter. Solomon used dirt to fill in this east-west lateral rift, hence the area’s name: ‘miloh’ (infill), or Ophel, from a Hebrew word referring to the road that ascended to the Temple from the city which at that time was topographically lower.

approved by Catholicos Mar Baselius Marthoma Mathews I and Pope John Paul II
issued June 3rd, 1990

1. In our first meeting which was characterized by a spirit of concord, mutual trust, fraternal love and desire to overcome division and misunderstandings inherited from the past, we found our common ground in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith, held by the one and undivided Church of the early centuries, the faith in Christ always affirmed by both sides.

2. Above all we thank the Lord Our God for having brought us together for a cordial and sincere dialogue on some doctrinal and pastoral problems which can stand in the way of our mutual ecclesial relations and communion.

3. In this atmosphere we have worked out this brief statement to be submitted to our respective church authorities for their approval, wherein we seek to express our common understanding of, and our common witness to the great and saving mystery of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God Incarnate; we hope, this statement can lead us to the restoration of full communion between our churches. Our work was made much easier by the painstaking documentation and detailed discussions held at an unofficial level by our theologians during the past twenty-five years.

4. We affirm our common faith in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior, the Eternal Logos of God, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit from the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. We believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is true God and true man. The Word of God has taken a human body with a rational soul, uniting humanity with divinity.

5. Our Lord Jesus Christ is one, perfect in his humanity and perfect in his divinity — at once consubstantial with the Father in his divinity, and consubstantial with us in his humanity. His humanity is one with his divinity — without change, without commingling, without division and without separation. In the Person of the Eternal Logos Incarnate are united and active in a real and perfect way the divine and human natures, with all their properties, faculties and operations.

6. Divinity was revealed in humanity. The Glory of the Father was manifest in the flesh of the Son. We saw the Father’s love in the life of the suffering Servant. The Incarnate Lord died on the Cross that we may live. He rose again on the third day, and opened for us the way to the Father and to eternal life.

7. All who believe in the Son of God and receive him by faith and baptism are given power to become children of God. Through the Incarnate Son into whose body they are integrated by the Holy Spirit, they are in communion with the Father and with one another. This is the heart of the mystery of the Church, in which and through which the Father by His Holy Spirit renews and reunites the whole creation in Christ. In the Church, Christ the Word of God is known, lived, proclaimed and celebrated.

8. It is this faith which we both confess. Its content is the same in both communions; in formulating that content in the course of history, however, differences have arisen, in terminology and emphasis. We are convinced that these differences are such as can co-exist in the same communion and therefore need not and should not divide us, especially when we proclaim Him to our brothers and sisters in the world in terms which they can more easily understand.

9. It is the awareness of our common faith that leads us to pray that the Holy Spirit of God may remove all remaining obstacles and lead us to that common goal — the restoration of full communion between our churches.

[Information Service 73 (1990/II) 39] Centro Pro Union

Eucharist as “Food”

In Ephrem’s writings, the Eucharist emerges as a complex reality that can never be reduced or exclusively equated with any one of its aspects such as, the Eucharist as “food”. Rather, a flexible and often complex exchange of images allows the Eucharist to be viewed from seemingly paradoxical vantage points simultaneously. By merging the scriptural identification of Jesus as the Good Shepherd and with the scriptural identification of Jesus as Bread, Ephrem arrives at a composite image which includes both elements: “The Shepherd has become the food for his sheep” (Madrosho on the Church 3, 21). The same dynamic process is at work in the following chain of images that focus on a single reality, but is viewed from different perspectives:

Blessed is the Shepherd who became a lamb for our atonement. Blessed is the Vine that became a chalice for our salvation. And blessed is the Farmer who became the Wheat that was planted, and the Sheaf that was harvested. (Madrosho on the Nativity 3, 15)

Eucharist as The Power to Forgive Sin

References to the Eucharist in its capacity to forgive sins abound in Ephrem’s writings, and as the following excerpts illustrate, his discussion draws from a variety of biblically inspired images:

I am astonished by our will; though strong, it has let itself be conquered; though a ruler, it has let itself be enslaved; victorious, it desired defeat. See, the foolish scribe has signed his own bill of debts. Blessed is the one who granted us freedom with his bread, and erased the bill of our debts with his chalice. (Madrosho on the Church 32, 2)

Just as Adam killed life in his own body, in this very same way, in the body of the one who perfects all, See, the just were perfected, and sinners have found forgiveness. (Madrosho on Unleavened Bread

In Ephrem, Fire represents an image of the divine presence and takes on the added dimension of purifying and cleansing when it is viewed in a Eucharistic context. In the Eucharist, fire’s potential to destroy gives way to its ability to vivify and save those who receive it:

The Fire of mercy has come down to dwell in bread. Instead of the Fire that consumed people, you have eaten Fire in the bread, and have found life. (Madrosho on Faith 10, 12)

Eucharist as “Burning Coals”

Fire imagery figures in a number of expressions used in reference to the Eucharist in Syriac texts. For example, particles of the Eucharistic bread are often called “embers” or “burning coals” (gmurotho), usually with reference to the passage in Isaiah 6:6-7, where the prophet speaks of the Seraphim who touched his mouth with a burning coal from the altar of the temple. In an image of the Eucharist as cleansing and purifying, Ephrem links the divine fire of God’s presence to the image of Isaiah’s purification with a fiery coal. Ephrem makes this connection in his madrosho on Faith. He says,

The Seraph could not touch the fire’s coal with his fingers, the coal only just touched Isaiah’s mouth: the Seraph did not hold it, Isaiah did not consume it, but us our Lord has allowed to do both! To the angels who are spiritual Abraham brought food for the body and they ate. The new miracle is that our mighty Lord has given to bodily man Fire and Spirit to eat and to drink.

Ephrem’s liturgical theology had a profound and lasting influence on the development of Syriac liturgy, where the image of the Eucharist as a purifying fire is commonplace. The power of the Eucharist to forgive sin assumes a prominent liturgical role in the Eucharistic prayers of Syriac speaking Churches. After the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer we find a virtual rite of communal penance that includes an imposition of hands over the congregation by the priest and an accompanying prayer, which speaks of the remission of “unconscious” as well as “conscious sins.” Immediately following this rite, the celebrant announces to the congregation, which he now addresses as “Holy,” with the invitation: “Holy things for the Holy.”

In the following verses, preserved only in an Armenian translation, Ephrem speaks of that “moment” in the liturgy when the Eucharistic bread is broken. The mosaic of images depicts the Eucharist reaching beyond the grave to refresh the dead, while on earth, it forgives the sins of the living:

With awe and discernment; let our hearts revere his death, and our souls yearn for his Mystery. The people of Israel glorified in that manna that even the uncircumcised ate; how much more should we then exalt in this Bread of Life, which not even watchers [i.e., angels] attain. Water poured out of the rock for the [Israelite] people; they drank and were strengthened; but a fountain poured out from a tree on Golgotha, for [all] people. Eden’s other trees were there for the first Adam to eat; but for us, the very planter of the garden has become food for our souls. This moment, more than any others, should be esteemed in your minds; the Son has descended to hover over [Gen 1:2] the forgiving altar. The bones of the dead in Sheol drink the dew of life as they are remembered before God at this moment. Now if the dead receive such benefit now, how much more shall the living receive forgiveness; Blessed is the one who was sacrificed by one people for the life of all people. (Armenian Madrosho 49)

Eucharist as “Pearls”

There is a fire-related image seen in the writings of Ephrem when speaking of the Eucharistic elements as “pearls”. For in the Syrian conception, the pearl is born when lightning strikes the mussel that produces it in the sea. Similarly, according to the Syrian fathers, Christ was conceived in the womb of Mary when Fire and Spirit came within her. Bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ due to the action of Fire and the Spirit. Accordingly, it is not surprising to find Ephrem often using the popular symbol of the pearl for Christ himself and for the Eucharistic elements. In one place Ephrem says, “Christ gave us pearls, his Body and Blood”. Ephrem, in a passage referring to the holy Qurbono, says, It is not the priest who is authorized to sacrifice the Only-Begotten or to raise up that sacrifice for sinners to the Father’s presence: rather, the Holy Spirit goes forth from the Father and descends, overshadows and resides in the bread, making it the Body, and making it treasured pearls to adorn the souls that are betrothed by him.

In another madrosho, Ephrem gives this advice to would be communicants in attendance at the holy liturgy:

The Body and the Blood are living pearls; let them not be demeaned in soul and body that are unclean vessels. Heaven and earth are in the incomparable pearl; do not receive your Lord’s holiness in an unclean vessel.

Eucharist as “Medicine of Life”

In Ephrem’s writings another constant epithet for the Eucharist is “living medicine” or “medicine of life” (sam hayye). The Body and the Blood of the Lord are thought to bring healing to the faithful Christian. Addressing Christ, Ephrem in one of his madrosho On Faith says,

Your Bread slays the greedy one who has made us his bread, your Cup destroys death who had swallowed us up; we have eaten you, Lord, we have drunken you; not that we will consume you up, but through you we shall have life.

To express the fullness of the mystery that is Christ, Ephrem juxtaposes images of the actual body of the historical Jesus with allusions to the Eucharistic body of Christ until the images merge and resolve into a single, integrated whole. Ephrem views the Eucharist as part of a wider manifestation of the divine presence (Fire) and power (Spirit) already revealed at the baptism of Jesus.

Like the woman who was afraid but took heart and was healed (Luke 8:40) heal me of my flight from fear that I may take heart in you. I will progress from your clothes to your body to speak of you as best I can.

Lord, your clothes are a fountain of cures; your invisible power dwells in your visible clothing. A little saliva from your mouth (John 9:6), and again, a great wonder: Light from mud.

In your bread is hidden Spirit which cannot be eaten. In your wine dwells a Fire which cannot be drunk. Spirit in your bread, Fire in your wine, Clearly a wonder, which our lips receive.

When our Lord came down to earth among mortals he made them a new creation — like watchers [i.e., angels]; for he mixed Fire and Spirit in them so they would invisibly become Fire and Spirit.

See, Fire and Spirit in the womb of her who bore him; see, Fire and Spirit in the river where you were baptized. Fire and Spirit are in the baptismal font. And in the bread and the cup — Fire, and the Holy Spirit. (Madrosho on Faith 10)

Ephrem draws insistent attention to the physical reality of Christ’s body which he calls the “Treasury of Healing.” Since, as the Gospels record, contact with the physical body of Jesus, and even with his clothing, was able to effect cures, Ephrem speaks of the Eucharistic body of Christ as able to cure and restore those who receive it.

Medical science with its cures does not suffice for the world; but the all-sufficient Physician saw the world and took pity. He took his body and applied it to its pain, and he healed our suffering with his body and blood. And he cured our sickness. Praise be the Medicine of Life, for he is sufficient, and he healed our pain with his teaching. (Madrosho on Nisibis 34, 10).

In Ephrem’s view, the forgiveness of sins flows directly from the Eucharist. He contrasts the willfulness of the sinner with the gratuity of God’s forgiveness. He says, I am amazed at our will: while it is strong, see it brought low; while it is a lord, see it enslaved; while it is a victor, it wills to succumb; free, it surrenders its mouth like a slave, and sets its own hand on the bill of sale. See the foolish scribe, who is the one setting his own hand to the statement of his debts! Blessed is the one who has given us emancipation in his Bread, and in his Cup has erased the statement of our debts.

Conclusion

For Ephrem participating in the Eucharist leads to the indwelling of Christ and the believer becoming the temple of God. Ephrem says:

Let the Qurbono build your own minds and bodies into temples suitable for God. If the Lord dwells in your house, honor will come to your door. How much your ‘honor’ will increase if God dwells within you. Be a sanctuary for him, even a priest, and serve him within your temple. Just as for your sake he became High priest, sacrifice, and libation; you, for his sake, become temple, priest, and sacrificial offering. Since your mind will become a temple, do not leave any filth in it; do not leave in God’s house anything hateful to God. Let us be adorned as God’s house with what is attractive to God.

Bibliography:
1. Sebastian Brock, The Harp of the Spirit: Eighteen Poems of Saint Ephrem, (London: Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, 1983).
2. Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz, Ephrem the Syrian: Select Poems, (Brigham Young University Press, Provo, 2006), pp. 39 – 61.
3. Ibid., pp. 39 – 61.
4. Ibid., pp. 112 – 121.
5. Sebastian Brock, “The Harp of the Spirit”. Studies Supplementary to Sobornost, No. 4 (1983) pp. 83 – 85.
6. Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz, Ephrem the Syrian: Select Poems, (Brigham Young University Press, Provo, 2006), pp. 200 – 221.
7. L. Ligier, “Penitence et Eucharistie en Orient/’ OCP 29 (1963) 5-78. Also see Alphonse Raes, “Un Rite Penitentiel avant la communion dans les liturgies Syriennes”, OS 10:1 (1965) pp. 107 – 122.
8. Sebastian Brock, “The Harp of the Spirit”. Studies Supplementary to Sobornost, No. 4 (1983) pp. 80 – 82.
9. Sebastian Brock, “The Harp of the Spirit”. Studies Supplementary to Sobornost, No. 4 (1983) pp. 80 – 82. Rodrigues Pereira, Studies in Aramaic Poetry, (Van Gorcum Publishers, Assen, 1997), pp. 237 – 271.
10. Sebastian Brock, Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition, pp. 17. Andrew Palmer, “The Merchant of Nisibis, Saint Ephrem and his Faithful Quest for Union in Numbers”, J Den Boeft & A Hilhorst (eds), Early Christian Poetry A Collection of Essays (Supplements to Vigilae Christianae, vol 22, Leiden E J Brill, 1993), pp. 167 – 233.
11. Edmund Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones, II (CSCO, vols 311 & 312, Louvain Peeters, 1970), IV 9

12. Kathleen E McVey (trans ), Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns (The Classics of Western Spirituality, Mahwah, NJ Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 149-150.
13. Kathleen E McVey (trans ), Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns (The Classics of Western Spirituality, Mahwah, NJ Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 149-150.
14. Beck, Hymnen de Fide, Χ 18 The English translation is from Sebastian Brock, St Ephrem A Hymn on the Eucharist (Hymns on Faith, no 10) Lancaster, UK, J F Coakley, Dept of Religious Studies, University of Lancaster, 1986). Also see Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz, Ephrem the Syrian: Select Poems, (Brigham Young University Press, Provo, 2006), pp. 200 – 221.
15. All the above exerts are from the madrashe on Faith. Beck, Hymnen de Fide, Χ 18 The English translation is from Sebastian Brock, St Ephrem A Hymn on the Eucharist (Hymns on Faith, no 10) Lancaster, UK, J F Coakley, Dept of Religious Studies, University of Lancaster, 1986). Also see Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz, Ephrem the Syrian: Select Poems, (Brigham Young University Press, Provo, 2006), pp. 200 – 221.
16. Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz, Ephrem the Syrian: Select Poems, (Brigham Young University Press, Provo, 2006), pp. 222 – 245. Sebastian Brock, The Harp of the Spirit: Eighteen Poems of Saint Ephrem, (London: Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, 1983), pp. 39 – 45 and 70 – 72.
17. Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom; a Study in Early Syriac Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 45 – 55. Kathleen E McVey (trans ), Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns (The Classics of Western Spirituality, Mahwah, NJ Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 100 – 105.
18. E. Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones IV (CSCO, vols. 334 & 335; Louvain: Secrétariat du Corpus, 1973), vol. 335, pp. xi-xiv.

]]> http://www.orthodoxherald.com/2011/01/22/the-eucharistic-theology-in-the-thought-of-ephrem-the-syrian-2/feed/ 1 http://www.orthodoxherald.com/2011/01/14/the-eucharistic-theology-in-the-thought-of-ephrem-the-syrian/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-eucharistic-theology-in-the-thought-of-ephrem-the-syrian http://www.orthodoxherald.com/2011/01/14/the-eucharistic-theology-in-the-thought-of-ephrem-the-syrian/#comments Fri, 14 Jan 2011 07:13:13 +0000 Editor http://www.orthodoxherald.com/?p=6653
Part 1 – Ephrem and the Liturgy

Life of Ephrem

In this paper, I will analyze Ephrem’s most important madrashe on the liturgy, “The Mysteries of the Eucharist,” along with his madrashe on Faith, Pearls, Church, Unleavened Bread and Nativity where Ephrem considers the Holy Eucharist. Ephrem the Syrian, known as ‘Harp of the Holy Spirit’ is undoubtedly the greatest poet and theologian that the Syrian Church ever produced. He is described as ‘the greatest poet of the patristic age and perhaps the only theologian-poet to rank beside Dante.’ Ephrem was not only a well-known figure in the Syriac-speaking world but also had a great reputation in the Greek East as well as the Latin West. Within the patristic age itself Ephrem’s reputation as a holy man, poet and a theologian was widely known far beyond his Syrian homeland. Less than fifty years after Ephrem’s death Palladius included him among the ascetic saints whose memory he celebrated in the Lausiac History. Sozomen the historian celebrated Ephrem’s memory as a popular ecclesiastical writer, some of whose works had been translated into Greek even during his lifetime.

For Ephrem, the sacred is a dimension that does not submit to analytical investigation by the faculties of reason; only the more fluid logic of scriptural imagery is subtle and allusive enough to evoke it. As Sebastian Brock, a leading authority on early Syriac – speaking Christianity, has eloquently put it: “So astounding is the nature of the Christian mystery — God not just becoming Man, but becoming the very Bread for man to eat — that it is often more meaningful to describe this paradox in the language of poetry, where parable, myth and symbol can perhaps approximate to spiritual reality rather more successfully than straightforward theological description”.

Although Ephrem wrote biblical commentary, prose refutations of the teachings of those whose views he regarded as false, prose meditations, dialogue poems and metrical homilies (memre), there can be no doubt that his preferred genre was the “teaching song” (madrosho). Translators have often called these songs “hymns”, but since they are not primarily songs of praise, the term is not really apt. Rather, they are “teaching songs” (madroshe); they were to be chanted to the accompaniment of the lyre (kennoro), on the model of David, the Psalmist. Perhaps the closest analogue to the madrosho is the Hebrew Piyyut, a genre of liturgical poetry that was sung or chanted during Jewish religious services. Popular in Palestine from the eighth century on, the Piyuut featured biblical themes and literary devices strikingly similar to those employed by Ephrem.

Ephrem composed his “teaching songs” for the liturgy. According to Jerome, Ephrem composed his “teaching songs” for the Divine Liturgy and were to be recited after the scripture lessons. Madroshe would eventually find a place in the liturgy of the hours in the Syriac speaking churches from the earliest periods for which textual witnesses remain. These madroshe consisted of meditations on the symbols that God distributed in nature and scripture. These symbols, which Ephrem often called roze (sing, rozo) in Syriac, which in turn, by God’s grace, discloses to the human mind those aspects of the hidden reality that are within the range of human intelligence.

There are several symbols that Ephrem uses to explain the Eucharist that I will analyze, notably, the Eucharist as “Food”, “Living Coal”, “Pearl” and “Medicine of Life.” In his madrashe on Faith, Ephrem explains that if John the Baptist held even Christ’s sandal straps in awe, how can he hope to approach Christ’s very body? Ephrem takes refuge in the example of the woman who gained healing just through touching Christ’s garment – which in another sense is indeed his body, being the garment of his divinity. The hidden power that lay in Christ’s garment is also present in the Bread and the Wine, consecrated by the fire of the Spirit.

Qurbono

Ephrem views the Eucharistic body of Christ in dynamic continuity with the actual body of the historical Jesus. As the body of Christ, the Eucharist partakes of the entire historical and eternal reality of Christ in all its complexity — divine and human, corporeal and incorporeal, exalted and earthbound, and, of course, body and blood. In other words, for Ephrem the Eucharist is nothing less than the entire eschatological mystery of Christ taking place here and now in history:

Your bread killed insatiable death which had made us its bread. Your cup put an end to death which gulped us down. Lord, we have eaten and drunk you, not to exhaust you, but to have life in you.

Although Ephrem never used the Greek word “Eucharist,” he had much to say about the Body and the Blood of the Lord in the bread and wine of the church’s daily sacrificial offering to God. For his thoughts on the Body and Blood of the Lord, and their place in the life of the church, one must survey the wide range of his madroshe, searching for the verses in which he instructs the faith of the Christians in attendance at the sacred mysteries.

Qurbono is the Syriac word Ephrem used for the liturgical action we call the Eucharist. It has the sense of “sacrificial offering”, and, as it occurs in the madroshe, refers both to the sacrificial offering associated with the Jewish Passover and to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. In Ephrem’s world, Christians offered the holy qurbono not only at Easter, Sundays and major feast days, but every day. This is clearly implicated in one of Ephrem’s madroshe, On Paradise:

The assembly of the saints is on the type of Paradise. In it the fruit of the Enlivener of All is plucked each day. In it, my brothers, are squeezed the grapes of the Enlivener of All.

Ephrem refers to the daily qurbono as “the breaking of the bread and the cup of salvation,” often speaking of our Lord’s “breaking his own body”, at the Passover supper, an obvious evocation of the close connection in his mind between Calvary and the Last Supper. Ephrem says of this particular event:

He broke the bread with his own hands in token of the sacrifice of his body. He mixed the cup with his own hands, in token of the sacrifice of his blood. He offered up himself in sacrifice, the priest of our atonement.

For Ephrem, “the Last Supper and its table symbolizes the first church and the first altar, and by extension, representative of all churches and all altars”. Therefore, in his madroshe, Ephrem often calls attention to the prefigurations of the Eucharist in the New Testament and the numerous types and symbols of it in the narratives of the Old Testament. In his estimation, they all find their ultimate focus in the Last Supper and in its consummation on the cross, when blood and water flowed from the pierced side of Christ (John 19:34). This represents the sacraments of the Eucharist and Baptism respectively, and thereby inaugurating the era of the church. Ephrem’s thought on this subject is particularly rich in symbolism, involving a typological connection between the Cherubim’s sword that guarded the way to the tree of life in paradise after Adam’s sin (Genesis 3:24), and the lance which opened Christ’s side on the tree of the cross, thus providing a new entry to glory for the new Adam’s progeny:

Ephrem’s symbolic interpretation of the piercing of Christ’s side is particularly complicated. Christ is the second Adam, from whose side is born the second Eve, the Church; yet through that opening we enter paradise, to come again to the Tree of Life, which is sometimes the Cross but also sometimes Christ himself.

Bibliography

1. Sebastian Brock, “The Harp of the Spirit”. Studies Supplementary to Sobornost, No. 4 (1983) pp. 5.
2. Robert Murray S.J., Symbols of Church and Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1975), pp. 31.
3. C. Butler, The Lausiac History of Palladius (2 vols., Texts and Studies, 6; Cambridge, 1898 & 1904), vol. II, pp. 126-127.
4. J. Bidez & G. H. Hansen (eds.), Sozomenus, Kirchengeschichte (Griechische Christliche Schriftsteller, no. 5.; Berlin, 1960), pp. 127-130. Glenn Chesnut, The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius. Paris: Éditions Beauchesne, 1977.
5. Sebastian Brock, “The Harp of the Spirit”. Studies Supplementary to Sobornost, No. 4 (1983) pp. 5.
6. Sidney Griffith, “Images of Ephrem: the Syrian Holy Man and his Church”, Traditio (1989-1990), pp. 7-33. Sidney H. Griffith, “Spirit in the Bread; Fire in the Wine: The Eucharist as Living Medicine in the Thought of Ephraem the Syrian,” Modern Theology 15.2 (1999), pp. 225-246.
7. Koonammakkal Thoma Kathanar, “Changing Views on Ephrem”, Christian Orient 14 (1993), pp. 113-130. Also refer to Andrew Palmer, “A Lyre without a Voice, the Poetics and the Politics of Ephrem the Syrian”, ARAM 5 (1993), pp. 371-399.
8. Sebastian Brock, “The Poetic Artistry of St. Ephrem: an Analysis of H. Azym. III”, Parole de l’Orient 6 & 7 (1975-1976), pp. 21-28. Also see J Schumann, “Hebrew Liturgical Poetry and Christian Hymnology”, The Jewsh Quarterly Review, n. s. 44 (1953-1954), pp. 123. They are also comparable to the Byzantine Kontakion.
9. Pierre Yousif, L’Eucharistie chez Saint Ephrem de Nisibe. OCA 224 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientale 1984).
10. Sebastian Brock, “From Ephrem to Romanos”, in E. A. Livingstone (ed.), Studia Patristica (vol. XX; Leuven: Peeters, 1989), pp. 139-151.
11. All the translations given in this paper are taken from Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz edited, Ephrem the Syrian: Select Poems, Sebastian Brock’s, Harp of the Spirit, Kathleen McVey’s, Ephrem the Syrian and Rodrigues Pereira’s, Studies in Aramaic Poetry.
12. Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz, Ephrem the Syrian: Select Poems, (Brigham Young University Press, Provo, 2006), pp. 200 – 221.
13. Sidney Griffith, “Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephrem’s Hymns against Heresies”, in William E. Klingshirn & Mark Vessey (Ed.s), The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R.A. Markus, (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1999).
14. Sebastian Brock, “The Harp of the Spirit”. Studies Supplementary to Sobornost, No. 4 (1983) pp. 21 – 26. Also refer to Edmund Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Paradiso und Contra Juhanum (CSCO, vols 174 & 175, Louvain Peeters, 1957), VI 8.
15. Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz, Ephrem the Syrian: Select Poems, (Brigham Young University Press, Provo, 2006), pp. 96 – 111. See also Edmund Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen contra Haereses (CSCO, vols 169 & 170, Louvam Peeters, 1957), XXVII 3.
16. Sebastian Brock and George Kiraz, Ephrem the Syrian: Select Poems, (Brigham Young University Press, Provo, 2006), pp. 112 – 121. Edmund Beck, Paschahymnen, De Azymis, XII 5.
17. Ibid., Beck, Paschahymnen, De Azymis, II 7.
18. Edmund Beck, “Die Eucharistie bei Ephram”, Oriens Christianus 38 (1954), pp. 50.
19. Pierre Yousif, L’Eucharistie chez Saint Ephrem de Nisibe. OCA 224 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientale 1984), pp. 31 – 107.
20. Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, pp. 126. See also R Murray, “The Lance Which Reopened Paradise, a Mysterious Reading in the Early Syriac Fathers”, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 39 (1973), pp. 224 – 234,. S. Brock, “The Mysteries Hidden m the Side of Christ”, in S. Brock, Studies in Syriac Spirituality (The Syrian Churches Series, Vol. 13, Poona Anita Printers, 1988), pp. 62

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Translation: “By Your Baptism, O Lord, purify our minds to be a place for Your majesty. And by Your manifestation, enlighten our senses that we may thank You for Your grace.”

The Church moves from the Feast of Nativity to the Feast of the Theophany or Epiphany (6th January) – it commemorates the baptism of our Lord by John, the Forerunner in the Jordan and the public manifestation of the incarnate Word to the world. This Feast takes us into the depths of the mystery of Christ and His salvation of the world. This is the Festival of Lights, Gregory of Nazianzen says,

“For the Holy Day of the Lights (Theophany), to which we have come, and which we are celebrating today, has for its origin the Baptism of my Christ, the True Light That lightens every man that comes into the world, and effects my purification, and assists that light which we received from the beginning from Him from above, but which we darkened and confused by sin.”

Jesus Christ’s first public manifestation takes place at His baptism,

“Baptism is the symbol of death and resurrection; Christ came to the earth in order to die and be raised. Baptism is a symbol of repentance of sin and its forgiveness; Christ came as the Lamb of God who takes upon Himself the sin of the world in order to take it away. Baptism is a symbol of sanctification; Christ has come to sanctify the whole of creation. Baptism is a symbol, finally, of radical renewal. When one is baptized the old is over and the new has come. And Christ has appeared on earth to bring all things to an end, and to make all things new. The act of baptism, therefore, contains in symbol the entire mystery of Christ, the whole purpose of his coming.”

At the river Jordan, God reveals Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the Word of God incarnate, on Him rests the Holy Spirit from all eternity, the Father witnesses to the divinity of Christ and proclaims Him to be His only Son:

“This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17)
Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan is also the first manifestation of the greatest of all mysteries, the worship of the Trinity.

Trinitarian theology is the cornerstone of the Christian faith and rightly defines the True God who sent His Son to be man for the sake of the restoration of all creation back to its Creator. If God is not God in Trinity then Jesus Christ is not who He claimed to be and we have no salvation. Thus the early Church saw Theophany as the foundational manifestation of the Truth of the Gospel because it rightly defined God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The worship of the Holy Trinity “one in essence and undivided.” This is the mystery which allows us to call on the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as one God. This is why the word Epiphany meaning “manifestation” was replaced in the East by Theophany meaning “manifestation of God” the latter specifying and developing the meaning of the feast.

Historically Theophany was the first major feast to be celebrated by the Christian Church, even before the Nativity. Theophany was considered one of the most important events in salvation history because as the Orthodox Theophany hymn states: “When You O Lord were baptized in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest. The voice of the Father bore witness to You, calling You His beloved Son. And the Spirit in the form of a dove confirmed the truthfulness of His word.”

Christ is baptized with us, even though He is above all purity; and thus He infuses sanctification into the water, which then becomes the purifying agent of our souls. Through the baptism of the Lord the waters received God’s blessing, being transformed in waters of sanctification. Man is remodeled by God, as a pot maker models his vessels, using water and fire: water from the River Jordan and fire from the Holy Spirit. In the Syriac tradition, Christ left His robe in the River Jordan and he sanctifies the waters of Jordan, so that all those who are baptized will adorn the ‘robe of glory’ which Adam lost when he sinned in Paradise.

On this day the River Jordan changes its course, and starts flowing backwards, underlying exactly this concept. The river Jordan, with its two traditional streams Jor and Dan represents also our lives, lives that flow from the first parents, Adam and Eve. From them the life of mankind started flowing toward the Dead Sea of sin and perdition, as Jordan River does. But when the Master entered the river, the Jordan started flowing backwards, in the same way as our lives turn toward our true godly origins when Christ enters into our lives.

The events on the banks of Jordan uncovers the deep meanings of the Sacrament of Baptism in Christian practice. The mystical presence of Christ is present at our baptism. When we enter into the baptismal font Christ is also there with us turning around the course of our lives from a life spent in sin and worldly things into a life in virtue, and heavenly glory.

As Gregory of Nazianzen says, “Christ is illumined, let us shine forth with Him. Christ is baptized, let us descend with Him that we may also ascend with Him.” God reveals His Son in the silence of our soul. Communion with God requires our active participation. Our will must be conformed to God’s will.
May we experience Theophany within ourselves, and see the Lord all around us. May our lives be freed from the cares of this world that the Lord might reveal Himself to us more and more.

To God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is due all glory, honor, and worship now and always, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Bibliography
1. Matthew 3:17 – “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased”
2. Hymn at the Fraction during the Holy Qurbono on the Feast of Theophany.
3. Gregory Nazianzen, Orations XXXIX, On the Holy Lights and On Holy Baptism
4. Fr. Thomas Hopko, The Winter Pascha: Readings for the Christmas-Epiphany Season, (New York, 1984), pp. 142.
5. Ibid.
6. Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity, (New York, 1999).
7. Christopher Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God, (Oxford, 2008).
8. Fr. Thomas Hopko, The Winter Pascha: Readings for the Christmas-Epiphany Season, (New York, 1984), pp. 142.
9. Arkadi Choufrine, Gnosis, Theophany, Theosis: Studies in Clement of Alexandria’s Appropriation of His Background, Patristic Studies 5, (New York, 2002).
10. Troparion of the Feast of the Epiphany
11. Sebastian Brock, The Luminous Eye, (Michigan, 1992), pp. 90 – 94.
12. Edward Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the Year 1838, Volume 3, (Boston, 1841), pp. 352.
13. Morelli, G. (2007 January 12). A Theophany Within. orthodoxytoday.org/articles7/MorelliTheophany.php.
14. Pius Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace, Vol. 1, (Michigan, 1962).
15. Gregory Nazianzen, Orations XXXIX, On the Holy Lights and On Holy Baptism.

]]> http://www.orthodoxherald.com/2011/01/05/the-feast-of-theophany/feed/ 0 http://www.orthodoxherald.com/2010/12/23/advent-%e2%80%93-the-season-of-anticipation-and-hope/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=advent-%25e2%2580%2593-the-season-of-anticipation-and-hope http://www.orthodoxherald.com/2010/12/23/advent-%e2%80%93-the-season-of-anticipation-and-hope/#comments Thu, 23 Dec 2010 14:43:58 +0000 Editor http://www.orthodoxherald.com/?p=6493
The word Advent means ‘coming’ or ‘arrival’; means in the Orthodox Tradition, the period of fasting and preparation in connection with the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord. The focus of the entire season is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ in his First Advent, and the anticipation of the return of Christ the King in his Second Advent. Thus, Advent is far more than simply marking a 2,000 year old event in history. It is celebrating a truth about God, the revelation of God in Christ whereby all of creation might be reconciled to God. That is a process in which we now participate, and the consummation of which we anticipate. Scripture reading for Advent will reflect this emphasis on the Second Advent, including themes of accountability for faithfulness at His coming, judgment on sin, and the hope of eternal life.

In this double focus on past and future, Advent also symbolizes the spiritual journey of individuals and a congregation, as they affirm that Christ has come, that He is present in the world today, and that He will come again in power. That acknowledgment provides a basis for Kingdom ethics, for holy living arising from a profound sense that we live “between the times” and are called to be faithful stewards of what is entrusted to us as God’s people. So, as the church celebrates God’s coming into history in the Incarnation, and anticipates a future consummation to that history for which “all creation is groaning awaiting its redemption,” it also confesses its own responsibility as a people commissioned to “love the Lord your God with all your heart” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Advent is marked by a spirit of expectation, of anticipation, of preparation, of longing. There is a yearning for deliverance from the evils of the world, first expressed by Israelite slaves in Egypt as they cried out from their bitter oppression. It is the cry of those who have experienced the tyranny of injustice in a world under the curse of sin, and yet who have hope of deliverance by a God who has heard the cries of oppressed slaves and brought deliverance! It is that hope which brings to the world the anticipation of a King who will rule with truth and justice and righteousness over His people and in His creation. It is that hope that once anticipated, and now anticipates anew, the reign of an Anointed One, a Messiah, who will bring peace and justice and righteousness to the world.

Part of the expectation also anticipates a judgment on sin and a calling of the world to accountability before God. We long for God to come and set the world right! Yet, as the prophet Amos warned, the expectation of a coming judgment at the “Day of the Lord” may not be the day of light that we might want, because the penetrating light of God’s judgment on sin will shine just as brightly on God’s people.
Because of this important truth, especially in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Season of Advent has been a time of fasting and penitence for sins similar to the Season of Lent. Of course, Advent is celebrated as a time of joy and happiness as we await the coming of the King; hence we Sing Christmas Carols During Advent.

The spirit of Advent is expressed well in the parable of the bridesmaids who are anxiously awaiting the coming of the Bridegroom (Matt 25:1-13). There is profound joy at the Bridegroom’s expected coming. And yet a warning of the need for preparation echoes through the parable. But even then, the prayer of Advent is still: Come, O Come, Emmanuel!

The beginning of Advent is a time for the hanging of the green, decoration of the church with evergreen wreaths, boughs, or trees that help to symbolize the new and everlasting life brought through Jesus the Christ. The Advent wreath is a circular evergreen wreath with five candles, four around the wreath and one in the center.

The circle of the wreath reminds us of God Himself, His eternity and endless mercy, which has no beginning or end. The green of the wreath speaks of the hope that we have in God, the hope of newness, of renewal, of eternal life. Candles symbolize the light of God coming into the world through the birth of His son. The center candle is white and is called the Christ Candle. It is traditionally lighted on Christmas Eve or Day. The central location of the Christ Candle reminds us that the incarnation is the heart of the season, giving light to the world.

Advent is one of the few Christian festivals that can be observed in the home as well as at church. With its association with Christmas, Advent is a natural time to involve children in activities at home that directly connect with worship at church. In the home an Advent wreath is often placed on the dining table and lighted at meals, with Scripture readings preceding the lighting of the candles, especially on Sunday. A new candle is lighted each Sunday during the four weeks, and then the same candles are lighted each meal during the week. In this context, it provides the opportunity for family devotion and prayer together, and helps teach the Faith to children, especially if they are involved in reading the daily Scriptures. It is common in many homes to try to mark the beginning of Advent in other ways as well, for the same purpose of instruction in the faith. Some families decorate the house for the beginning of Advent, or bake special cookies or treats, or simply begin to use table coverings for meals. An Advent Calendar is a way to keep children involved in the entire season.

Whatever observations we do are fine, if it brings the message of the season into our minds and actions. So, let us try to observe advent-fasting and all other traditional ways to receive our Lord in our heart; and be with Him in our day to day life. May God bless the whole world in this wonderful Season of the Feast of Nativity of our Lord.

Source: mosc.in

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