Holy Week - Holy Thursday: Christ, Our Passover
A Homily by St. Melito of Sardis, Bishop
The Lamb That Was Slain
As we begin Holy Thursday, let us reflect on this beautiful homily by St. Melito of Sardis. Jesus in his infinite love and mercy for humanity, descended from heaven, assumed human nature through the Virgin Mary, and embraced a life capable of suffering. Through his death, Christ triumphed over sin and death, the ultimate oppressors of mankind, mirroring the liberation of Israel from Egypt.
St. Melito illustrates how Christ's sacrifice ransoms humanity from bondage to the world and the devil, seals us with the Holy Spirit, and sanctifies us with his blood. This act of ultimate love and redemption covers death with shame, defeats the devil, and eradicates sin. Christ, as our Passover, transitions us from slavery to freedom, darkness to light, and death to eternal life, inaugurating a new covenant wherein we become a chosen priesthood and a holy nation.
The biblical figures of Abel, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, and to the sacrifices of the Passover lamb, point to the continuity of God's salvific plan. Through Christ's death and resurrection, we are offered salvation, fulfilling the prophetic visions and inaugurating a new era of divine grace and eternal life. Praise be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit for His love.
From an Easter Homily by Saint Melito of Sardis, Bishop
The Lamb that was slain has delivered us from death and given us life
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, dishonored 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.
