Faith Filled Friday: This is the Pascha of Our Salvation

This poem by St. Melito of Sardis was published in the April 2020 edition of Magnificat.  It’s absolutely beautiful.  St. Melito of Sardis was a second century bishop in what is now Turkey.  He apparently was a very learned man and a great apologist of Christianity.  I don’t know if this piece was intended to be a poem or was shaped into found poetry by arranging the lines by subsequent editors.  It really works well as a poem.

This Is the Pascha of Our Salvation

by St. Melito of Sardis

This is the Pascha of our salvation:

this is the one who in many people endured many things.

This is the one who is 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.

This is the lamb slain,

this is the speechless lamb,

this is the one born of Mary the fair ewe,

this is the one taken from the flock,

and led to slaughter.

Who was sacrificed in the evening,

and buried at night;

who was not broken on the tree,

who was not undone in the earth,

who rose from the dead and resurrected humankind

from the grave below.

I love the transition to the negative (“not broken,” “not undone”) victory toward the end of the last stanza.  It emphasizes that all those efforts to defeat Christ were not successful.