In his second hymn, Ephraim the Syrian writes:
“Glory to the Husbandman of our
intellects! His seed fell on to our ground and made our mind rich. His increase
came a hundredfold into the treasury of our souls. Let us adore Him who sat
down and took rest; and walked in the way, so that the Way was in the way, and
the Door also for them that go in, by which they go into the kingdom.”
“Blessed the Shepherd Who became
a Lamb for our reconcilement! Blessed the Branch Who became the Cup of our Redemption!
Blessed also be the Cluster, Fount of medicine of life! Blessed also be the
Tiller, Who became Wheat, that He might be sown, and a Sheaf, that He might be
cut! Blessed be the Architect Who became a Tower for our place of safety!
Blessed He Who so tempered the feelings of our mind, that we with our harp
should sing that which the winged creatures’ mouth knows not with its strains
to sing! Glory to Him, Who beheld how we had pleased to be like to brutes in
our rage and our greediness; and came down and was one of us, that we might
become heavenly!”
“By the Fruit of His stem He
grafted us into His Tree.”
“Praise we Him, Who took away the
curse of His thorns!”
What strikes you about the above?
What is its focus? What is its foundation?
Isn’t Jesus Christ, the Son, the
center of this hymn? (Keep in mind that these are excerpts, the hymns themselves
are lengthy by our standards). Unlike much of what we produce today, the hymns
of the Fathers were centered on the Trinity and God’s glory and work in humanity.
The above excerpts, as is true of
the entire hymn and the other Hymns of the Nativity (there are a total of
nineteen), are permeated with Scripture. I did a quick count and identified
around thirty references and allusions to Scripture just in these excerpts.
This is another characteristic of the Fathers, they live and breathe God’s Word
– much of their ministry is seamless in that their ministry is saturated in the
Bible – they are clothed with the fabric of Christ the Word of God, and the
Word of God as Christ revealed and revealing.
Can we see that Christ is
everything to Ephraim? Can we sense the exaltation of Christ in this hymn? Can
we feel the glory of glorifying God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the
Holy Spirit?
As we ponder the many facets of
Christ in this hymn, can we enter into the hymn and know Christ in all of these
ways as our Way? Is Jesus Christ all of these things to us? How are we
beholding the glory of Jesus Christ as we meditate on the Word of God contained
in Ephraim’s hymn?
Is Jesus Christ everything to us?
(1 Corinthians 1:30 – 31).
One of the great temptations in
this life is to seek our core identity outside of Jesus Christ – the Tree of
the Knowledge of Good and Evil manifests itself in a number of ways. We trade
Christ for career. We trade Christ for possessions. We trade Christ for earthly
power. We trade Christ for success. We trade Christ for fame. We trade Christ
for pleasure. We trade Christ for sports. We trade Christ for entertainment. We
trade Christ for racial and ethnic identity. We trade Christ for money. We
trade Christ for politics. We trade Christ for nationalism. We trade Christ for
foreign policy. What can you add to this list?
We are quick to justify and
rationalize our trading Christ, our seeking glory elsewhere than in Jesus
Christ. Can we see how we do that? Can I see how I do it? What about you?
When we experience times of
disorientation and uncertainty we soon (hopefully) find what our core identity
is – it is either Jesus Christ or it is something else. Ephraim the Syrian can
help us discover the glory of Jesus Christ as our all in all, the center of our
lives, the anchor of our souls. As we know Christ as everything, we can be a
blessing to those around us to God’s glory.
Let us hope that we can see the
world for what it is, and Jesus Christ for who He is – and live in the light of
this understanding.
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