“In an hour when we do not expect it, the Lord comes!”
Mathew 24:44
We have now journeyed clear of the Old Testament time of shadows; we no longer celebrate its ceremonies. We have turned more fully to the Lord: for “the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17).
When we hear the sacred trumpet, it no longer summons us to sacrifice an earthly lamb, but announces that the true Lamb has been sacrificed, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and was silent as a sheep before her shearers” (Isaiah 53:7). His priceless blood has cleansed us, the blood that speaks better things than the blood of Abel.
Our feet are shod with the zeal of the Gospel (Ephesians 6:15). We hold in our hands the Lord’s rod and staff, which comforted that holy man who said, “Your rod and staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). In short, we are in every way equipped, and anxious for nothing, for as blessed Paul says, “The Lord is at hand” (Philippians. 4:5). Moreover, our Savior Himself says, “In an hour when we do not expect it, the Lord comes!” (Mathew 24:44).
“Meditating on God’s word night and day”
So “let us celebrate the feast, not with the old leaven, nor the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:8). Let us take off the old self and its works; let us put on the new self, created in God, with humility of mind, and a clean conscience, meditating on God’s word night and day.
Clothed with love for God and our neighbor
Getting rid of all pretence and double-dealing, banishing all self-importance and dishonesty, let us be clothed with love for God and our neighbor. As new creations, drinking the new wine – that is, the Holy Spirit – we will then rightly celebrate the feast, the time of such new fruits!
This treatise by Athanasius is excerpted from Festal Letter [on the Christian Passover] 1:9, translated by © Nick Needham, Daily Readings from the Early Church Fathers, 2017, Christian Heritage, Scotland, UK.
Top image credit: Reading from the Bible by candle light, from Bigstock.com, © by Ale-ks, stock photo ID: 7079929. Used with permission.
Athanasius of Alexandria (298-373 A.D.) was a bishop of Alexandria (Egypt), in the fourth century. Before reaching the age of 20, Athanasius wrote a treatise entitled On the Incarnation, affirming and explaining that Jesus was both God and Man. In about 319, when Athanasius was a deacon, a presbyter named Arius began teaching that there was a time before God the Father begat Jesus Christ when the latter did not exist. Athanasius responded that the Father’s begetting of the Son, or uttering of the Word, was an eternal relationship between them, not an event that took place within time. Thus began catholic Christianity’s fight against the heresy of Arianism.
Athanasius fought consistently against Arianism all his life. He accompanied bishop Alexander to the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, which council produced the Nicene Creed and anathematized Arius and his followers. On May 9, 328, he succeeded Alexander as bishop of Alexandria. As a result of rises and falls in Arianism’s influence, he was banished from Alexandria only to be later restored on at least five separate occasions, perhaps as many as seven. This gave rise to the expression “Athanasius contra mundum” or “Athanasius against the world.” During some of his exiles, he spent time with the Desert Fathers, monks and hermits who lived in remote areas of Egypt. In his lifetime he earned the characteristic title of “Father of Orthodoxy.”
[Biographical sources from Theopedia and New Advent]