Our Eldest Easter Homily
Lections: The Great Vigil of Easter , AD 2026 A Homily: Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know His sins are great. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The oldest extant paschal sermon comes from the quill of St Melito of Sardis, a Jewish convert to Christianity, born in the Greek half of the Roman Empire at the end of the second century. He entitled it “On the Passover,” and in it he drew connections between the Old and New Testaments of our Bible, particularly between the Jewish observance of Passover and the Christian celebration of Pascha, or Easter, the Resurrection of Our Lord. St Melito was no fool. He held prominence of place amongst the bishops, reverently referenced by the Fathers of the Church. He addressed his “Apology for Christianity” to none other than the famous Philosopher-Emperor Marcus Aurelius. And he lived through a time when certain Marcionite Christians rejected the Hebrew Bible as incompatible...
