- This event has passed.
Vigils Reading
January 7
A HYMN ON THE MANIFESTATION
OF CHRIST
By St Ephrem the Syrian
◊◊◊
Blessed is the King Who has come and will come!
The Redeemer shone forth to the blind, but they looked to others.
The Sun showed His rays, but they were clothed in darkness.
The Resplendent One sent His light, and it summoned the children of light
to reveal to the children of darkness, “Behold in your midst is the light,
but over your eyes a veil.” To You be glory, New Sun!
The prophets announced His birth but did not specify His time.
He sent the Magi, and they came and declared His time.
But the Magi who made known the time did not specify where the Infant was.
The glorious star of light ran and showed were the Infant was…
A pair of announcers expressed the properties of the Only-Begotten:
the star of light and John – one a shining forth, the other a voice.
For the One Announced was also a Word and a Light.
Voice and ray serve Him. The shining forth announced His light
and the voice His wisdom. More blessed is the First-born than His announcers!
John gazed at Him and cried, “This is the Lamb of God!”
The Lamb grew fat and matured, and He came to be an offering.
John was not afraid to cry, “Behold, it is He!” –
even if the slayers attack, even if it was the time of sprinkling
so that forgiveness would be by His blood, Blessed is the Compensator of our
sins.
The glorious star of light was not like John,
for there was a place where it rose and made straight the way for the simple,
but there was a place where it sank and made the path of the wolves go astray.
It kept the Lamb from the slaughter so that the day for the slaughter would
come, that in Him the flock would be pardoned. Blessed is He in Whom
His possessions were redeemed!