Copy Book Archive

Breaking Death For Jesus Christ to step down alive from his cross would have been a mighty miracle, but not the mightiest.
990-994
King Ethelred the Unready 978-1016
Music: George Frideric Handel

Via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain. Source

The Harrowing of Hell, by Markos Bathas (1498-1578).

About this picture …

‘Christ is risen from the dead / By death trampling down death, / and giving life to those in the grave’ (Easter acclamation). A sixteenth-century icon of the resurrection of Christ, showing the ‘harrowing of hell’, releasing Adam and Eve. The icon was painted by Markos Bathas (1498-1578).

Breaking Death
In a sermon for Easter Day, Abbot Elfric (955-1010) reminded his congregation that the people of Jerusalem thought it would be a miracle worthy of God for Jesus to step down alive from his cross. A miracle, yes; but not so worthy of God as the one he then performed.

THE Jews called out to Christ, fastened to the cross, saying that ‘if he was the King of Israel, he should descend now from the cross, and they would believe in him.’*

Had he descended from the cross and not borne their mockery, then without question he would have set us no example of his fortitude; but he did remain there, did bear their mockery, and did show fortitude.

However, he who would not break away from the cross rose up from death. It was more of a miracle to rise up from death than to break away alive from the cross; it was mightier to break death in pieces by his resurrection, than to cling to life and descend from the cross.

When they saw that despite their mockery, he did not descend from the cross, but waited there for death, they supposed him vanquished, and his name snuffed out. But in the event, by this death his name ran through all the earth.

See Mark 15:29-32.

Source

From a Sermon on Easter Day by Elfric, Abbot of Eynsham (955-1010) as given in ‘Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church’, edited by Benjamin Thorpe. The translation below is based on Thorpe’s.

Suggested Music

Messiah

He trusted in him

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Performed by Tafelmusik Chamber Choir and Baroque Orchestra, directed by Ivars Taurins.

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Transcript / Notes

‘HE trusted in God that He would deliver Him;
let Him deliver Him, if He delight in Him.’

Psalm 22:8

THY rebuke hath broken His heart:
He is full of heaviness.
He looked for some to have pity on Him,
but there was no man,
neither found He any to comfort him.

Psalm 69:20

How To Use This Passage

You can use this passage to help improve your command of English.

IRead it aloud, twice or more. IISummarise it in one sentence of up to 30 words. IIISummarise it in one paragraph of 40-80 words. IVMake notes on the passage, and reconstruct the original from them later on. VJot down any unfamiliar words, and make your own sentences with them later. VIMake a note of any words that surprise or impress you, and ask yourself what meaning they add to the words you would have expected to see. VIITurn any old-fashioned English into modern English. VIIITurn prose into verse, and verse into prose. IXAsk yourself what the author is trying to get you to feel or think. XHow would an artist or a photographer capture the scene? XIHow would a movie director shoot it, or a composer write incidental music for it?

For these and more ideas, see How to Use The Copy Book.

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