👉🏽👉🏽👉🏽#Maedot (The First #Monday After the #Resurrection)
Brethren beloved in the Lord, peace and grace be multiplied unto you!
Let us open the eyes of our hearts, sharpen our minds, and bend our knees before the wisdom of God, for today we are called to meditate deeply on a sacred observance Maedot, the first Monday after the glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This day, solemn and radiant, bears immense significance in the treasury of the Church. What is this day, and what mystery does it conceal for the faithful soul who seeks God in truth?
What is Maedot?
The name Maedot means "to pass over", echoing the Hebrew word Pesach or Passover. Indeed, our Holy Fathers the saints, scholars, and god-bearing teachers of the Orthodox Church translated Maedot, Pascha, and Passover as one, for all point to the singular truth of passing over but from what to what? From death to life, from bondage to liberty, from darkness to the glorious light of God.
Let us now trace this holy mystery from its roots in the Old Covenant, wherein the shadow of the New was hidden, and to the New Covenant, where the fullness of the truth was revealed in Christ.
1. The Old Testament Passover: The Shadow of Things to Come
Let us go back to that dark season in which the children of Israel groaned under the yoke of Pharaoh in Egypt. For 430 years, they endured bitter slavery. But God, the merciful Father, saw their affliction, as it is written:
“I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them.” (Acts 7:34)
He who sees all and forgets none, sent forth Moses as a deliverer. And through Moses, God commanded a profound act—each household of Israel was to take a lamb without blemish, one year old, pure and perfect, and to slaughter it, marking their doorposts and lintels with its blood.
Behold, my beloved! That blood was not shed in vain. For when the angel of death went forth to strike the firstborn in Egypt, he saw the blood upon the door and passed over that house. This divine act was not mere history it was prophecy in action, a type and figure of Christ who was to come. Thus, this day was called Passover, because death did not touch the house covered in blood.
“When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” (Exodus 12:13)
Let every Christian understand: This was not only the history of the Jews—it is the spiritual heritage of all who trust in the Lamb of God.
2. The Exodus: Passing from Bondage to Liberty
Again, when Pharaoh hardened his heart, the Lord made bare His holy arm. With signs and wonders He smote Egypt, and with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, He led His people through the Red Sea on dry land.
What do we behold here? A greater mystery! For as Israel passed from slavery into freedom, from the house of bondage to a land flowing with milk and honey, they passed over—not only physically but spiritually. This was Israel's Maedot, a national rebirth.
“But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea…” (Exodus 13:18)
Thus, in both blood and water, in sacrifice and deliverance, the Lord revealed the path of salvation—a foreshadowing of the greater deliverance to come.
3. The New Testament Fulfillment: Christ Our Pascha
Now, let us lift our eyes higher, to the heavens, and fix them upon the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. (John 1:29) For what was hinted at in Egypt and fulfilled in the Exodus has now been consummated in Christ.
When Christ our God tasted death upon the Cross, He descended into Hades not as a prisoner, but as a conquering King. He broke the bars of iron, shattered the gates of brass, and led captivity captive.
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God…” (1 Peter 3:18)
“He loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.” (Revelation 1:5)
Continues 👇🏽