Homily on the Meeting of the Lord

A discourse of our holy father Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, regarding the meeting of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and Simeon the God-bearer. Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Proclaim joy, daughter Jerusalem. Dance, O people of the city of God. Lift up the gates and the walls, O Zion and all the earth. Cry out, O mountains, and let the great hills lift up. Clap your hands, O rivers, and embrace, O crowds of Zion, seeing the presence of God in her. Let the heavenly things harmonize today with the earthly, and let the upper world hymn with the lower Jerusalem, through Christ who is in her, being both heavenly and earthly. You, heavenly intelligent powers, dance around; you, those on earth, hymn with the angels.

For today the God of gods has appeared in Zion. Today, glorious things have been spoken concerning you, O city of God, Jerusalem, the city of the great King. Open the gates to the one opening all the heavenly gates, and to the one opening all the gates of Paradise, and to the one opening the gates of the tombs upon the cross, and to the one crushing the gates of Hades from eternity, and to the one paradoxically shutting the gates of the Virgin. Today, he who formerly served Moses on Mount Sinai in a God-befitting manner, becoming a fulfiller of the law by law in a slavish manner, today the God comes from Thaman in Zion. Today the heavenly Bridegroom arrives in the temple with the God-bearer procession. Daughters of Jerusalem, go forth to meet him. Brightly kindle your torches for the true Light, and prepare the tunics of your souls for the Bridegroom Christ.

Let us meet him, along with Zion, the peoples of the nations bearing torches. Let us enter into the temple, with the temple and with God and with Christ. I will cry out the hymn of the angels with the angels: Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth, full is the heaven and the earth of your glory.

The ends of the world are full of his goodness. All creation is full of his pleasure. All humanity is full of his condescension. The heavenly, the earthly, and the underworld are full of his compassion, full of his mercy, full of his pity, full of his gifts, and full of his benefits.

Therefore, all nations, clap your hands. All the ends of the earth, come and see the works of God. Let every breath praise the Lord. Let every earth worship, let every tongue sing, let every tongue psalm, and let every tongue glorify God: the forty-day-old and the eternal, a small child and the ancient of days, a child nursing and the maker of the ages. I see an infant and I know my God; an infant nursing and nourishing the world, an infant weeping and granting life and joy to the world, an infant being threshed and being ransomed from the sheaves of sin, an infant truly and unceasingly in the arms of a mother upon the earth, and him truly and unceasingly in the bosoms of the Father in the heavens.

I see an infant entering from Bethlehem into Jerusalem and not at all being separated from the upper Jerusalem. I see an infant legally offering a sacrifice to the temple upon the earth, but he himself receiving the pious sacrifices of all in the heavens; him in the arms of the Elder economically, and him in the cherubic thrones divinely; him being offered and being made holy, and him making and cleansing all things. He himself is the gift and he himself is the temple. He himself is the high priest and he himself is the altar, he himself is the mercy seat [and he himself is the one interceding].

And he himself is the one offering and he himself is the sacrifice offered for the world; he himself is the wood of life and of knowledge, he himself is the lamb and he himself is the fire existing. He himself is the burnt offering and he himself is the sword of the spirit. He himself is the shepherd and he himself is the lamb. He himself is the slayer and he himself is the...