The Two Harvests of Christ

At that same evening they were performing rites, for even salvations—I say of both the living and the dead—were being enacted. The Jew was binding a lamb for slaughter, while the Gentile was worshipping God in the flesh. One was looking at a shadow, while the other ran to God as the sun. Those who had bound Christ were departing, while the Gentiles were welcoming him willingly. Some offered animal sacrifices, but others offered a God-body sacrifice.

The Jews remembered the crossing out of Egypt, but the Gentiles proclaimed the redemption from error. And where are these things? In Zion, the city of the Great King, in which salvation worked in the midst of the earth. In the midst of two living beings, Jesus the God-child was made known; in the midst of Father and Spirit, the two living beings, life from life, he says, being known as life, and being born in a manger in the midst of angels and men. He lies as a cornerstone in the midst of two peoples; he is preached in the midst of Law and Prophets together; he is seen on the mountain in the midst of Moses and Elijah; he is known to the good-hearted thief in the midst of the two thieves; he sits as eternal judge in the midst of the present life and the life to come; and in the midst of living and dead today, having made a double life and salvation.

Again I say, a double life: a double birth, namely both birth and rebirth. Listen to the matters of Christ's double offspring, and marvel at the wonders. An angel announced to Mary, the mother of Christ, the birth; but an angel announced to Mary Magdalene the fearful rebirth from the tomb. At night Christ is born in Bethlehem; again at night he is reborn in Zion. Swaddling clothes are received for the birth; swaddling clothes are also wrapped here. Having been born receiving myrrh, he received myrrh in the tomb, and aloes are received.

There, Joseph, the virile man, was the husband of Mary; but here, Joseph of Arimathea is shown as the undertaker of our life. In Bethlehem and in a manger is the place; but even in the tomb, the place is as if a manger. First of all, shepherds were evangelizing the birth of Christ; but also, first of all, shepherds were evangelized of the rebirth of Christ from the dead. There, the angel cried 'Rejoice!' to the Virgin; and here, 'Rejoice!' to the...

Christ, the messenger of a great will, has cried out to the women. In the first generation, Christ entered earthly Jerusalem after forty days and approached God, offering as a firstborn pair of grapes. But also, in the resurrection from the dead, Christ ascended to the upper Jerusalem after forty days, from where he did not depart, and into the true Holy of Holies as an incorruptible firstborn from the dead; there he offered to God and Father as two spotless grapes, our soul and our flesh. He was received, like a Simeon, by the God and Father of old, in unwritten embraces within his own bosom.

If you hear these things only as a myth and not with faith, the unbroken seals of the memory of Christ's rebirth accuse you. For just as Christ was born from a Virgin, even though the locks of the all-conceived womb of the virginal nature were sealed, so the rebirth of Christ has been accomplished while the seals of the tomb remained unopened. Let us hear the sacred words concerning how, when, and by whom the Life, Christ, is laid in a tomb.

It is said that when evening came, a man named Joseph, rich in name, arrived. This man dared to go to Pilate and requested from him the body of Jesus. A mortal went to a mortal, asking to take God; he asks for the God of mortals; clay asks to take the Maker of all; the chaff asks of the chaff to take the heavenly fire; the wretched drop asks of the wretched drop to take the abyss. Who has seen this? Who has ever heard this? A man is granted the Creator of men by a man; the lawless submits to being granted the boundary and the law by the lawless; the unjudging judge allows the Judge of judges to be released into a tomb.

It is said that when evening came, a man named Joseph, rich in name, arrived. He was truly rich, having brought the whole composite subsistence of the Lord. He was truly rich, because he received the dual essence of Christ from Pilate. And indeed he was rich, because he was worthy to take the priceless pearl. He was rich, for he carried a purse that was a vessel of the treasure of divinity. For how could he not be rich, having acquired the life and salvation of the world? And how could he not be rich...