Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Armenian Ode for Easter: A bright new flower has appeared this day out of the tomb



The following is an Armenian Ode for Easter and Eastertide. In the Armenian Church the Melody hymns for Easter are the same as for Ordinary Sundays because in the Christian faith Easter is ordinary. And each week is a journey through ordinary time to the garden and the joy of resurrection. It comes from The Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Apostolic Church, tr. Tiran Abp. Nersoyan, 5th edition (London: St. Sarkis Church, 1984), 141-142 and is quoted in a great book, From Sin, Death and the Devil by Carl E. Braaten, Tito Guroian, Stanley Hauerwas, Robert W. Jenson, Gilbert Heilaender, Richard John Neuhaus and A.N. Williams. 


The voice of good tidings sang to the women.
It sounded like the call of the trumpet: -
"The Crucified whom ye seek is risen!
Fear not but be joyful;
Fulfill what is owed by Eve:
Go to Galilee and see;
And proclaim to the world."

I tell of the voice of the lion
Who roared on the four-winged cross.
On the four-winged cross he roared,
His voice resounded to Hades.

The bird, the bird awoke,
And watching the gentiles,
He called, he called out to the turtle-dove,
To his beloved, nurtured in love.
Love is dawning, love is dawning,
In a stately march it is eagerly rising.
The rising sun, the rising sun -
Such is the name of that daystar.

Mary called to the gardener: -
"Didst thou remove my first born, my love?"
- "That bird is risen, the wakeful being,
Did the Seraph trumpet to the Mother
and to those with her,
- "The Saviour of the world, Christ is risen!
 And he has delivered mankind from death."

A bright new flower has appeared this day
out of the tomb.
Souls have blossomed and are adorned with divers hues,
and have become green with life.
The florescence of divine light has bloomed
in the spiritual spring.

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