NEBAB #31: Lent Week 1: Zewerede
NEBAB #31
The Orthodox Tewahedo Magazine
LENT WEEK 1: ዘወረደ - ZEWEREDE
The Spiritual Education Unit
Ethiopian Orthodox Church
Archdiocese of the Caribbean and Latin America
In this issue:
Gospel: St John 3:10-25
1. He Condescends to Creation
2. Serve the Lord with fear - St Yared's guide to Lent
3. Faith and works
4. “Ask Abba/Kes”
5. A Miracle of the Holy Virgin Maryam
6. Children’s corner
7.ይበል ግዕዝ
8. Orthodox Q&A
Commentary on the Gospel:
St John 3:17
For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.
God has never and will never condemn the world. But someone will ask, "How is it then, that He sent the flood in the days of Noah? Or how does He say that He will judge the world at the last day?" Hear the interpretation.
When a policeman is called to arrest a thief, it is not the presence of the policeman that makes the man a thief- the policeman rewards the thief according to his works, sending him to the judge. Does the judge make him a thief? No! But when he is brought before the judge to stand trial for his crime, it is not the judge who makes him guilty- the judge simply declares his punishment according to the law. What about the lawmakers who wrote and passed the law by which he is judged? They do not make him a thief, they simply declare theft to be unacceptable, and institute a punishment for thieves. The only one who makes him a thief is himself.
The world was already under judgement before the coming of the Son. We chose the things that have no value and accepted a snake's poison when it was offered to us, and we brought judgement on ourselves. Our Lord Jesus Christ came not as the policeman to arrest or as the judge to sentence, but He came to replace us in our punishment and set us free from the ultimate consequences of our sin, saving us.
May we hear the words of life!
He Condescends to Creation
The 8 weeks of The Great Fast, also known as Lent, have names and themes laid out in St Yared’s Tsome Digua. The first, Zewerede, means ‘He Who Came Down’. To understand the significance of this coming down, let us consider the following.
God fills every place, while we are limited to the size of our bodies. God knows all things, while we know very little and often forget important information. God is forever, while we did not exist before He made us. God cannot be destroyed or injured, while something as simple as the grass of the field can make us bleed, and a tiny ant can cause us intense pain. We human beings are in essence temporary and weak, but God made us in His image and filled us with grace so that we might not succumb to the corruption which is proper to our nature. When we went against God in the garden, we turned away from this grace, and by our choices brought corruption on ourselves. However, God, who made us to be like Him, saw it altogether inappropriate that we should reach the destruction towards which we were heading, so He became One of us.
Now the unlimited God took our limitation on Himself, the all-knowing God accepted our ignorance, the unscathed God hungered and thirsted and tired and cried and bled like we do. He did all this while at no time ceasing to rule the universe, being at all times omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. This is the meaning of condescension- that God came down to our level, lowered Himself to where we were, so that He could be united with us, and bring us up to where He is. This is greatness of Zewerede Sunday, and of this first week of Lent, during which we meditate on the greatness of God, the weakness of mankind, and how God condescended for our sakes.
Serve the Lord with fear - St Yared's Guide to Lent
As we have said previously, the first week of Lent is named Zewerede or 'He Who Came Down'. The reason for this name is that the beginning of Lent reminds us of the coming of our Lord from the heavens down to us to begin His work of salvation. In a way, this Great Fast comes down upon us every year and starts us on a journey through the redemptive work of Christ, up to its culmination- His glorious Resurrection.
The mezmur (hymn) of this week tells us to "serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling" (taken from Psalm 2). Fear and trembling are our faith and works- as the greatest fear makes our bodies tremble, so the greatest faith must makes our bodies and minds walk the Christian walk. How can we serve God? Our fathers say that writing books, farming, or succeeding at whatever job you do- this is serving God! In this mezmur, rather than meditating on the theme of the week, St Yared focuses on preparing us for the upcoming fast, by instructing us in the proper way to approach our service.
Hear another interpretation- trembling is understood as remembering and keeping the 10 commandments. It is important for us to always keep God's law in the front of our minds, so that whatever we do we can be proud of. St Yared teaches us to do things that we would be proud to bring into light, since "men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19). It is with this wisdom that we rise up on Monday morning to begin the Great Fast.
Faith and Works:
And let us love one another
"Let us all fast and love one another", writes the hymnodist- because our abstinence from food and drink is worthless if we do not practise love.
Visit your Christian family- When we say 'love your neighbour' we do not often mean the person who lives nextdoor, but wherever your brothers and sisters in Christ are, try to visit their homes at least once during Lent. Bring something to share, some comforting words, or even just greet one another with a kiss of peace. When we desire to be with our brothers and sisters, and we act out that desire, we build our Christian community with bricks of love.
Check up on someone- Maybe they haven't been to church in a long time, or maybe you don't know what's going on in their life, but during this Lent, let us all make an effort to reconnect with someone who has drifted away from us. When the Jews asked our Lord "who is my neighbour?", the Lord answered by giving the example of a Samaritan- a people separated from the Jews for generations. Let us not say "I am too busy serving the church" or "I don't have time because of my prayers", for what is the church if not the people? And are the prayers others make for you not more effective than the prayers you offer on your own behalf?
Make ye friends of unrighteous mammon- Strengthen your friendships with those outside the church, so that perchance your light may lead them to Christ. This is not to say that you should join them in their useless activities, for then you would achieve the opposite result! Rather, demonstrate the love of Christ to those outside the church by genuinely caring about them, not with performative social niceties, but with unfeigned interest in their spiritual and physical wellbeing.
Ask Abba/Kes
"How can people who are exempted from fasting for medical reasons still benefit from the fast?"
The fasting of those who fast can benefit the sick, as the Lord said concerning the one made sick by an evil spirit:
And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.”
Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.”
And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.
Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?”
So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” (Matthew 17: 14-21)
The sick also receive the Holy Communion in their homes or in the place of sickness while following doctor's orders and benefit greatly.
Glory be to God. Amen.
BIBLE QUIZ!
In which chapter of Matthew does our Lord tell us to wash our faces when we fast?
A Miracle of the Holy Virgin Maryam
A miracle performed by Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Holy Virgin, Mother of God, may her prayer and her blessing be with her servant La’eka Maryam, in the morning and in the evening, forever and ever, amen.
In the neighborhood of Harat al-Rum was a church to the name of Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Holy Virgin, Mother of God. There was an icon of Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Holy Virgin, Mother of God in that church. It was called ‘Helper’.
A poor woman from the inhabitants of that neighborhood broke her leg. She had no worldly wealth to give the physician to treat her. So, her family lifted her, brought her [to the church] and set her down in front of the icon of Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Holy Virgin, Mother of God. Then they left. The custodian locked the church, leaving the woman inside.
Every day, Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Holy Virgin, Mother of God, came to that church. She would walk around it and stroll here and there every day. When the custodian of the church and one of the elder priests unlocked the church at the time of the midnight prayers, they saw Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Holy Virgin, Mother of God.
Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Holy Virgin, Mother of God came during the night they left that injured woman in the church, as she usually did. When Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Holy Virgin, Mother of God would come, the doors of the Holy of Holies would open. That night Mary found the injured woman sleeping in front the icon. She nudged with her foot and said: “Get up.”
The woman immediately got up and stood on her feet. She was healed by the prayer of Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Holy Virgin, Mother of God. When it was time for the midnight prayers, the custodian of the church unlocked the doors and immediately entered. He found that woman standing on her own two feet. The custodian said to her: “What happened to you?”
That woman told him: “Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Holy Virgin, Mother of God had come, her face shining brighter than the sun and the sweet fragrance of incense wafting off her clothing. She nudged me with her foot and said to me: ‘Get up,’ so, I instantly got up. I stood on my feet.”
Everyone who saw that woman who had been healed from her injury, worshipped and praised, glorified, blessed, and exalted the Performer of Miracles, the New Calf, Our Lady Mary, the Twofold Holy Virgin, Mother of God.
May her prayer and her blessing be with her servant, La’eka Maryam, who loves her limitlessly, forever and ever, amen.
O Holy Virgin Maryam, pray for us!
LIJOCH! The Children's Corner
Memory verse: John 3:17
For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.
ይበል:ግዕዝ (yibel Ge’ez)
Let's reclaim our forefathers’ language
ወረደ
werede
Zewerede comes from the root verb ወረደ werede - to go down or come down. As we learned in the last class, most verbs make the causative form by adding the prefix አ- a-. Remember that the causative form means to cause the verb to happen, so አውረድ awred means to cause someone or something to go down/come down, or in simple terms, to bring/take down. (As in the hymn አንተኑ ሚካኤል ዘአውረድከ መና antenu Mikael ze'awredke mena - are you not Michael who brought down manna?
As we learned in the past, (https://nebabmagazine.blogspot.com/2024/09/nebab-15-meskel-feast-of-cross.html) the ze- added to the word to make zewerede is a relative pronoun that in basic terms means the one who (does/did something)- another example is ዘሞተ zemote - the one who died. A relative pronoun tells us that a certain piece of information refers to a specific person or thing. E.g. the phrase 'came down' by itself doesn't tell us who or what came down, but the phrase 'who came down' tells us that it refers to a person, and the phrase 'Christ who came down' tells us that the coming down refers to Christ.
Grammar concepts to revise: relative pronouns, the passive voice, the accusative case
ORTHODOX Q&A
(Referring to one of the 21 martyrs of Libya): "Why couldn't Matthew leave and spread the message? Wouldn't his story reach more people if he told it and stayed alive?"
The word martyr literally means a witness in ancient Greek (similarly the Ge'ez word sema'it comes from the verb sem'a - to hear). Matthew Ayariga bore witness to the love of God and the powerlessness of death by dying at the hands of the self proclaimed enemies of the cross. As much as he could talk, write books, do interviews or otherwise spread his faith, there is no act that bears witness to it more truly than choosing it over his earthly life. As we say, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, and Saint Matthew Ayariga, along with his 20 brothers, all planted that seed when they willingly gave their lives for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
Send us your questions at: seu.eotccarla@gmail.com
References
Short message on behalf the Spiritual Education Unit:
His Grace Abune Thaddaeus, Head Administrator Archimandrite Abba Gebreyesus, and all clergy and faithful- thank you for the opportunity to share this labour of love with you. Thanks also to the team of the Spiritual Education Unit for their hard work.
-Liqe Teghuan Tekle Mariam Greene
Miracle of the Holy Virgin Mary: pemm.princeton.edu/en-us/stories/112
CONTACT US:
Archdiocese headquarters: Medhane Alem (Saviour of the World), Old Golden Grove Rd. Arouca, Trinidad and Tobago.
Tel. 868-642-4230.
e-mail: eotc.arch.carla@gmail.com
Comments
Post a Comment