Exodus 15:13, “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.”
That old abyss, that ancient foe,
That dread Leviathan below
Does now appear in other guise
Before the terror-stricken eyes
Of Is’ral on the shores of that Red Sea impassible.
For here in waves dark as the grave
Abides a sign of elder days—
Of primal chaos serpentine,
Set, suicidal, ‘gainst divine
Design to weave all things within the Sacred Canticle.
Yet now, as then, a Wind descends—
That Breath who once breathed into Men—
Now breathes down from the Holy Height
And through the long sepulchral night
Does rend in twain that dragon-sea and hearts to hope does turn.
All this, Beloved Ones, is true
And for the ransomed children who
From Egypt made their Exodus,
‘Tis sure their song of blessedness.
Yet, for the people of the Cross, ‘tis but an overture.
For on the heights of Calvary,
As living Breath His lips released,
Then truly was our Exodus
Achieved within His pierce’ed flesh
Which—torn asunder as the veil—leads us to Sabbath Rest.
Here is the Serpent trampled down,
Here now the Tree of Life is found—
Here flesh and blood are living food
Prepared upon the Sacred Rood.
Here is the gate of Paradise wide open in His breast.
Here is the Lord, the Great I Am,
The Living One and Paschal Lamb,
Who, dying, leads in victory
O’er death those by His blood redeemed
And is Himself the Harmony—the Song of Songs sung from the Tree.
