(RECAP PALM SUNDAY w/HOSANNAH)
The Jewish Passover seder is linked inseparably to
the beginnings of the Christian faith.
When Jesus established the communion ordinance , it was at the Passover
seder. Communion is based on the Jewish
custom during the Second Commonwealth era of giving thanks to God on the first
night of Passover for their redemption, over bread and wine.
The bread Jesus ate with the apostles
was matzoh, the unleavened bread required by Exodus 12:14-19. the hebrew word seder means the “re-telling” of the exodus history. The
festival's name--Pesach or Passover--comes from the night the Angel of
Death "passed over" any house whose doorposts and lintels were
smeared with the blood of the Passover lamb.
The connection between the red Passover wine and the redemptive blood of
the Pascha lamb was well understood in ancient times.
The 2nd
century Jewish Christian Justin Martyr
wrote, "The blood of the Pascha (lamb), sprinkled on each man's
doorposts and lintel, delivered those who were saved in Egypt, when the
first-born of the Egyptians were destroyed.
For the Pascha was Christ who was afterwards sacrificed. And as the blood of the Passover saved us
who were in Egypt, so also the blood of Christ will deliver from death those
who have believed."
let’s now
read together how almost 2000 years ago, Jesus led the disciples in observing the
passover seder in jerusalem. we find
that report in mark 12: 12-26—
The hymns sung by Jesus and the apostles was called
the Hallel, which means “praise.” the
levites sang these hymns as they marched up to jerusalem on the feast
days. these same hymns are still sung
today at Jewish seders, taken from psalms 111 through psalm 117.
For their first 300 years, Christians
celebrated the resurrection of Jesus under the name Pascha, observed on the
very same time as the Jewish Passover.
Church historian Epiphanius wrote, "So long at least as the first
fifteen (Jewish) bishops of Jerusalem continued, the Pascha was celebrated by
all Christians.. according to the lunar computation and method of the
Jews."
The bishops sent out Pascha Epistles to notify Christians
everywhere when Pascha would fall. It
was only at the Council of Nicea, in 325 A.D., when the Roman Emperor Constantine,
changed the name from Pascha to the Latin Aurora (Goddess of Fertility), thence
to Old English Oestre, at which time
the celebration came to be known as
"Easter."
at the conclusion of this seder, jesus
foretold who it was that would enable the conspiring jewish leaders and roman
authorities to identify him and arrest him.
this poignant scene was played out before his twelve disciples, and we
find it recounted in john 13: 18-38—this is another fulfillment of prophecy, as
we find written in psalm 41:9: “even my
close friend, in whom i trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel
against me.”
from that point on, events moved
swiftly even as the torment must have made each minute seem like an hour. jesus went out to the garden of gethsemane
with the disciples and asked peter, james and john to come with him while he
prayed. this was the lord’s dark moment
of the soul, as the son of man asked to be exempted from the task at hand, when
he must suffer, pour out his blood and be crucified as the true lamb of god,
sacrificed for remission of sins to all who would believe in him. when he finally came to peace in his spirit,
he found the three he had brought with him had escaped sharing his torment by
falling asleep. do you recall his
comment at this point? (“spirit
willing, flesh is weak”)
then came the time of his final
testing. let’s read that, starting with
mark 14: 14-72—
after being led back and forth between
herod and pontius pilate, jesus was brought back to herod to be scourged. to be scourged means to be whipped by a whip
made of leather thongs with strips of metal fixed to the tips, so that the
person being beaten literally had his skin and muscle flayed away from his ribs
and bones. the apostle john reports
that in chapter 19 of his gospel, verses 1 – 20—
the roman soldiers tore his outer robe
into four parts and divided it among them.
but his tunic was woven as one piece, and so they cast lots to see which
of them would have it. by so doing,
they fulfilled the prophecy contained in one of the psalms. remember when jesus cried out “eli eli lamach sabachtani?” that is aramaic for “my god, my god,
why hast thou forsaken me?” i believe
jesus recited the entire psalm 22 from the cross. read verses: 1-18—
but even at the height of his agony,
his loving heart was looking at those nearby with compassion. we see his concern for others in john 19:
25-27—
there was still one more prophecy he had to
fulfill. this is found also in john 19,
verses 28 and 29 (read)—
then came the gasp of triumph in verse 30—“when jesus
therefore had received the sour wine, he said ‘it is finished’. and he bowed his head and gave up his
spirit.”
actually,
what he really said was rendered in the greek scriptures as tel-eh-ho, which is a legal term meaning “it is paid for,” as in paying
out a debt or obligation. in this case,
jesus had completed paying for the sin debt for all those who would accept his
sacrificial atonement. at one hour in
time, god’s justice and god’s mercy was reconciled on a crude old wooden cross.
Calling the day of the Crucifixion ‘Good’ Friday is a
designation peculiar to the English language.
In German, for example, it is called Karfreitag.
The Kar part is an obsolete
word, the ancestor of the English word care--
in the sense of cares and woes--
and it meant mourning. So in
German, it is called “Mourning Friday”.
And that is what the disciples did on that day—they mourned. They
thought all was lost.
possibly the term Good Friday is a contraction of God’s Friday, just as good-bye
is a contraction of God be with ye. But I think we call it Good Friday
because all that tragedy and pain
brought about the greatest good to humankind there could ever be. by calling it Mourning Friday, we are facing
reality head on, fully conscious that the Christian walk is seldom a walk in
the park. But if we call it Good
Friday, we are confessing the Christian hope that no tragedy—not even death—can
overwhelm God’s providence, love, and grace. The cross is where God’s perfect
justice and god’s perfect mercy was reconciled in His only begotten Son, who
was then—and still is---the PRECIOUS Lamb of God.
Some people wonder if the Crucifixion really took
place on a Friday. In
Matthew 12:40, Jesus says that He will spend three days and three nights in
the grave, just as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the
great fish. But if Jesus was crucified
on Friday and rose on Sunday, He rose on the third day, but He spent only two nights in the grave.
On the other hand, if we extend His stay in the tomb
to include three nights, He would wind up rising on the fourth day. The answer is found in the phrase ‘three
days and three nights,’ which is an
ancient Hebrew idiom that does not
require there to be three nights. for
example, Jonah was swallowed by the great fish during the day time and was
vomited out during the day time (Jonah 1:17—2:10). In order for that to take three days, only
two nights could have been involved.
Yet it is called three days and three nights. Similarly, in Esther 4:16—5:1, there is a fast for ‘three
days and three nights’ that begins on the first day and ends on the third
day--which means only two nights were involved. So we can safely conclude that the Hebrews weren’t always literal about such numerical phrases.
just as the term “forty days and forty nights” means
a period of time greater than the monthly cycle of the moon phases. So Jesus spent three days and nights in the
tomb in the same sense that Jonah was in the belly of the great fish three days
and three nights--which is what Jesus himself cited as the cycle of His own
entombment. the early church fathers
everywhere accepted that Jesus was crucified on Friday and was laid in the tomb
until Sunday, which constituted ‘three days and three nights.’
but
the greatest story ever told doesn’t end with a dead body in a tomb. john finished the re-telling in JOHN chapter
20: 1-20—
but one disciple was not present when jesus showed
himself to the disciples. this was
thomas, who was sent by god to take the gospel to india. thomas was a skeptical fellow, as we read in
john 20: 24-29—
jesus was talking about us here. we like thomas have not seen but we
believe. WHEN we look ahead to EASTER
sunday (PASCHA), let’s exalt together in that wonderful old hymn “christ
the lord is risen today”—
and
the story hasn’t ended yet. just before
jesus went home to be with his father and our father in heaven, he left us with
a great charge—let’s read that in acts 1:6-11—
when
we next see him, he will call us from that cloud up to himself, and so shall we
ever be with the lord. with that
blessed hope ever in our hearts, let’s CONTINUE TO observe the communion
ceremony he gave us at that last seder almost 2000 years ago—(read 1 cor. 11: 23-26).
even so,
come soon, lord jesus! maranatha! can you say that with me? maranatha—have a blessed PASCHA PASSOVER
sunday!