Maybe not…

Over the past year, I’ve been trying to figure out a series of questions, rather important, but seemingly overlooked by most people. I’ve expressed it here as one my concerns. Recently I read a book by N.T. Wright, possibly one of the foremost New Testament scholars we have around these days. His most recent book entitled The Day the Revolution Began is rather a bold declaration upon the stale field of religion. Within the pages, I found someone who was asking and grappling with the same questions I have. What impressed me the most was how Mr. Wright willingly admitted that the material he was presenting actually went counter to a number of claims that he had made in previous sermons and publications, but that his research had produced a new line of thought which he believed aligned much better to the understanding that the first church possessed. What follows is my attempt to convey one of the answers as he sees it.

Whenever I am confronted by a die-hard believer, I have two standard questions I ask them to determine if they know how to study. The first: Do you believe Jesus died for our sins? A simple question that has one answer in any Christian doctrine. The follow up is the one which reveals their understanding. If Jesus did die for our sins, how is it that he didn’t die on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement according to the Hebrew calendar, and died instead on Passover, the celebration of the exodus of Israel from Egypt? What’s your answer? Before you dismiss it as being irrelevant, you better think again. Its impact is monumental.

In the books of Moses, God instructs the children of Israel to celebrate a number of festivals and holy days. Each one has a very specific meaning and there is a great deal of preparation that went into these events both by the priestly class and the people. Three festivals were required to be attended by all the males in the land every year at the Temple: Passover; Pentecost; and Tabernacles. Yom Kippur is a holy day where the high priest would present a sacrifice once a year for the sins of the people. This day falls a few weeks before the festival of Tabernacles, an autumn celebration of the final harvest of abundance provided by God in the land.

Passover is a springtime event, celebrating the release from captivity in Egypt the children of Israel. This ceremony reenacted their last night in Egypt where Moses had instructed them to sacrifice a lamb and place its blood over the lintel and upon the door posts of their homes to prevent the angel of death from coming upon their household as it did to the people and king of Egypt. The lamb was to be cooked by fire (BBQ!) and eaten with bread which was unleavened because they didn’t have time to wait for it to rise. This was fast food for a quick departure.

Josephus, the Jewish historian during the days of Jesus, comments that Passover in Jerusalem was always a time of high anxiety with both the Jews and the Romans. Since the history of this festival celebrated the release from captivity, the Jews were on high alert their Messiah would appear during this festival to remove the foreigners from their land, while the Romans did everything in their power to squash any uprising.

Consideration must also be made for the topic of sin as it related to the Second Temple time period. You’ll recall that the first temple, built by Solomon, was destroyed when the Babylonians invaded the land and took the people away. This series of events had been foretold by the prophets to the kings of Israel and Judah but their words were never heeded. Every warning declared the cause for these actions: the worship of idols rather than the worship of Jehovah. Throughout their Babylonian captivity, it was made very clear to all that their condition stemmed from their sin of worshipping idols.

When the people were permitted to return to the land, they immediately began rebuilding a new temple for worship to Jehovah. However, the second temple never experienced the same infilling that the first had even though the same ceremonies were conducted every year. Furthermore, because Israel was viewed as subjects in a number of empires after their return, they still held to the belief that their sin of idolatry was still keeping them from the fullness of the blessing of Jehovah. This is the backdrop to the environment on that fateful day when the revolution began.

What reason could Jesus have to choose the Passover ceremony as the time to present himself to death for the people of Israel? If the prevalent idea during the Second Temple period about sin meant the act and results from idolatry, how does this affect us today when we think sin has to do with a moral failure? How did those who saw Jesus as the Messiah understand his role at the crucifixion as being completed or a complete failure? Was the crucifixion truly an atoning act in the minds of the second temple followers?

Maybe it’s time to step back and seriously rethink what we’ve been led to believe throughout the centuries about this whole matter. Is it possible that the story of what was truly accomplished on that day can still turn the world upside down when it’s told properly? I think so.

You’re possibly sitting there waiting for the answer to my questions. Well so am I. This book is a great resource for exploring them, but you’ll need to make the discovery yourself. After all, if I give away the ending what did you get out of it? Maybe you need to start asking the questions you know aren’t being asked and then see what comes from it.