New Beginnings
In my book, The First Communion: The Making of the Last Supper I show how intrinsically connected the Last Supper, and by extension the Lord’s Supper, is with the celebration of Passover. God had selected this very specific event to tie into His plan for salvation, as the first Passover was the first iteration of this plan designed to culminate with all of what we celebrate now on Resurrection Sunday (Easter).
While we realize that we are ultimately celebrating both the Last Supper and the Resurrection each week we gather at church for worship and communion, this Holy Week provides an opportunity for us to extend over the course of seven days that which we normally share in the course of a few hours. It is in this vein I share with you this excerpt from chapter 11: Six Days of Preparation.
A Gap in the Story
Let’s leap, skip or jump ahead to the day Jesus died, Aviv [the first month of the Jewish calendar] 14. We do know for certain that this was the day, because, regardless of the day of the week, Passover day is always the 14th.
Jesus was arrested early in the morning of the 14th, after their supper around midnight or so. It was dark, but no sleep would come to them that night. Jesus was taken before the priests, and eventually to Pilate who sentenced Him to death. And “it was nine in the morning when they crucified him.”
Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath.
John 19:31 (NIV)
As is clear from the text, the next day was a “special” Sabbath. Not a regular seventh-day Sabbath, but a Festival Sabbath—as the next day began the Feast of Unleavened Bread—the 15th of Aviv. The day of Preparation was exactly that. Since the next day was a Sabbath, no one was permitted to buy or sell or the like. And so everyone was working that Passover day to prepare everything for the next.
It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin. The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”
“Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.
Matthew 27:62-66 (NIV)
Some suggest that the Preparation Day here was a Friday. Now, it’s true that Friday is always Preparation Day, but that’s because the following day is always a Sabbath (Saturday). Of course, the day before any Sabbath is a Preparation Day. But in our discussion, we are suggesting that Aviv 15 was not a Saturday, and therefore the “Day of Preparation” noted in three of the four gospels was not a Friday. But how can we arrive at something so contradictory to what has always been traditionally held as the truth?
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.
Mark 16:1 (NIV)
Did we misread this as brought spices? This passage states plainly that the ladies purchased spices “when the Sabbath was over.” In verse two, it was “very early on the first day of the week” (Sunday) when they visited the tomb to go anoint Jesus’ body.
But they had waited until after the Sabbath to buy spices. If this was Saturday, then they would have been unable to buy anything that day. And the markets would not have been open before sunrise on Sunday to buy them (remember that Jesus was already gone from the tomb when they’d arrived just after sunrise). They would have needed time to prepare the spices at home, and they would also not have been permitted to prepare them on Saturday. Therefore they would have had to purchase them at a time prior to Saturday. And since the text clearly indicates that they bought them after the Sabbath, this can only mean that there was a day between the First Day of Unleavened Bread, which was a Sabbath day (Aviv 15) and that Saturday, which was a seventh-day Sabbath. Do you see? This tells us, then, that there was at least one non-Sabbath day between Aviv 15 and Saturday the 17th. Perhaps Friday?
So then, if we reason that the women purchased their spices on Friday (16th) following the Special Sabbath on Thursday (15th), then we can know with certainty that Jesus was crucified and laid in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb no later than Wednesday afternoon (14th). Walking backwards from there, Jesus and His disciples must have shared the Last Supper in the evening of Tuesday (the 13th) . . .
Three Days (and Three Nights) Gone
In how this relates to our discussion of the Lord’s Supper, it is important to establish, once-for-all, that Jesus did not die on Friday, but instead was crucified and buried on that Wednesday. He then remained in that carved-out rock—with a mighty, circular stone rolled in front of it, Roman soldiers sealing the entrance with cord and wax, and guards posted to keep watch—through Thursday, through Friday, and through Saturday (three days and three nights).
One day some teachers of religious law and Pharisees came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, we want you to show us a miraculous sign to prove your authority.”
But Jesus replied, “Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign; but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.”
Matthew 12:38-40 (NLT)
Now, I’m not going to get into all the heavy exegetical (I don’t even know what that means) components and discussions of the ancient texts, you can do that on your own time if you desire. Of significance, however, is that Jesus taught His disciples that He would remain dead for three days:
. . . suffer many things…and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.
Matthew 16:21 (NASB)
“The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.”
Mark 9:31 (NIV)
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
John 2:19 (NIV)
According to Jewish law, to be declared legally dead, a person had to be dead for more than three full days. If someone who appeared to be dead revived and came back to life prior to three full days, he or she was not legally deemed to have been dead (this must have happened at least once before for there to be a law for it). Therefore, if Jesus had risen from the dead before 3pm on the afternoon of Saturday, Aviv 17, the weekly Sabbath, He would not have been considered legally dead. Likewise, if He had not been crucified until Friday, the three-day law would not be adequately fulfilled. And as a result, His return to life would not have been considered a true resurrection from the dead.
Knowing this, one can now fully understand why Jesus delayed going to Lazarus in the account in John 11. Jesus knew that Lazarus was sick to the point of death, but Jesus deliberately remained where He was for two more days (John 11:6). He knew that Lazarus would not be considered legally dead until he had been dead for four.
The gospels clearly record that Jesus died on the day of Passover, Wednesday, Aviv 14. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus placed Jesus’ body in the tomb and closed the entrance with a huge stone when the sun was setting at approximately 6pm, ending Aviv 14. Jesus rose from the dead precisely three days and three nights later, when the sun was setting at the end of the weekly Sabbath, Saturday, Aviv 17. As He promised, Jesus had remained in the tomb (in the ground) for three full days and three full nights.
He left the tomb Saturday evening, satisfying each of the “in three days”, “on the third day” and the “after three days” prophecies He Himself made. This is actually the only way He could do so. And so, as our leading ladies established for us in the gospel accounts, Jesus had long since risen before the sun came up on Sunday morning, the first day of the week.
Sacrifice of Thanksgiving
It’s on this point we should round out something quite significant. As we’ve learned to see how Jesus fulfills the purpose in the Jewish Passover, we must also recognize His fulfillment of another major holy day: The Feast of Firstfruits.
“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest. He is to wave the sheaf before the Lord so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath.'”
Leviticus 23:10-11 (NIV)
And we noted from earlier, that because the Sabbath referred to here is the regular seventh-day Sabbath, the command here is that this offering of the First Fruits always occur on Sunday, the first day of the week, immediately following Passover.
Coincidentally, we now find this day of First Fruits coming to bear on that Sunday, Aviv 18. Each spring, celebration of this festival represents the things that come up out of the ground spontaneously and miraculously after the long, dead winter, and God commanded that the people give glory to God for this new life and abundance.
But in this particular year, Jesus served us again as the First Fruits offering. He was the first one “up” at the beginning of that day (in the evening of that Saturday), and each year we now celebrate this Sacrifice of Thanksgiving by celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So why is it called Easter, and what’s with the bunnies and the eggs? Well, back in the day (way back in the day) the Babylonians saw the first fruits—the newness—of each spring harvest, and they felt it appropriate to ask their goddess of fertility, Ishtar (Eastre), to bless the wombs of their people and promote new life. So the Babylonians worshiped the created things in nature that represented fertility and multiplication, such as rabbits and eggs. Remarkably, the Easter egg hunt represents the human effort in conception.
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Romans 1:25 (NIV)
So can we still hide the eggs with the kids, put on our Easter outfits (as appropriate) and consume chocolate or marshmallow bunnies? Well, as we discussed before, traditions in an of themselves are not evil, provided that we are not wittingly honoring or worshiping idols. Do you or your children believe that when they are participating in an Easter egg hunt that they are somehow asking the false goddess Ishtar to give them babies?
At least now you understand how bunnies and eggs ended up in the same holiday . . .
In 2021, Passover fell on Saturday, March 27th, with the First Day of Unleavened Bread beginning in the evening of that day (the beginning of Sunday). But because First Fruits doesn’t occur until the first Sunday following Passover, this year that celebration will occur this Sunday, April 4th, on Resurrection Day.
This is why, if you didn’t know, the early Church decided that the Feast of First Fruits would be perfect for us to remember Resurrection Day. Because that was the day of First Rejoicing! The beginning of all things made new.
