Easter

[Pilgrimer]

Paschal Week Chronology

6 days before Passover
Friday – Nisan 8 – late afternoon - Jesus arrives in Bethany from Jericho
Friday – Nisan 9 – sunset – Sabbath supper at home of Simon

5 days before Passover
Saturday – Nisan 9 – Sabbath - Jesus rests in Bethany; multitudes come from all over to see Jesus and Lazarus; chief priests and Pharisees plot to arrest both Jesus and Lazarus

4 days before Passover
Sunday – Nisan 10 – Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem; lambs selected for Passover; Jesus cleanses Temple for the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] time

3 days before Passover
Monday – Nisan 11 – Jesus teaches the multitudes

2 days before Passover
Tuesday – Nisan 12 – Jesus’ denunciation of Jerusalem; Mt. Olivet discourse

1 day before Passover
Wednesday – Nisan 13 - no record in Gospels how Jesus spent the day; possibly in Bethany and last night spent there
Wednesday – Nisan 14 – at sunset Jews begin to search their homes with candles for leaven

Passover
Thursday – Nisan 14 – morning – no leaven eaten after 10:00 a.m.
Thursday – Nisan 14 –noon– leaven cemonially destroyed by burning or by dispersing to the winds
Thursday – Nisan 14 – afternoon – lambs sacrificed, Seder prepared

1[SUP]st[/SUP] Day of Unleavened Bread
Thursday – Nisan 15 – evening – Seder eaten (roasted Passover lamb and 1st Passover Chagigah eaten {breast and shoulder of voluntary thank-offering})
Thursday – Nisan 15 – night – Jesus arrested, brought before priests and elders

Friday – Nisan 15 – morning – Jesus brought before Pilate
Friday – Nisan 15 – 9:00 in the morning – Jesus crucified
Friday – Nisan 15 – 12:00 noon– darkness
Friday – Nisan 15 – 3:00 in the afternoon – Jesus dies
Friday – Nisan 15 – late afternoon – Jesus' body placed in tomb
Friday - Nisan 15 - before sunset women purchase and prepare spices for Jesus' burial (festival sabbaths allowed certain work necessary for preparation for the feasts, shops were allowed to be open to provide pilgrims with necessary items to keep the feast); High Sabbath preparations made

Sabbath (a "High Day")
Friday – Nisan 16 – sunset – High Sabbath begins (2nd feast at which mandatory 2nd Passover Chagigah is eaten which Pharisees would have been excluded from eating had they become defiled that morning)
Friday – Nisan 16 – night – women rest

Saturday – Nisan 16 – Sabbath – women rest
Saturday - Nisan 17 - night - Rabbinic Law requires that work not be resumed during night following Shabbat

1[SUP]st[/SUP] Day of the Week
Sunday – Nisan 17 – morning early – women come to tomb, Jesus is risen


Sources: The Gospels, Talmudic Tractate "Pesachim," Josephus "Antiquities."

 

[Pilgrimer]

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday

The ancient village of Bethany from which Jesus began his short trek over the Mount of Olives for his Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem. He spent the week of Passover here, going up to the city during the day and spending his nights in the home of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha.





The present-day road from Bethany to Jerusalem over the Mt. of Olives follows the ancient course and would have been the route Jesus followed on Palm Sunday.




The ancient road leading down off the Mt. of Olives and across the Kidron Valley to the Eastern Gate.



The Eastern Gate as it would have appeared in the time of Jesus and through which he would entered the city on Palm Sunday.



The present walled up gates on the eastern aspect of the Temple mount were built in the 7-8th century during the Umayyad period and were not the gates Jesus would have used to enter the city.



These later gates that still stand today were built upon the ruins of an earlier, Herodian era gate that now lie underground, beneath the current gates and have been rendered unusable by Jews due to human remains being buried in the area under and immediately in front of the ancient Temple gate.



The Palestinian authority will not allow the area to be excavated so the ancient gate and the route leading up to it are inaccessible. The discovery was made by a student who was photographing the Umayyad period gates after a hard rain and the softened ground gave way beneath him. He fell into a large sinkhole and was able to photograph the Herodian-style arch that lies directly beneath the Umayyad period gates.

Jesus would have passed beneath the arch of this gate on his triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

 

[RedTent]

Thank you.

I yearn to spend my thanksgiving for being led out of bondage, like Passover and Easter is, celebrating like this. We don't have any play by play directions from God for our Easter Sunday, but scripture gives us a how to for celebrating with Passover.

The OT is full of how to. The NT is full of the heart of what the how to's were for. People of the OT sometimes forgot what the how to's meant, and people of the NT forget all the how to's. Then NT people, without any of the OT in their heart and soul read how Paul explained the heart of things were what it was all about, and reading that with tunnel vision means they decide he told them never, ever, to do anything, just take on the heart. Extremes never lead to God.

 

[Pilgrimer]

Thank you.

I yearn to spend my thanksgiving for being led out of bondage, like Passover and Easter is, celebrating like this. We don't have any play by play directions from God for our Easter Sunday, but scripture gives us a how to for celebrating with Passover.

The OT is full of how to. The NT is full of the heart of what the how to's were for. People of the OT sometimes forgot what the how to's meant, and people of the NT forget all the how to's. Then NT people, without any of the OT in their heart and soul read how Paul explained the heart of things were what it was all about, and reading that with tunnel vision means they decide he told them never, ever, to do anything, just take on the heart. Extremes never lead to God.

I appreciate your comments but as a long-time student of Old Testament typology I have to say that the Law was not a "how to," but rather the Law was a "symbol of" what true worship would be like in the Day of Salvation.

If you seek to keep the Passover, then the Jerusalem you must come to is the Heavenly City, and the Lamb you must partake of is the flesh and blood of Jesus. Just as there is no salvation in the earthly types, so too there is no peace or fellowship with God in those things which are mere shadows of heaven.

Have a blessed Easter season ~

In Christ,
Pilgrimer

 

[RedTent]

I appreciate your comments but as a long-time student of Old Testament typology I have to say that the Law was not a "how to," but rather the Law was a "symbol of" what true worship would be like in the Day of Salvation.

If you seek to keep the Passover, then the Jerusalem you must come to is the Heavenly City, and the Lamb you must partake of is the flesh and blood of Jesus. Just as there is no salvation in the earthly types, so too there is no peace or fellowship with God in those things which are mere shadows of heaven.

Have a blessed Easter season ~

In Christ,
Pilgrimer

Your points are so well stated! I wanted to use the words how to because I yearn for more doing in celebration instead of just saying without the doing.

The OT used what we do, often so they didn't even know why they were instructed to do certain things. All of these things could be done perfectly without, as you say, partaking of the flesh and blood of Jesus. They could go through being freed from bondage in Egypt without the least idea of being freed from bondage of sin. That doesn't work. But it is possible to shout "I believe, Lord I believe" without it affecting at all what we do. That also doesn't work.

It isn't necessary to follow the rituals of Passover to celebrate the freedom from bondage that Christ gives. But it is almost impossible to go through this ritual without Christ, it all relates to Him. I have seen many easter egg hunts and easter ham dinners that did not have Christ included at all. I yearn for celebrations that are all about Christ, nothing else.

 

[Angela53510]

Thanks for the interesting recount of the week leading to the crucifixion and resurrection using the Hebrew dates. And nice pictures of the journey into Jerusalem. I love history and archeology and geography and how they flesh out our understanding of what happened in those days.

 

[jody50]

When did Easter start?

 

[Abiding]

Nice work Pilgrimer. thank you