As the sun is setting on Easter Sunday, I find myself saturated with the story of Easter. In an effort to sharpen my focus on the real meaning of Passover and Easter I watched a number of movies and documentaries on the life and death of Jesus, his resurrection and ascension, and the aftermath for those who followed him.

It occurs to me that if I depended on Hollywood, television, or the entertainment industry, in general, for my understanding of Jesus and Easter, I would be totally confused. I wouldn’t be sure whether Jesus spoke with a rough middle-eastern accent or a highly-educated British accent. I would wonder if Jesus ascended to heaven after his resurrection or stuck around planet earth, married the girl of his dreams, and had kids. I might wonder if Jesus walked through life without emotion, seemingly untouched by events around him or whether he laughed and danced with those who just received new legs. I might wonder if 1^st Century Jews were actually blond with blue eyes or not. A few movies and documentaries seemed to make a real effort to tell the story with biblical accuracy while most movies or documentaries got part of the Biblical accounts right but used “artistic license” generously, very generously with the rest of the story. Some of the movies or documentaries left me wondering if they had read the biblical accounts at all.

On the one hand, I was glad that they were presenting the story at all. For the most part they presented Jesus as a man who actually lived, who was crucified unjustly, who rose on the third day and who ascended to heaven. All of that is a plus. But I find myself being troubled by the apparent paradigm that biblical truth and facts can be changed, modified or ignored at will for the sake of a more interesting story line that fits into a one or two hour format made for television.

I remember a time (old school) when Christians would demand that someone depicting biblical events would at least make an attempt to be “biblically accurate” because the text was sacred and should be handled with care. Now, it seems we operate on the cultural assumption that all truth is relative and personal. Objective truth doesn’t seem to matter anymore so we can take a “sacred text” and do what we please with it.

In my spirit, however, I sense that treating God’s word with a cavalier attitude is sort of like playing fast and loose with the Ark of the Covenant. Eventually, treating the sacred as something ordinary or insignificant will bite us and bite us hard. The Holy Spirit is very intentional and, through inspiration, directed the writers of the New Testament to record only part of what Jesus said and did (Jn.21:25). The part chosen by the Spirit to be recorded must be very significant – every word. Since the gospels were written especially to reveal Jesus, when we altar the text or when we change the story we alter the revelation. If we alter the revelation our understanding of Jesus will be incomplete or misguided. That concerns me. It also concerns me that even church-going believers may get much of their theology from television, movies, or books about the Bible rather than the Bible itself.

Here is the thing – Biblical accuracy matters. I do appreciate Hollywood making an attempt to communicate the Passion of Jesus. I love that Jesus is seen on numerous networks throughout the Easter season. It does give us an opportunity to reflect on Jesus and start conversations about him. But, for those who watch an array of shows or documentaries – or the wrong ones – it provides a real opportunity for confusion and a nebulous Jesus who is hard to get hold of.

Ultimately, we need to make sure that the church is communicating the sacred story of Jesus – not Hollywood or the History Channel. And, of course we are the church. Our first obligation is to make sure that we know the story accurately. Our second obligation is to tell the story – accurately and often. And it is a great story – a story with everything – love, suspense, intrigue, betrayal, devastation that rises to victory, a single man standing against the power of Rome, violence, death, life, the supernatural…and fishing tips. What else do you need? After all, Easter really is the greatest story ever told with a story line that needs no alterations.

Good Friday.  It would not have seemed good to anyone in the concentric circles that orbited  Jesus on that day. There were those closest to him – Peter, James, and John. Then the rest of the twelve including Judas, family members, a larger group that followed him from place to place and helped support his ministry, the crowds, and, of course, those set on destroying him.

The morning had begun before sunrise with his arrest. Betrayal had born its fruit. The night before, just as the twelve were taking the bitter herbs of their Passover Seder in the upper room, Jesus had announced that betrayal was at hand. It only took a few hours for that prophetic word to be fulfilled. Taken to a kangaroo court before the High Priest and members of the Sanhedrin, Jesus had been accused by conflicting testimony so that Caiaphas, the High Priest, finally bound him by an oath to tell the truth. “The high priest said to him, ‘I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ ‘Yes, it is as you say,’ Jesus replied. ‘But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.’ Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, ‘He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?’ ‘ He is worthy of death,’ they answered” (Mt.26:63-66).The confession of who we was would, of course, seal his fate in the mind of the Jewish leaders.

From our perspective as Americans, we expect trials to be logical events with twelve somewhat detached jurists coming to a conclusion to be read with little emotion in court. But in this “courtroom,” the high priest tore his clothes. Feelings ran high and anything that smacked of blasphemy raised a tide of emotion rather than a reading of the findings. Think of scenes on the 6:00 news in the Middle East – funerals or demonstrations with people weeping, shouting, and wringing their hands. Think of flags being burned and crowds filling streets chanting for the death of the Great Satan America. Those scenes frighten Americans because they seem so unpredictable. So out of control. So emotional. Imagine those crowds surrounding Jesus who had been accused of blasphemy on Passover Eve when Israel was awaiting a deliverer and needed no one to be offending God by his words or actions. Suddenly the kangaroo court would take on a life of its own and spill into the streets moving toward the quarters of Pontius Pilate.

From there “Good Friday” spiraled downward. Jesus became a political football that would be kicked around the streets of Jerusalem – Caiaphas to Pilate; Pilate to Herod; Herod back to Pilate and Pilate back to the Jewish leaders screaming for blood. Beaten beyond recognition, Jesus was finally dragged up Golgatha and spiked to a rough and splintered cross. All of this occurred by about 9:00 in the morning. The shepherd’s flock had denied him and scattered into the night, except for John, the youngest. All were hiding in fear and wondering what would come next. This was not the triumphal coronation of The Messiah they had expected. Instead of glorious and powerful, this Messiah was broken and helpless. Why didn’t he call on the legions of angels he had spoken about? Why didn’t he call down fire on Caiaphas as Elijah had called down fire when facing the prophets of Bail? Why could he not heal is own wounds as he had healed countless others? Nothing seemed good about that Friday.

Darkness followed. Then death. His limp body was pulled from the cross and placed hurriedly in a tomb to avoid desecrating Passover. I am certain there was no hint of Passover joy in the rooms where the disciples huddled in disappointment and fear. However, as the old sermon goes, “It was Friday, but Sunday’s comin.”

Three days later, a dismal defeat was transformed into certain, unimaginable victory. The Passover Lamb rose from the ashes and the world has never been the same. In Exodus 6, Jewish scholars find four promises that are reflected by four cups of wine in the Passover Seder. These were almost certainly recited by Jesus in the Upper room. To Israel, God had said, “I will bring you out. I will free you from being slaves. I will redeem you. I will take you to be my own.”

Those promises are for us as well. He will bring us out of the Kingdom of Darkness. He will declare us to be free instead of slaves and take away our slave identity. He will redeem us by paying the price for our freedom. He will make us his as a groom takes a wife to be his own. Jesus is our Passover, by his blood spread over the doorposts of our hearts he has brought us out, set us free, redeemed us, and taken us to be his own. In so many words softly spoken in the upper room, Jesus said, “This is my body broken for you. This is my blood shed for you that seals a covenant I have made with you. Remember all this until I come again and be sure that I am coming again.” It was a very good Friday after all.

There is a significant moment in the Passover order (seder) of observant Jews that goes back, at least, to the days of Jesus. The traditional unleavened bread is matzah which is the large, flat square of bread that looks like a huge cracker. It is made without yeast, rolled out, pierced with numerous small holes so it will not rise, and then baked at high temperatures on a rack so that browned stripes run across the bread. It is often called the bread of haste which recalls Israel’s hurried flight from Egypt the morning after the tenth plague.

In the tradition of the Passover meal the matzah is placed on a special plate and often is inserted into a matzah cover with three pockets. One whole unbroken square of matzah is placed into each of those pockets. At the set time, the middle piece of bread is removed and broken approximately in half. The larger piece is called the afikomen from a word that means “that which comes after” or “hidden.” That half is then placed in a decorative bag usually made of linen. The head of the house then takes the bag with the broken bread in it and hides it. Towards the end of the meal, the children are released to search the house to find the afikomen and bring it back to the table where it is then broken and shared with the family.

Here is the interesting part. Jewish rabbis disagree greatly about the meaning of the afikomen and its origins seem to be unknown. Since the matzah is placed in a bag with three compartments some assume that it represents the unity of the Jewish Patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Others believe it represents a unity of worship consisting of the priests, the Levites and the congregation. However, they have no idea why the middle matzah is removed, broken, and made the afikomen.

Let’s think about it. What has three parts but is unified as one? The triune God – Father, Son and Spirit comes to mind. The Son, taken from the middle of that order and even crucified in the middle of three crosses, is the bread of life – broken, bruised, pierced, and marked with stripes for our sake. His broken body was wrapped in linen and hidden away until he was found by those who sought him. Some Jewish writers suggest that the afikomen actually represents the Passover lamb that can no longer be offered because there is no temple remaining in Jerusalem. At the end of the meal, after the afikomen has been recovered, it is broken into smaller pieces at eaten by the family in a way that strikingly mirrors the Lord’s Supper.

It is ironic that shortly after the afikomen is found and consumed, the Jewish family will send the youngest child to the door to see if Elijah is outside ready to announce the coming of Messiah. It is as if God has already announced the first coming of Messiah to his people through their own Passover Seder and especially through the afikomen. The gospel itself is hidden in the Jewish Passover waiting to be discovered. Messianic Jews clearly connect the dots but observant Jews do not. And yet, God has imbedded the truth of Jesus not only in Old Testament prophecies but even in the traditions that God’s people have added to Passover.

We wonder how they could miss it but I wonder how much we are still missing about Jesus, the Holy Spirit, our inheritance in Christ, and so forth that, in time, might seem so obvious that we will wonder how we missed it for so many years even though God had been clearly pointing to it. That possibility challenges me to be open to God doing new things that I have not experienced before. Perhaps, my continuing prayer should be the same as Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians – that God might give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation that I might know him better. Because I am human I will probably miss much or most of what God is pointing to in my own strength but his Spirit can point the way. I must remain open to that and, perhaps, that should be your continuing prayer as well. What might he show us this Easter than has been there all along?