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.

Easter truly begins with Passover. Passover will begin at sundown this Friday. The death of Jesus cannot be fully understood without the background of both Passover (Pesach) and Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. But since this is the season of Passover let’s focus on that element. As you know, Passover is the annual celebration of the Hebrew’s release from centuries of slavery in Egypt. For Jews, it is the equivalent of our Fourth of July, Independence Day, yet with much greater spiritual overtones. It is the day God set them free and led them out of bondage to make them a nation and give them the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. It was a time when the power of God was manifested on behalf of his people to deliver them from Pharaoh, the most powerful despot on earth at the time.

Through Moses, God had commanded Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go that they might serve and worship him. Pharaoh had no mind to do so. One ragged, stuttering prophet Moses and his brother Aaron stood before the sovereign leader of Egypt and conveyed the edicts of the Almighty. Of course, Pharaoh who considered himself a god backed by pantheon of gods that Egypt worshipped, felt no compulsion to listen to this former but disavowed prince of Egypt. And so…God sent plagues, one after another, on the nation of Egypt. Each plague demonstrated God’s power over the “god’s” of Pharaoh: the Nile turning to blood demonstrated Jehovah’s power over Anuket, the goddess of the Nile; total darkness over Egypt demonstrated Jehovah’s power over Ra, the sun god, and so on.

After nine plagues devastated the nation, Pharaoh was warned that unless he let God’s people go, every first born (human and animal) in Egypt would die at the hand of God’s judgment. The Hebrew people were warned to stay in their homes that fearful night as God’s judgment passed through Egypt. They were to kill a lamb for each household and spread the blood of the lamb over the doors of each house. The sign of the blood would mark them as God’s people and the angels executing judgment on Egypt would pass over them, sparing their first born. Interestingly, even non-Jews who feared their God could come under the protection of that blood.

Inside that house they were to prepare themselves to leave Egypt. They were to roast and eat the lamb whose blood covered their door and they were to eat “the bread of haste” or unleavened bread prepared quickly for the journey. Exodus 12:11-13 states it this way: “This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.  On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.”   Of course, this final judgment targeted Pharaoh himself and those who proclaimed the rulers of Egypt to be gods. At the death of his own son, Pharaoh released Israel that night into the hands of their God.

Other regulations regarding the Passover lamb state that the lamb (or goat) had to be a year old male without blemish. After marking their doors with his blood, the people were to consume every part of the lamb that was edible and to be dressed and ready to leave on a moments notice which underlined their faith that deliverance was truly at hand.

Christ is all over Passover. Paul declares, “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). A year-old lamb is considered mature. A thirty-year old Jewish male was considered mature. Jesus began his public ministry at about the age of 30. The lamb had to be without blemish. Jesus was without sin. The blood of the lamb marked a household as belonging to God’s people and therefore allowed judgment to pass over that house. The blood of Christ marks every believer as belonging to God and allows God’s judgment to pass over each of us as his blood marks our sins and transgressions as paid in full. The household took the life of the lamb. Our sins took the life of Jesus. After the blood of the lamb was shed, the household was to eat or ingest every part of the lamb. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (Jn. 6:53). It’s not enough that we are marked by the blood of the Lamb but we must consume and assimilate every part of Jesus into our lives. Jesus died at Passover. He was raised three days later but his death marked deliverance for each of us.

I find it almost jarring that Jesus said to his disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk.22:15). What must it have been like for Jesus to go through each step of the Passover Seder with his disciples that night knowing that each part pointed to a the terrible death assigned to him in just a few hours? Yet Jesus said he eagerly desired to share that meal. Jesus dreaded the suffering to come but through the meal he looked past the suffering and saw the life and freedom that his death would purchase for each of us. Everything that Passover represents to the Jewish nation, should speak ten times more loudly to us for Christ is the ultimate Passover, our Passover.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36

With Passover and Easter coming up next week I thought I would use this week’s blogs to reflection on the single most significant event in post-Garden, human history – the death and resurrection of the Son of God.

As I look at Easter I wonder if it really had to be that way. Did Jesus really have to suffer for my sins? Couldn’t God have just swept them all away with an executive order and given Jesus a pass on his Passion? We could argue the point but the Father’s intentionality about the death of his only begotten tells me that there was no other way. Remember that Jesus asked the same question in the Garden of Gethsemane. The resounding silence of the Father answered the question.

His intentionality predates Adam’s sin. John tells us in his vision, “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev.13:8). The idea that in the mind of God Jesus was slain from the beginning of time tells us that, in his foreknowledge, God knew the path that man would take and the cost of redeeming his fallen creation even before he formed Adam. I find it remarkable that Elohim (Father, Son, and Spirit) was willing to pay that indescribable price in order to have a portion of his creation choose to spend eternity with him. That seems to be an almost obsessive love on the part of our Heavenly Father.

From the beginning of time, the cross would be the solution where God’s holiness and love would intersect. His holiness demanded that sin be dealt with rather than excused or ignored. Love desperately looked for a way to redeem the relationship between God and condemned man. Jesus willingly went to the cross to satisfy both the holiness of God and the love of God. Sin would be dealt with justly. Love would be triumphant.

The intentionality of God in his love was demonstrated from the very beginning. Immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve, God declared that the offspring of Eve (Jesus) would be in conflict with the serpent Satan and that the conflict would culminate with Jesus being bruised but the serpent would be crushed (Gen.3:15). Immediately after declaring that first Messianic prophecy, we are told that God covered Adam and Eve’s nakedness and shame with animal skins. At the outset, God sacrificed the innocent to cover the consequences of sin in man. From that moment on, sacrifices of innocent animals pointed to the sacrifice of the Lamb of God on the cross.   Sin condemned man as he ate from a tree in the Garden of Eden and man was set free from that condemnation as the Son of God hung on a tree (the cross) thousands of years later.

As God downloaded the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai, a whole system of sacrifices was codified. Each sin offering pointed to the reality that sin deserved death, but that God would allow an innocent to take our place on the altar of judgment.   Paul declared that the “wages of sin is death” (Rom.6:23). Sin earns death and death, in the spiritual sense, is separation from God. On that Passover Eve two thousand years ago, did Jesus simply die a physical death or did he also endure everything that would be experienced by those who die in sin? For a moment, on that dark Friday did Jesus experience the absolute desolation of the lost: fear, shame, guilt, unbearable loneliness, absolute darkness, and even torment so that we would never have to experience any of that? I’m not certain but I know that, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2Cor.5:21).

I also know that this death, this sacrifice was not accidental, unplanned, or a last ditch effort to salvage men who had unexpectedly rejected Jesus. It was an intentional offering of himself on our behalf that had rested in the mind of God while the blue prints of this earth were still being drawn up. It is the intentionality of God’s unrelenting love. Passover and Easter are without question God’s lavish expression of his love for a fallen race.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us,

in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom.5:8)