[Last year, I did a series of articles on Holy Week on my personal blog. I'm making a few updates and reposting them during this year's Holy Week.]

There are a number of interesting events and “coincidences” that can be examined in the Jewish Traditions of the Second Temple period which hold significant parallels with Christian understanding of the last week of Jesus’ life, leading up to his resurrection.

This is Part I in the series (Palm Sunday), with further parts planned for later this week, to correspond with the days being celebrated.

Lamb Selection Day

On the tenth day of the first month of the year (five days before passover), every family was required to choose a lamb for passover, per the instructions given by God to Moses:

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. (Exodus 12:3-6)

Jewish historians record that the lambs were brought from the fields of Bethlehem to the south up to Jerusalem and through the Northeast gate of the city by the pool of Bethesda, called the “Sheep’s Gate” (see above). (As we discussed during the the Desanitizing Christmas series, the sheep of Bethlehem were owned by the Sadducees, and only these sheep were allowed to be sacrificed on Passover – for the purpose of filling their corrupt coffers.)

In order that the families could comply with the instructions from Exodus 12, the lambs were chosen the afternoon of the 9th day of the first month, so that they would be with the family from the 10th (which began at sundown) through the 14th. One reason for this, according to some Jewish sources, was so that the lamb would spend time with the family, becoming a part of it, so that when it fulfilled its purpose, it would take the sins of the family with it.
The year of Jesus’ death, He and his disciples began the trip into Jerusalem on a donkey at Bethphage (which is exactly one Sabbath day’s walk from the city walls). Bethphage is to the east of Jerusalem, and the road travels over the Mount of Olives down to the Sheep’s Gate. There they were met by a crowd of people waving palm branches.
The palm branch was a symbol which some scholars believe was not allowed within the city of Jerusalem, because it was associated with the zealots who wanted to overthrow Rome. The war cry of the zealots was “(God) Save Us!” chanted over and over again. In Hebrew, this would be pronounced “Ho-sha-NAH”, which we pronounce today Hosanna. This comes from Psalm 118:25-26, which is at the end of the Psalsms of Jewish blessings (Ps 113-118) called the hallel, sung during Jewish holidays.

O LORD, save us;
O LORD, grant us success.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.
From the house of the LORD we bless you. (Psalm 118:25-26)

Palm Sunday

This is the setting for Lamb Selection Day – which we Christians call “Palm Sunday”. And it is on this day that the Lamb of God, born in the flocks of Bethlehem, who was sacrificed for all of our sins, entered the city of Jerusalem. This was done at the end of the day (Mark 11:11) which would have been the same time at which the Passover lambs were being selected for each family group (and it is also the time that the disciples would have chosen the lamb for their own Passover Meal, which occured on the evening of the 14th day).

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

“Say to the Daughter of Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosannain the highest!”

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”

The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.” (Matthew 21:1-11)

As Westerners, we may miss this, but to Hebraic audiences, the picture is a stark one being painted here: Jesus is proclaimed a messiah by the people, but in doing so, they were selecting him as the Passover lamb to cover all the sins of the people for all time. He was from the flocks of Bethlehem, as all lambs were required to be in that time. The people waved the Palm branches, declaring Yeshua the Messiah. And so it is that the early Christians understood this day (which we celebrate as Palm Sunday) as the day in which Jesus was selected to be our sacrifice.

And so it is that this perfect lamb would have additional significance 5 days later, on the day of Passover…

(to be continued in Part II: Passover)

This was recently submitted by Dave Marriott

I saw this via a link at www.sliceoflaodicea.com

http://dougpagitt.com/?p=87

As far as I am concerned, the case is closed on Doug Pagitt and Rob Bell…

I am schocked you folks haven’t said anything about this yet…

Thanks for the submission, Dave. You know, If I was invited to join a conversation on spirituality with arguably one of the most influential figures in the world, I would be ecstatic at the opportunity. Imagine the influence that Bell is being given here! He is literally going to have influence over some of the most influential spiritual figures in the history of humanity.

You see, there are two very different responses that one could have to an invitation like this

A. We see this as a vile, universalism event. We reject the invitation in the name of Christianity and the One True God. This obviously would send a crystal clear message to them, and set us apart as having a “one-road to heaven” theology. Understand that I hold strongly to all those theological issues… one god, one way, no other way to heaven. However, by doing this, we must realize that we are bowing out of the global conversation on youth spirituality, and will have little to no influence in this process. The world will move forward in their agenda to convert the young people of the nations, leaving us whining and complaining about how bad the world is years later. I liken this choice to not voting for the president and then complaining about all of the bad decisions later. If you do not put your two cents in at the beginning, you have no right to criticize the global movement that will happen later.

B. We accept the invitation and have influence on the influencers of the world. Bell of Pagitt have not been asked to change their theology, tone down their beliefs or sign a global statement of faith. They have a free platform to shape the spirituality of young people on a huge level. Now, Bell might not convert the Dali Lama that day. However, this is a foot in the door to begin to have discussions with some of the most powerful religious leaders of the world. Imagine if Bell became one of the spiritual advisers for the Buddhist world… imagine the impact he could have with changing their view of Christ.

I pick B. Why is it that the ODMs believe that if we even enter into a conversation with non-beleivers, suddenly we are denying our faith and calling for a one-world-religion. Here is a classic example of Christian isolationism…

20-30 years ago, Disney calls together evangelical leaders to help with the growing number of homosexuals that were joining their organization. They knew that they needed some help if they were going to have an impact on the gay community. After a long debate, the SBC came back to Disney and said that they were against homosexuality and were unwilling to help. It was not their place to do so.

So, the issue grows and grows until Disney is finally forced to give homosexual partners health insurance and benefits. And how does the SBC respond? With a national boycott on Disney for being a “gay-friendly” company, filling our young minds with homosexual perversion. Is there something wrong with this picture?

If you aren’t willing to at least try to solve the problem, don’t complain about the massive movement of problems later on!

Note: I’m going to do my best to avoid naming names in this post. Not because I’m so wonderful, but because it’s not really relevant. Both the issues I’m going to cite were noted on this blog — in a broader sense — in the last few months. So if you’re really curious and have too much time on your hands, feel free to dig.

A few months ago, a certain blogger slammed an author. The blogger started his drive-by by saying “My only prayer for [the author] is that …” and then proceeded to make several highly critical, but spiritual-sounding, remarks about the author. My initial reaction was anger, as I consider the author to be a friend. My second reaction was “Dude, if this is your idea of prayer, please don’t EVER pray for me!” The Pharisee’s prayer (Luke 18:11-12) in Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector was much more gracious.

The blogger later repented of his comments, but (1) you can’t really take words back, and (2) I wonder if he understands that what he said was not only ungracious and inaccurate, but also absolutely illogical.

At about the same time, someone posted a video on YouTube of several teenage girls at his church dancing to a Mariah Carey Christmas song. The video was labeled as “body worship” (maybe there’s someone out there that can worship to Ms Carey, but it’s somewhat improbable). One or more ODMs went off about the video, not merely decrying what was a probable mis-labeling, but then descending into predictable divination of motivations, over-generalizations, and mis-characterizations.

The video poster changed the labeling of the video, but (1) you can’t really take words back, and (2) I wonder if he did so because he realized that it was wrong, or just to quell the firestorm.

Both the blogger and the video poster fell victim to the same thing — do something, slap a Christian label on it, and the action becomes spiritual, regardless of what the “something” was. I would call this eisegesis, but most eisegesis at least has some (mis-applied) Scripture behind it, whereas Christian labels tend to have human tradition as their only backing. Depending on the label that gets slapped on the action, this can be anywhere from “Christianese” to downright blasphemy. Last I checked, the latter was definitely a Bad Thing (TM), and most folks would probably agree that the former isn’t too keen either.

Yes, sometimes Christian labels are a convenient short-hand (e.g. Christian music, Christian bookstore). But I think that sometimes we get carried away with them. When the label is applied after the fact, as some sort of justification (whether conscious or not), then we’ve lost the plot.

I think this article by Ingrid presents some good definitions of biblical mediation.  I would only have two things to say

1. I don’t know of too many people who would say that as a Christian, our goal is to empty our mind in meditation.  Even most of the big bad emergents that she has criticizes for their meditative technique, including youth specialties, would say that the goal is not to remove everything from our minds.  In fact, the opposite would be true… to fill our minds with the scriptures and the person of Christ.
2. Having that said, how do the meditation practices of those she criticizes err from her definition?  Repeating the Word of God, thinking about the attributes of God, praying while meditating are all included in the meditation of those written about.  I don’t see too many people calling for us to chant to the spirit-beings, emptying our souls to find nirvana.  No one is asking us to channel our chi and focus our chakra.

This is a quote from and interview with J.K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter, from LifeSiteNews.com 

The newly released edition of the Edinburgh University Student newspaper, the oldest student newspaper in the UK, includes an interview with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.  In the interview Rowling claims to have received death threats from Christians opposed to her novels, calling Christian ‘fundamentalists’ “dangerous” and comparing them by inference to Islamic fundamentalists.

Asked if there were not some Christians who dislike the book ‘intensely’, Rowling replied, “Oh, vehemently and they send death threats”…

And the ODMs still wonder why many people don’t believe us when we say that we are a religion of peace, love and joy.

Mike Corley recently took on the SBC’s initiative to be better stewards of our environment.  Let me first say that I have a growing respect for Mike and his willingness to go where other ODMs are not.  However, this article and radio broadcast left me scratching my head with confusion.

On air, he reads the initiative and agrees with everything, including the scripture used to back up the movement.  There was not one thing that he said was unbiblical or even off base theologically. In fact, the only negative thing he could say about it was that they referred to those who follow Christ as “Christ followers.”  So all in all, you would think that there was little cause for concern.   But, he continues by saying that he has “great concerns as to why this environmental move has taken place in the SBC.”

He makes a strange connection between this initiative and what he calls “hyper-arminianism.”  He defines this as “the implied or distinct teaching and mindset that God cannot save someone without that person’s agreement or allowance. “  Mike never makes the argument for the connection between this move to go green and this theology, so I am not too sure how one’s view of election would affect a biblical argument for caring for the earth.

He then takes the opportunity to rag on Rick Warren and LifeWay, the SBC publishing company –once again, giving no connection to the green initiative.  It seems that his basic premise is that are were bigger issues for the SBC to handle.  But it looks like he just took advantage of the situation to promote his opinions on the denomination, Rick Warren and what he calls the “money-driven practices of LifeWay”

He closes his article with a very strange comment

“But why not spend time and money on clearly defining the Gospel and preaching that Gospel, rather than doing the popular “green thing”.  It may make good conversation over a pumpkin spice latte, but it’s not the Gospel.”

First off, the SBC is known for its evangelistic focus.  While I am sure that Corley would say that Southern Baptists mostly produce false converts, not too many denominations can touch them in the amount of money and energies spent on reaching the world for Christ.  Therefore, the amount of time and money spent on drafting up this initiative is a drop in the bucket compared to that given to preaching the gospel.  If they weren’t doing the latter, the argument might hold up.

Second, there are lots of issues that are “not the gospel’:  Church discipline, modesty, homosexuality, abortion, divorce, idol worship, and spiritual disciplines to name a few.  Does that mean these are reduced to simply good Starbucks conversation topics too?  No.  Being good stewards of the world that God has given us is no different.       

Joe Martino here reporting from my underheated office on my lunch break. We recently played a little game of “Which emergent leader said this?” to smashing success. Now, I’d like to play a new game. Who said it? Here’s how the game works, I’m going to put a quote up and we’ll see if we can figure out who said it and what we think about it. Of course you can play at my blog too.

Sometime, though it’s a little more complicated. What if we are the ones who have done evil, and we see the just consequences of evildoing coming on us? In this situation God saves by judging…and then forgiving. So often the danger of evil we face is self-created, self0-inflicted, self-sabotaging–and we keep doing it because we are self-deluded and self-deceiving through denial. …

We often refer to this saving judgment as God “convicting” us of our sin and our need for repentence. Again, without it there is no true salvation. Forgiveness without conviction is not forgiveness; it is irresponsible toleration. It doesn’t lead to reconciliation it leads to chaos.

the ODMs have been harping on Youth Specialties for a while now. Their recent rant was over an advertisement for their annual leadership conference, The Core.

Youth Specialities CORE 2008 Generation Change Youth Conference is “calling students to change their world” and to Generate Hope, Peace, Love, Change, A new mind, A new heart, A new me, Justice. The plenary sessions include:

• THE JOURNEY OF TRANSFORMATION
• CREATING A TRANSFORMATIONAL YOUTH MINISTRY
• CHANGED PEOPLE ARE MEANT TO BRING CHANGE in terms of “Listen to God”, “Truly Deep Justice”, “Discovering your holy discontent” and “Joining God in Global Transformation”

Of course they brought up all the typical arguments of how meditating on scripture is a horrible thing, and guided prayer could never be a biblical concept. They gave this in response:

How can you generate the changes itemized in the introductory paragraph? Only through the blood of Christ, repentance and by the sanctification of the Holy Spirit as the believer learns to mortify the flesh and live the exchanged life as a new creation in Christ. But you won’t find that at the Core Conference.

Now, being a respectable “research” organization, I am sure they have done the background work and found that the blood of Christ, repentance and sanctification of the Holy Spirit are topics that are off-limits at The Core. Having gone to this event, I can tell you that this is far from the truth. Also, apparently the ODMs do not hold a very high view of scripture. In fact, it is the living word of God that bring about life transformation, and that is ultimately what Youth Specialties is trying to give the Youth today.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to your word.

I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.

I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.Praise be to you, O LORD;
teach me your decrees.
With my lips I recount
all the laws that come from your mouth.

I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.

I meditate on your precepts
and consider your ways.
I will meditate on all your works
and consider all your mighty deeds.

Sounds like meditating on scripture, recounting the word of God and listening for the voice of God may be a heretical concept to the ODMs, but certainly not to scripture. Which leaves me wondering… what is the big deal with this again?

This video is pretty self-explanatory, and I guess it shows the idiocy of clinging to our pet theologies a little too tightly.  Props to Ben Witherington for pointing this gem out.

Disclaimer:  This language may be somewhat offensive, but be assured this is a real sermon and not a joke.

Found this on Mark Driscoll’s blog, thought it was interesting:

I got a call from Pastor Rick Warren last week. He called simply to see if there was anything he could do to help. His kindness was humbling and helpful. I asked him how he handled his critics and he had a great insight that in our day criticism has changed. He explained that there was a day when a critic would have to sit down and write a letter and then mail it into a newspaper. With limited space, the paper would then be able to only print a fraction of the letters they received. The printed letters were often not read and quickly became dated. However, Warren said, in our day criticism is marked by the following four factors:

1. Instant
2. Constant
3. Global
4. Permanent

Warren then went on to explain that, as Jesus experienced, the strongest criticism for any Christian leader comes from rigid religious people. When I asked him what someone should do when facing criticism, he gave the following insightful points:

1. Turn your critics into coaches by hearing what they are saying and humbly considering if there is any truth in their criticisms to learn from.
2. Never engage the critics on their terms because it only escalates the conflict and is not productive.
3. Be very careful with firing off emails or leaving voicemails and responding out of anger in a way that you will later regret.
4. Shout louder than your critics to define yourself and do not allow them to define you.

I want to publicly thank Warren for giving me some good advice and taking time out of his busy schedule to speak into my life and ministry. I also pass his wisdom along to other Christian leaders

thanks ianmcn for the submission. If you find a story on the inter-web that you think is worth publishing here, make sure to make note of it on our “submissions” page.