Passover: When God saved the Hebrews.

Back when I once taught on this topic, one of my students asked, “Why don’t we celebrate Passover?”—meaning we Christians. And it just so happens we do. We call it Pascha, Pascua, Páques; most languages use some form of the original Hebrew word פֶּסַח/pesákh, “skipping or passing over.”

It’s just English-speakers use the word Easter. And obviously we do it way different than we see in the scriptures—so different, English-speaking people routinely assume Easter and Passover are two entirely different holidays.

I can’t argue with this assumption. Christians don’t bother to purge our homes of yeast or leavening. Don’t cook lamb. (Nor practice the modern Jewish custom of not having lamb, since there’s no temple in Jerusalem to ritually sacrifice a lamb in.) Don’t put out the seder plate. Don’t tell the Exodus story. Don’t have the kids ask the Four Questions (what’s with the matzot, why are bitter herbs part of the meal, why roasted meat in particular, and why does the food gets dipped twice?). Don’t hide the afikomen and have the kids search for it; we do that with the eggs though.

And some English-speaking Christians do observe Passover as a separate holiday. Some of us celebrate it Hebrew-style, as spelled out in the scriptures, as in Exodus and Deuteronomy. But more often, Christians follow the lead of our Messianic Jewish sisters and brothers, figuring they’re Jews so they know how to do it. Thing is, Messianic Jews borrow their traditions from the Conservative Judaism movement. (Which, contrary to their name, ain’t all that conservative.) Their haggadah—their order of service—is nearly always adapted from Orthodox or Conservative prayer books, which means it dates from the 10th century or later.

Some Jewish customs come from the Mishna, so they do date back to the third century, and maybe go as far back as the first. But they might not have. It’s entirely likely most of them originated after the temple was destroyed, ’cause now you can’t do the religious portion of Passover at temple, so you gotta do it somewhere, so now it’s made part of the seder, the ritual Passover dinner. Jesus and his students may have simply eaten dinner, quoted the Exodus story, thanked God for his salvation, drank, sang, and that’s about all. No haggadah; no seder plate, no afikomen, no Four Questions, no Airing of the Grievances… oh wait, that’s Festivus.

And not all these customs are part of everyone’s Passover. Just as Christians celebrate Christmas and Easter every which way, Jews then and now got to select their own customs. Hence families have unique customs, and various synagogues emphasize various things. Medieval Jewish communities in eastern Europe, north Africa, Spain, and the middle east, all came up with their individual haggadahs. So did Samaritans.

The point of the haggadah is to teach the Exodus story to those who don’t know it, usually children. And remember, Jesus’s students were teenagers, not children: Legal adults who already knew the Exodus story. If they hadn’t heard it in enough detail at home, Jesus would’ve taught it to them personally, and they’d’ve celebrated several Passovers together by the time of his last Passover supper. So, just as some families don’t tell the nativity story every Christmas once the kids get older, don’t be surprised if Jesus supper skipped the Exodus story as redundant.

Christians usually know very little about Jewish culture, and mistakenly think that’s how Jews and Pharisees behaved in Jesus’s day too. In my experience Messianic Jews think this too—and regularly make a big, big point of how Jesus would’ve behaved exactly like the Jews they know… when the gospels make it really clear Jesus didn’t behave at all like his fellow Jews, and it really annoyed them. In either case when they attend a Passover seder and listen to whatever haggadah the leader borrowed or wrote, they routinely think it’s so profound how Jesus did all these rituals (even though he likely didn’t) and how his life and teachings “fulfilled” all these rituals.

Er, no. Of course we can see similarities between Jesus’s life and teachings, and Passover rituals… and Christian rituals, and really any rituals if you wanna connect the dots hard enough. But today’s Passover customs might entirely postdate Jesus. So let’s not read too much into what Jesus “brought meaning into”—he may not have. Especially when your haggadah was put together by Christians.

The “Not what I want” prayer.

The “Not what I want” prayer isn’t a popular prayer. Downright rare sometimes. Because when we pray, we’re intentionally asking God for what we want. Why would we tell him to not give us what we want? Did we suddenly forget the point of prayer?

Why pray “Not what I want”? ’Cause we’re mimicking Jesus. When he has us pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done,” Mt 6.10 and when he himself prayed this at Gethsemane:

Mark 14.35-36 KWL

35Going a little further,

Jesus is falling to the ground and is praying

that the hour might pass him by,

if it’s possible.

36Jesus is saying, “Abba! Father!

For you¹, everything is possible!

Take this cup away from me!

But it’s not what I will,

but what you¹ will.”

Y’notice Jesus did tell the Father what he wanted: He didn’t want to suffer. He wanted “the cup” to pass him by. He didn’t wanna be crucified; what kind of madman would wanna be crucified? Yet at the same time he knew his purpose in this world was to do as the Father sent him to do. Jn 5.19, 8.28 At the time his will didn’t match the Father’s, but he determined he would make his will match the Father’s. Even if it meant suffering.

There’s our example.

That’s why it’s not a popular prayer. Few of us Christians are willing to commit ourselves to God so radically. Of the few who do, we’re totally willing to die for God… not realizing when it really does come time to die for him, perfect fear will cast out zeal. Note Simon Peter. At 9 p.m., totally ready to die for Jesus; Lk 22.23 and 3 a.m., totally lying about him to slave girls. Lk 22.56 Who, as slaves and as girls in that culture, couldn’t even testify against him in court! A few hours can change an awful lot.

But this is why our willingness to follow God absolutely anywhere, can’t be based on zeal. It’s gotta be based on our regular surrender and submission to God’s will. We gotta regularly pray, along with Jesus, “Not what I want. Not my desires, wishes, and will. Your will.”

Jesus gets abused by his guards.

Mark 14.65, Matthew 26.67-68, Luke 22.63-65, John 18.22-23.

Historically, people have always abused prisioners. They figure there was good reason you were arrested and imprisoned, whether you’d been tried and convicted or not. Heck, maybe you even weren’t guilty of the charges brought against you… but you were in prison because you’d done wrong in some other way, and either the gods or the universe were punishing you for it in this way. Or whatever other justification bullies could come up with for smacking you around.

Our laws have since made prisioner abuse illegal. Not that these laws have stopped anything. Cops and guards will still smack a prisioner around if they don’t respect the law and think they can get away with it. Lynchings used to happen all the time in the United States. Not just during the Jim Crow era, when white terrorists did it to blacks to promote white supremacy, but whenever any angry citizens took the law into their own hands and tarred and feathered, or shot or hung, anybody they saw as troublemakers… or competition. Not for nothing do police body cameras need to stay constantly on. But let me get off that tangent and get to when Jesus was slapped by his guards. Happened during his pre-trial trial:

John 18.22-23 KWL

22Once he says this, one of the bystanding police

gives Jesus a slap, saying,

“This you answer the head priest?”

23Jesus answers him, “If I speak evil, testify about the evil.

If good, why beat me?”

In Mark, Jesus isn’t beaten till after the Judean senate found him guilty, but in both Matthew and Luke the guards didn’t care to wait for any trial; they made up their own minds about him.

Mark 14.65 KWL

Certain people begin to spit on Jesus,

to cover his face and punch him,

to tell him, “Prophesy!

Which underling gave you that punch?”

Matthew 26.67-68 KWL

67Then they spit in Jesus’s face and punch him.

with those slapping him

68saying, “Prophesy to us, ‘Messiah’!

Which of us hit you?”

Luke 22.63-65 KWL

63The men holding Jesus are mocking him,

beating him,

64and covering Jesus’s face,

{punching him in the face,

and} saying, “Prophesy!

Which of us hit you?”

65Many other slanderers

are saying likewise to Jesus.

This behavior offends Christians nowadays, because we know Jesus did nothing wrong. And yet all too often, these very same Christians don’t mind if another prisioner gets roughed up by police or prison guards, because those folks must be guilty, right? They can’t possibly have caught the wrong guy. Can’t possibly be hassling another innocent victim like Jesus. Right?

I’ve heard fellow Christians take perverse glee about convicts experiencing abuse in prision. Even jokes about prison rape, which are way too commonplace considering this is a crime which needs to be exterminated. But these folks love the idea of rough treatment in prison. Serves ’em right, they figure.

But of course violence is not a legal punishment, and doesn’t fit the crime. Somebody incarcerated for a lesser crime, like fraud or theft, can be attacked same as a murderer or rapist. Someone can be assaulted for their race, or because they’re gay, or because they’re mentally ill, or any number of other factors which have nothing to do with why they should be in prison. But even if they are in prison for murder: If that’s a beloved family member of yours, you’re not gonna appreciate those prison-rape jokes. And God forbid there’s some mixup which puts you in a holding cell with some angry, rapey thugs.

To hear these jokesters talk, if it were up to them we’d go right back to the bad old days of beating confessions out of suspects. And they claim to be Christian! So how is it Jesus’s experience at the hands of his accusers, haven’t made ’em realize “innocent till proven guilty” is always the way to treat suspects?

Well, lots of reasons. But most of them have their origin in gracelessness.

Holy Week: When Jesus died.

Today is Palm Sunday, the start of what we Christians call Holy Week. Various Christians also call it Great Week, Greater Week, Holy and Great Week, Passion Week, and Easter Week (particularly by those people who consider Easter the end of the week). It remembers the week Jesus died, which took place 9–15 Nisan 3793 in the Hebrew calendar. In the Julian calendar that’d be 29 March to 4 April of the year 33. Here, have a handy infograph:

Of course Jesus rose on 16 Nisan (or Sunday the 5th), the day Christians now designate as Easter.

Different Christians observe Holy Week in different ways, depending on church and local custom. The churches I grew up in, usually had a somber service on Good Friday, and a just-as-somber service on Easter Sunday, ’cause they usually held some sort of passion play where most of the service was focused on Jesus getting killed. Lots of weeping. Lots of repentance and conversions. Happy ending, ’cause Jesus is alive, but the focus was more on him dying for our sins. Lots of churches tend to focus on the sad bits, ’cause we humans get depressing like that.

But many churches—properly—spend Holy Week on the sad bits, and Easter Sunday and the weeks thereafter rejoicing. Because Jesus is alive.

Quoting Job’s friends.

Years ago a pastor gave me a daily devotional, and this year I decided to actually use it. It consists of 366 really short, three-paragraph excerpts from E.M. Bounds’s writings. Edward McKendree Bounds (1835–1913) was a Methodist preacher and Confederate chaplain whose sermons on prayer were collected into a number of books, and once the books got into the public domain, Christian publishers have been cranking ’em out like he’s the best writer on prayer there ever was. Meh; he’s unnecessarily wordy (as was the popular style in public speaking in the 1800s), and he’s made too many problematic statements about meriting God’s favor before he’ll answer prayer. If Bounds were legitimately good at communicating with God he wouldn’t’ve joined the Confederates in their godless white supremacist crusade. But enough about him.

The devotional starts with a bible verse or two, gives the Bounds passage, and ends with a short written prayer. Made in China, printed in brown ink, bound in fake leather, with a built-in ribbon for a bookmark. The sort of devotional they sell in bible bookstores for $4.99 and stash by the checkout. It’s not very good, but you get what you pay for.

Anyway, I was flipping ahead a few pages and noticed a verse for the day came from Job, chapter 5. Who’s speaking in Job 5? It’s not Job; it’s his friend Eliphaz from Teymán, Jb 4.1 who’s giving Job unsolicited advice which the LORD later denounces:

Job 42.7-9 CSB

7After the LORD had finished speaking to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. 8Now take seven bulls and seven rams, go to my servant Job, and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. Then my servant Job will pray for you. I will surely accept his prayer and not deal with you as your folly deserves. For you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” 9Then Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the LORD had told them, and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer.

Eliphaz’s advice is bad advice. Untrustworthy. Unreliable. Slanderous. Blasphemous.

So what’s it even doing in the bible? It’s there to warn us how not to think about God. It’s there as a representative of the popular thinking, of what passed for “wisdom,” in Job’s day. Stuff which sounded good to like-minded people, but betrayed a lack of understanding about God’s character and grace. Bad advice like Eliphaz’s exists throughout human history, in every culture, including cultures which imagine themselves predominantly Christian like ours. The reason the author of Job included it, was to warn us away from it. Do not think like Eliphaz—nor Bildad, nor Zophar—no matter how much it resonates with you. That resonance is not the Holy Spirit confirming the truth. That’s your flesh.

Here’s the problem: People don’t read. And of course they don’t read Job either. The few times they do, they read the beginning, when Satan destroys all Job’s stuff, and the end, when God gives it back, and largely skip the middle—the parts we were meant to read, and learn how not to think.

Or they read it when they’re gonna preach a sermon about a particular topic. (Like prayer, which makes sense for a prayer devotional.) So they get out their Nave’s Topical Bible and read all the bible verses, pulled out of context, which are either about prayer, or are about people praying. Or they get out their computer bible and look up every verse which has “pray” and “prayer” in it. And rather than double-check the context of every verse, to make sure it actually says something valid about the topic, they just quote it if it sounds good.

That’s exactly what this devotional did. Quoted Elphaz like he knew what he was talking about. Doesn’t Eliphaz say he knew what he was talking about?

Job 5.27 CSB

“We have investigated this, and it is true!

Hear it and understand it for yourself.”

Yeah, you “investigated” it like those people who “investigated” vaccines on the internet. It’s just as full of rubbish.

The Lᴏʀᴅ created humans.

Genesis 1.26-31.

Day six in the creation story of Genesis 1 started with God creating the land animals. After that, on the same day, he created humans. Then he gives us humans the planet he created, tells us—and the animals—we get the plants for food, and basically wraps up the whole of creation by recognizing the whole thing as ט֖וֹב מְאֹ֑ד/tov meöd, “good in abundance.” Or as the KJV put it, “very good,” but maybe very isn’t quite superlative enough. God considered it profoundly good. So that’s how I translated it.

Genesis 1.26-31 KWL

26God said, “We will make humanity in our image,

like our likeness.

They’ll have dominion over the sea’s fish,

over the heavens’ bird,

over the beast,

over all the land,

over every creeper creeping on the land.”

27God created humanity in his image;

he created it in God’s image;

he created them male and female.

28God blessed them.

God told them, “Bear fruit. Be many.

Fill the land and take it over.

Rule over the sea’s fish,

over the heavens’ bird,

over every life which creeps on the land.”

29God said, “Look, I give you

every seeding plant on the face of the land,

every tree, every seeding fruit in it.

It’s for food.

30To every life in the land,

to the heavens’ bird,

to everything creeping in the land

with a living soul in it,

every green plant is food.”

It was so.

31God saw everything he did.

Look, it was profoundly good.

It was dusk, then dawn.

Day six.

I remind you: The pagan myths had the gods shape the earth for themselves. Humans were kind of an afterthought: “Oh yeah, we’re gonna need slaves. Let’s make humans.” Their humans are then instructed to get to work on the gods’ behalf—and don’t annoy them, or the gods will plague them. Maybe kill them and send them to a really bad afterlife. But for loyal slaves, a really good afterlife—and then they got to work on the afterlife.

In Genesis God does no such thing. There’s nothing here about God ruling the earth. (Yes, there is stuff about that elsewhere in the bible. But not in this story.) In this creation story, God doesn’t make the earth for himself, but for us. He creates humans and tells us to run the place. It’s our planet. It’s our duty to sort it out and keep it functioning properly. Not his.

He doesn’t even warn us to run the planet properly, lest we suffer consequences. (And as we’ve seen in various environmental catastrophes, there are consequences. Neither does God threaten us with a bad afterlife if we muck things up—God doesn’t even make an afterlife.

Yeah, think about that. There is no afterlife in the ancient Hebrew creation stories. Because why would you need one? Sin and human death weren’t part of God’s ecosystem. (Plant death yes; animals and fungi gotta eat! Possibly some animal death too; God doesn’t address what sea creatures were meant to eat, and usually that’d be each other. Anyway.) Humans were meant to live forever—and still are. So why create an afterlife?

Whereas ancient pagan religions—especially the Egyptians!—were obsessed with the afterlife. Every single thing they did was for the sake of a good afterlife. Annoyingly, many Christians get the very same way about “heaven,” because they’ve fallen for our popular culture’s myths about dying and going to heaven—which aren’t at all consistent with what the New Testament teaches about resurrection and New Jerusalem.

Yeah, after we humans mucked up God’s profoundly good creation in Genesis 3, God had to create more stuff, like the afterlife. Which still isn’t really part of God’s ecosystem. It exists, but it’s purely temporary. Eventually God’s throwing it into the burning lake of sulfur. Rv 20.11 It’ll be gone.

Preach the gospel. And use words.

There’s this really popular quote Christians use. It’s attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, but we’ve no evidence he ever said it. Kinda like the St. Francis prayer, which Francis didn’t write either. People really like putting words in Francis’s mouth, don’t they?… but I digress. The saying is, “Preach the gospel [at all times]—use words if necessary.” Which sounds profound and nice, doesn’t it?

How Christians typically interpret it is, “We preach the gospel through our actions. Not just our words; not just with sermons and literature, but being kind to others, doing good deeds, loving our neighbors, and otherwise demonstrating our faith isn’t dead by doing good works.” And isn’t good works a fruit of the Spirit anyway? Shouldn’t we already be doing them?—and in so doing, we follow the Holy Spirit and Jesus?

But here’s the thing: Words are necessary.

I’ve met many a pagan who’s seen Christians do good works. Who’s seen us be kind to people, seen us create and run charities, seen us actively get out and help the needy. But when you ask ’em why these Christians are doing good deeds, their answers are always, always, “Oh they’re just trying to get to heaven.” They think we think we’re saved by good karma.

Heck, I’ve seen many a Christian who says the very same thing. “Oh those Christians are practicing ‘faith righteousness.’ You know we’re not saved by works though; we’re saved by faith.” Of course when these people say “saved by faith,” often what they really mean is “saved by the Christian faith,” i.e. saved by believing the right things, saved by orthodoxy. Which is a good work! So we’re not saved by that either. We’re saved by God’s grace. Get it right, folks.

God’s grace is a huge part of the gospel: God’s kingdom has come near, so let’s repent, and trust God to save us, and he will. Grace is central to Christianity, central to forgiveness, and what God’s kingdom runs on. Yet these people watching us Christians do our good works—both pagan and Christian—have somehow not picked up on the grace thing. Even when we’re actively demonstrating grace by doing good things for people who don’t deserve it, can’t earn it, and in some cases don’t even appreciate it.

Grace went over their heads. Hey, they don’t practice it, so it stands to reason they won’t recognize it.

And this is why, when we proclaim the gospel, we have to use words! Actions are open to interpretation, and people typically interpret things based on themselves, based on their own prejudices and biases. They see us doing good deeds, unconsciously think, “Why might I do those good deeds?” and conclude all sorts of self-serving ulterior motives. By the way, some of these motives are downright evil. It’s why some people get extremely suspicious of Christian charities: “Oh, you must be doing this for the same reasons I’d do it. You’re trying to get tax breaks. You’re trying to get good public relations to make up for something really vile you’ve done, or are secretly doing. You’re trying to look good and virtuous. You’re trying to feel better about yourselves. I know what you’re really about.”

No, they really don’t. Not unless we tell them. So we gotta tell them. With words.

It’s why the bible is written in words. Why Jesus uses words to share parables, make statements, reveal God, and describe his kingdom. He didn’t leave it up to guesswork; he didn’t expect us to watch what he was doing and come to our own conclusions. You might recall some of his observers, working wholly on their own, reached the conclusion he used Satan’s power to do his miracles. Clearly they weren’t listening to his words—and again, Jesus used words to rebuke them.

So when Jesus sends out his followers to go make him more followers, he expects us to use words. To teach people, not just with actions and good deeds, but with words, “to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” Mt 28.20 KJV —and how’d he command his students? With words.