April 2010
The Mathematics of Holy Week
The four Gospels of the New Testament -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- represent a unique genre in literature, not only today, but also especially in the first century when they were composed. These curiously short and relatively simple books are a sort of “historical – biographical – theological” thumbnail sketch of the Man who is arguably the most important Person to ever live. Their content is profound enough to change lives individually, and cultures corporately, while at the same time remaining so short and simple that they can be put to memory. Truly, nothing in popular literature, ancient or modern, approaches their uniqueness.
People have spent careers dissecting the language, grammar, and form of these four magnificent little books. A simple critique of the content of each chapter, broken down as a percentage, reveals that as a whole, the four gospels spend almost precisely 33% of their chapter content on the events of one week of Jesus’ life. Apparently, the authors were most interested in those seven days.
Many people are familiar with the Palm Sunday procession of Jesus into Jerusalem, five days before Jesus’ crucifixion. This was at the time of the Jewish Festival of Passover which centered around a sacrificial lamb. Christianity - rooted in Judaism - explains Palm Sunday in this way: at the very same moment the priests were inspecting Passover lambs which were being brought into the city, Jesus was being inspected by the people as their future deliverer. Indeed, most people at the time were probably expecting a political redemption, not a spiritual one.
The fourth Gospel, always a bit different from the others, describes yet a third inspection going on – it was God’s inspection of His own Lamb. Before entering Jerusalem on that Palm Sunday, Jesus returned to the waters of the Jordan, where John the Baptist first proclaimed Him “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” As John records it, the divine GPS was leading Christ from the place where He was identified as the substitutionary sacrifice, to the place where He would be identified as “The Resurrection and the Life,” the home of Lazarus. His friend Lazarus had died, and according to the fourth Gospel, Jesus raised him up with the words, “Lazarus, come forth.” Appropriately, the town of Lazarus is still called today by Palestinians, “al-Eizariya,” the place of Lazarus.
Like any faithful Jew of His day, Jesus was headed to Jerusalem for the purpose of celebrating the Passover – that ancient festival of deliverance from slavery, captivity, and death in the land of Egypt. Yet He intentionally wanted His entrance into the city to be unique, so He requested the foal of a donkey and its mother. Choosing to ride on the smaller foal, Jesus was clearly creating an image of awkward humility. Interestingly, at the same time He was fulfilling a prophecy from Zachariah 9 about the king riding into Jerusalem - “just, and endowed with salvation…Humble… riding on the foal of a donkey.” Surrounded by many of the witnesses of Lazarus’ resurrection, Jesus and other less supportive religious leaders heard the shouts of the children, “Hosanna!” “God save!” And that, Jesus had promised He would do.
Jesus spent the rest of that week in the Temple teaching– most notably on the resurrection. His blunt accusation that the religious leaders were “greatly mistaken” that there was no resurrection from the dead, compounded their frustration with Him. Jewish documents from that era establish that an arrest warrant had previously been issued for Jesus, accusing Him of “sorcery.” Being unable to deny His miracles, they resorted to portraying Him as using the power of the “dark side.” Fortunately for them, the dark side got the best of one of Jesus’ disciples Judas, who agreed to betray Jesus in a discreet way. The die was cast, and Jesus was led away to a series of trials, some religious, some political, but the ultimate trial was before God, Who would find Him guilty of the sin of the world.
Some months ago, a Time magazine story recorded an incident that happened when a church visitor asked the question, “Who is the man on the plus sign?” That question was actually more insightful than we might think. The cross is God’s great +. God plus man equals love. Or we might phrase it this way: Lamb of God > Sin of the world. The cross does look like a plus sign, and the round hole in the empty grave on Easter looks a lot like a zero. For those keeping score, God could be accused of using that “new math.” One Lamb’s death equals the life of the world. Death zero, life “won!”
Pastor Foote