In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
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This is the Gospel selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the first Sunday in Lent, Year B. It will next be read aloud in church by a priest on Sunday, February 18, 2018. It is important as the testimony of Simon Peter, through Mark, who was a disciple of John the Baptizer and Jesus, who knew that both of those holy guides had endured extreme tests of piety before beginning ministries that served God.
This reading is accompanied by the reading from Genesis (9:8-17) that tells of God’s covenant with Noah, and all life forms that survived the Great Flood, that committed, “never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” The sign of that covenant would forevermore be the rainbow.
The accompanying Epistle is from Peter’s first letter to the churches of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), where Peter related the presence of the Holy Spirit as a covenant similar to that made between God and Noah. Peter wrote, “And baptism, which [the Great Flood] prefigured, now saves you– not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” This then becomes metaphor that makes the rainbow be seen as the baptism of the Holy Spirit, connecting one on earth to the right hand Spirit of God in heaven. Through a rainbow God speaks, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
As a lesson for the first Sunday of Lent, Peter is saying (through Mark) that one must first hear the voice of God, which streaks across the sky like lightning, arcing down to those who take the time beg for forgiveness of the sins recognized as of their own doings. Second, THE LENTEN MESSAGE is one who hears this voice and is immediately driven by the Spirit out into the wilderness, where one’s sincere repentance is tested. Third, as a result of having successfully overcome the addictive temptations of an evil world, one becomes a minister for God, as the embodiment of Jesus Christ.
Those three steps are the demands required by God of all who seek the reward of heaven and eternal bliss. That means no steps can be avoided and no steps can be assigned to a surrogate.
If it was easy to get into heaven, people would just live anyway they pleased and then add at the end an, “Oh by the way God, I am sorry for all the fun I had being a sinner” apology. There would be no need for heaven because being reborn back on Earth [reincarnation] would be the best reward possible [except the losing all your possessions part].
In the story of Noah and the Great Flood, Noah was the last descendant of the great Patriarchs, who at the age of 500, when his grandfather Methuselah reached the end of his life, the flooding rains came. Prior, he heard the voice of God tell him to prepare for a world-wide flood, where he had to build a large boat in the middle of dry land. He did that and was ridiculed by sinful human beings who saw that as unnecessary work. They mocked Noah for listening to a voice they could not hear. Thus, the prerequisite for baptism by the Holy Spirit (the Great Flood) is to follow one’s heart, with a desire to make God happy, rather than follow the crowd down the path to oblivion.
One has to see the work of building an ark as a test of devotion. Noah building an ark to God’s specifications is then a model for the forty days and nights Jesus spent in the wilderness. Both Noah and Jesus had a plan, although nothing is written that details the plan God gave Jesus.
The forty days and forty nights of rain, followed by 150 days that the high waters prevailed, are saying that Noah and his family spent time on turbulent seas being tested after they had proved their faith by building the ark. Their faith saved them, although the voyage took them to an unknown land. A similar test came to Jesus after he spent forty days in a bone dry dessert – the test of his ministry.
When Mark wrote that Jesus, “was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him,” was not Noah on the ark with pairs of wild beasts, of every kind? Was the ark not kept afloat by angels, just as the needs of Jesus were met? Did not Moses pray to God for water to be found in dry land of the Sinai, with God delivering? Likewise, Noah (who was not a sailor) and Jesus (who was not like John the Baptist) had faith, but stayed in constant communication with the LORD, through prayer.
A test of faith might only officially be over forty days and forty nights, but if one is crying out in the wilderness for the test to finally be over, then one is not ready for that test. One is not “up the creek without a paddle,” one is drowning in a Great Flood without an ark. Jesus aced his test because he already had made a lifelong covenant with the LORD. Satan cannot temp one with that holy survival kit handy. However, Satan has a way of finding a way to tempt the common survivalist, one who does not pray, thus cannot hear the voice of God within.
When Peter wrote in his letter, “Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18), he was basically saying a Christian has to hear the voice of God warning one of a coming Great Flood; but rather than that voice saying to build an ark for survival, one must be reborn as Jesus Christ. That is the only way to survive a forty day test of faith. Christ within cleanses one of the fear and guilt of sin, turning the unrighteous righteous. Christ within brings one to God.
Being one with God and reborn as Christ means Lent is not a New Year’s resolution (i.e.: an empty promise made to oneself). Lent is the test ride of a new YOU, a YOU that has fallen in love with God and become married into a new commitment and devotion that serves only God.
Lent is not a prescribed period of time when one is forced to comply with unwanted limitations. Lent is personal time spent asking God to write His laws on one’s heart, and explain those laws through the Holy Spirit’s knowledge, so that one finds only joy and happiness from the most barren of existences.
Lent is having one’s eyes opened, to see the illusion that the worldly domain really is and to come to the realization that no illusion – no dream – is worthy of sacrificing eternal bliss to gain. Heaven is the reality we escaped, but need to return to. However, when our souls fell to earth, we fell asleep and dreamt, thinking vivid dreams are real. Jesus is the call to wake up and return to heaven.
When one sees Peter having told Mark that Jesus went to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel at the beginning of his ministry, it is easy to overlook how he said, “After John was arrested.” John the Baptizer held Jesus in his arms in the flooding waters of the Jordan River, so he too heard the voice of God speak. John also was baptized by the Holy Spirit at that time, so the rainbow arched into him, making him ready for his test in the wilderness that became a Roman prison.
John the Baptist would give up his life for his faith in God. So too would Jesus. So too would the Apostles of Jesus. Therefore, Lent is not about being forced to do without something (sacrificing one thing), while still holding onto all the other addictions that seem impossible to let go [where is your cell phone now?]. Lent is a test of one’s readiness to turn away from a world that offers illusions that suggest it is okay to sin, if everyone else is sinning. Instead, one must be prepared “to be arrested” … stopped … willing to sacrifice the brain in one’s head (even have that head served on a silver platter), in order to ask others to do the same.
Jesus never forbade anyone from making Fat Tuesday a theme for a life, 365 days a year serving self, grabbing onto all the physical pleasures one desires. Free will means free to sin, because sins of ego are only possible in the earthly domain. Doing as one pleases is what makes a worldly existence seem like a vacation for some; while others rue the day they were born, because the life they have been reborn into does what it pleases with them. Living for today is blindly walking the path of reincarnation; but, like the saying goes, “You can pay me now or pay me later, but pay you will.”
That world existed when God told Noah, “Enough is enough. Get ready, because I am washing the slate clean.” Peter wrote of those past sinners as being those, “who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently,” to no avail.
The ruler of the world is Satan, who cares nothing about humanity. Satan tempts for the purpose of trickery. He desires to steal souls from God, and he uses the illusions of the world to get humanity to do wicked things. God promised not to wash the filth of humanity off the face of the earth with another Great Flood. Instead, the rainbow he would send would be called Jesus.
Jesus brought salvation to the world, just as Noah was told how to build an ark. However, the idea of an ark did not save Noah and the wild beasts he took with him; in the same way, the idea of Jesus saving people does not prepare them to be tested, as ready to be saved.
Lent is about a willing test that one has been prepared to take. It is like forty days of study prior to the SATs or GREs or GMATs or any other difficult test of one’s preparedness [name your hardest standardized test here].
Lent is like seven years of hard-nosed collegiate study, so one can begin a career that makes all the hard work worthwhile. Children seldom prepare for such tests without a good father figure making demands on their preparation, telling them to use their talents wisely. Likewise, Lent comes when one has heard the voice of God speak out loud and say, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Lent is not a test of survival skills. Lent is a test of one’s readiness to give up one’s life for God, so Jesus can return and spread the Word through your body, causing your mouth to say, “Repent, and believe in the good news.”
You may now turn over your exam sheet and let the test begin NOW.
Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
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This is the Gospel selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the second Sunday in Lent, Year B. It will next be read aloud in church by a priest on Sunday, February 25, 2018. It is important as it quotes Jesus, who said to those following him that to live for reincarnation is folly, when one can only be assured of eternal reward by setting one’s goal towards the divine.
The accompanying Old Testament selection is Genesis 17:1-7 and Genesis 17:15-16. The first set of verses includes God telling Abram, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” As that reading continues, God added, “No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham.” The last two verses then has God telling Abram, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her.”
The accompanying Epistle choice is Romans 4:13-25. Paul there referenced the covenant God made with Abraham, saying, “For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” In his conclusion to this selection of verses, Paul wrote, “Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.”
As always, the accompanying readings feed the lesson that rises from the Gospel. In the lineage of Abraham, his “exceedingly numerous” descendants are Christians. Jews and Gentiles who deny Jesus as Christ can only claim to be rightful heirs through law, which can be understood as genetics. Neither Moses nor Mohammed lead souls to God, as they only lead them to words. Christ is the only way to understand how to walk before God Almighty and be blameless (sin free). Jews and Muslims (of all branches, sects, and religious groups) are not descended from Abraham as the spiritual children of the same Father, cleansed by the Holy Spirit.
Thus Paul wrote, “If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.” The wrath of the law is the confrontation that exists today between Zionists Jews and Palestinians (children of Esau?) and Judeo-Christians and Muslims (children of Ishmael?) and the secular tyrants in the Middle East and the temporal rulers of the West (children of Cain?). Legalities in dogma are why Protestants hate Catholics and evangelical Christians cast condemnations at orthodoxy. The law will never be able to justify irreconcilable differences, where “faith” is defined by laws.
We can see this in the reading from Mark, when Jesus (a Jew) said that he would “be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.” There was obvious conflict between the ruling elite Jews and ANY MAN who went around making people think he was the Messiah (Jesus was not the only one doing that then). For a common Jew to claim he was more special than any of the “elders, chief priests, and scribes,” he was denying the law that Abraham’s descendants were all promised favor. The punishment for denying favor to all Jews (those who turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the illegitimacy of Ishmael, the denied birthright to Esau, and rejected any rights of claim by those turncoats called Samaritans) was heresy or sacrilege, due punishment and death (coaxed out of the polytheistic Romans).
Even Peter, whose name means “Rock,” a name given to Simon by Jesus, was reflecting as one who was diametrically opposite of the elders, chief priests, and scribes, as a mirror image of the same corruption. When Peter confessed to his biographer Mark, “I took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,” because he was saying God’s favored people were capable of doing evil, Simon Peter thought he was doing God’s work. However, Jesus would have none of that insolence.
Blindly reflecting.
Jesus not only knew that Peter was not yet cleansed of his worldliness, but so too was everyone else standing around varying degrees of unclean. All were hanging on Jesus’ every word, because they wanted to be clean. While Peter had pulled Jesus aside for a private scolding, Jesus would make an example of Peter, who was seen by the disciples as the cream of the crop – the best right hand man the Son of Man had.
It must have sucked the wind out of Peter’s chest when he heard Jesus say loudly, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Imagine thinking one’s religious devotion was reason for a personal denial of filth, only to be told one needs a holy bathing. Jesus did that to Peter. However, the jab was not solely directed to one person alone.
That command was meant “to teach his disciples.” It was meant to be proclaimed to the “elders, high priests, and scribes.” It was meant for anyone who would “follow” Jesus to hear how close Satan was to their hearts. Thus, Jesus continued by commanding, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
I have addressed this prior, in sermons and notes on the Matthew account of this event (16:21-28; Proper 17, during the season following Pentecost, Year A), where the crowd listening to Jesus (including his disciples) heard, “aratō ton stauron autou.” Whether spoken in Aramaic, Hebrew or Greek, those present heard Jesus tell them to “raise up your stake.” A “stauron” would not have registered as a Roman crucifixion device (being “nailed to a tree” required no lifting and carrying). It would, however, be heard as those wooden crosses that vineyard owners used, which often leaned over to the ground when the grapes were growing full.
If you want to see the reality of impact that a parable told about servants hired to work in an owner’s vineyard, most of the people following Jesus had been there, and done that. They had stood on the town corner before, waiting for an owner’s servant, a field master, to come looking for workers to straighten up the wooden supports in a vineyard, so the grapes would not be eaten by ground animals. None of them had spent a Wednesday hiking up to Golgotha, just to watch the misery of a Jew being crucified, even if they knew the poor man being executed. Heck, the disciples didn’t even show up to watch Jesus be hung on the cross. They skedaddled out of fear. Raising grape crosses, however, they understood.
So, even though they might have heard “follow me” and thought, “Form a line behind Jesus,” the followers of Jesus knew Jesus had just called them all out for not being righteous enough. The reference to “Satan” helped in that regard. So, even the slow-witted ones figured out that “raise up your cross” was metaphor for them being the fruit of a Jesus grapevine, so they were never allowed tohang to the ground, where Satan could find an ear and influence the brain attached to it, like he did Cain, and like he did the elders, high priests, and scribes of Jerusalem, plus most recently Simon Peter.
Worldly influences
I know I talk a lot about reincarnation, which many American Christians shudder at the concept of not having one death be the final parting of a soul from a body, with anyone having a cross placed on their tombstone automatically allowed into heaven. The thought of good ole granny or mom being recycled back to earth just makes people nervous.
Mainly, that anxiety is because 99.9% of the population has a skeleton closet that is crammed full, including new memories one is ashamed of. Any thought that God will judge one by their sins is quickly forgotten when one presumes that how much money one gives to charity and how much one bakes cakes for the church fundraisers will make all the dirty little secrets and white lies be outweighed on an imaginary set of Justice Scales.
That becomes a gamble. Gamblers have a town in Nevada set aside for them (one big name) that is known for odds and games of chance. To think God will forgive is akin to praying to the gods of chance, where people see their souls stacked up neatly on a roulette number that says, “God forgives” or “Jesus saves.” Hope is all about that little ball landing in one of those slots.
The odds for winning that bet are slim, simply because there is nothing ever said by Jesus that promotes sin of any kind. To “love one another” does not mean sin with everyone, or bless the sins of another.
We get a good glimpse at the indirect statement that Jesus made about reincarnation, when he said, “those who want to save their life will lose it.” Anybody that wants to save a human life (his or hers, the only body one possesses) means someone who wants Jesus and God to forgive how much one keeps for oneself, despite all the pretense of giving.
A good example of how well this “give a little, keep a lot” plan works is found in Acts 5:1-11, which is the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Both of them wanted to “save their life” by keeping “some” of the price they received, when they sold land they owned; but they lied by saying they were donating the whole amount to the church. Both of them “gave up the ghost,” as soon as Peter questioned them about it (Peter was speaking through the knowledge of the Holy Spirit, not from sending out spies to make sure the church was well funded).
By knowing that story, one can see the prophetic nature of what seems like rhetorical questions, “For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?”
The answer is Ananias and Sapphira could have kept everything – their land or all the money they got for selling that land. No one forces anyone to say I am a Christian; but anyone who uses the name of God in a lie (“Christian” stems from “Christ,” the Holy Spirit of God that was in His Son Jesus) is going to die a normal mortal death and be recycled back in another human form. God forgives normal sinners by letting them try the world thing again, so maybe those souls will figure it out one lifetime.
“Crap out! Better luck next time. New roller [symbolic reincarnation]. Place your bets,” says the boxman [symbolic of a mortician].
What was the name of that creature that influenced Eve to sin?
Perhaps the most important message Jesus told (in this story) is at the end. He said, “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Think about what that says.
Someone who would be ashamed of Jesus can only be one [someone’s name here] who thinks he, she, or it is better off by being oneself, rather than BEING JESUS CHRIST REBORN in one’s [someone’s name here] fleshy body.
“Golly gee! I made millions over a lifetime. People look up to me! Am I supposed to give all that up and be like that rolling stone Jesus … who the important people detested?” says someone who would be embarrassed being Jesus.
In the accompanying Genesis reading, Abram became Abraham and Sarai became Sarah. They were the same bodies, but their names were changed to denote a new Spiritual presence within them. Their barrenness was taken away; and although that meant the birth of Isaac in the physical realm, it meant their sacrifice of self would beget innumerable descendants who would also be changed by the Holy Spirit, through a deep commitment to the One God. They were the precursors of the Christ Spirit in human beings.
Believe me when I say that the ones who ARE reborn as Jesus Christ AND thank God for that Spirit within them … nobody knows who they have changed into … no one can see the changed name they became. They are not ashamed to serve others. They gladly do so without fanfare, news articles, or golden awards of recognition. They don’t ask people to guess who they have become.
Anyone who is promoted as “a great man” … by the popularity they command, the books they have sold, or the charisma they use to melt the will of others … most have secretly had Satan wrap his arm around their shoulders, saying, “See. I told you all this could be yours.”
Jesus only became famous because he rose from the dead, and the Jews deny that ever happened, saying his disciples stole his body. Jesus did not return and appear as Jesus for the whole world to see and marvel at. Nope. Jesus returned as a gardener, as a stranger on the road to Emmaus, and as an old man by the sea.
He appeared as the Jesus the disciples knew, so he could teach them and then return in them, in unknown form as one Apostle after another, with nobody recognizing any of them as Jesus Christ. That is how “the Son of Man … comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels,” … as Apostles … as Saints … those who welcome the sacrifice of self, have a deep-felt love of God, and know the reincarnation of the Christ Spirit in them leads them to eternal bliss, not a recycling into the worldly domain.
Those who are ashamed to make that sacrifice, because the here and now smells and tastes so sweet, looks so richly beautiful, and feels so comforting to put on, are keeping “some of the profits for themselves;” and Jesus Christ is ashamed of them because they call themselves Christians.
Don’t lie about loving God and Christ, while holding back some possessions for self. Things make sacrifice so difficult to commit to a loss of self power … just admit it. Being ashamed of Jesus means not truly being a Christian.
In this season of Lent, where the test is one’s willingness to sacrifice and be ALL IN, realize that it is hard to be all in when you have a lot to lose … real or imaginary. ALL IN is the only way to survive forty days of testing, because anything less will bring failure. However, when one puts everything on the table with absolutely no worry about losing things, then the saying goes, “It is not gambling if you can afford to lose.”
One’s Personal Lent can only come when one is truly ready to be tested, knowing failure is impossible. Sadly, some people have to be afflicted with sores all over their bodies, or become blinded from seeing the world as a place of beauty, or be crippled and made incapable of running to grab as much booty as one can, before they can beg for divine help. When destitute and poor, it is easier to give all one has left … a life … to God. Then one might be ready to serve God wholly, gladly letting the ego die.
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
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This is the Gospel selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the third Sunday in Lent, Year B. It will next be read aloud in church by a priest on Sunday, March 4, 2018. It is important as it is the first account of Jesus displaying anger at the disrespect that had befallen the Second Temple of Jerusalem, which was constructed originally (by Solomon, then rebuilt) to be THE house of God on earth.
In Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-19, and Luke 19:45-48, less detailed accounts of Jesus becoming upset with the presences of vendors at the Temple are found. Matthew told how Jesus drove out “all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke all then quote Jesus as saying, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ den.” However similar that events seems, it is not the same as the one recounted by John.
I make that statement because I once sat at an Episcopalian Bible study meeting when a retired Methodist minister made the statement that John’s Gospel was the only one of the four Gospels that does not maintain the same order of events in the life of Jesus. I disagree wholeheartedly. However, if that is some concept that has risen to explain John as a renegade or rebel, due to some (perhaps) thinking John had a scatterbrained memory, which affected the order of his Gospel of Jesus’ life and ministry, the facts do not support such a claim.
This reading is in John’s second chapter, which follows the wedding at Cana event (John 2:1-11). John’s first chapter ended with Jesus gathering Philip and Nathanael as disciples, to go along with Andrew and Simon (called Peter). John was the only Gospel writer not to tell of Jesus spending forty days of fasting in the wilderness, like the other three writers do. However, John said the same as the others, when he wrote, “After [the wedding at Cana Jesus] went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and they stayed there a few days” (John 2:12), which spoke of Jesus moving from Nazareth to Capernaum. The other Gospels have the chronology of events; they simply recorded a second time that Jesus was witnessed being upset over vendors on the Temple steps.
It was in Capernaum that Jesus then called Andrew and Simon from their fishing boat and then called James and his brother John of Zebedee from their father’s boat, leaving him to fish the sea with hired hands. John did not write of this calling (an indication that John was not the same person as the brother of James, not a son of Zebedee); but his statement that Jesus, his mother, brothers and disciples only stayed in Capernaum a few days, that says the calling of disciples from Capernaum was to prepare them to go en masse to Jerusalem, for the Passover Festival.
I have had Bible study leaders instruct the participants that the Passover week’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem was not a yearly requirement of Jews. After the scattering of the tribes of Israel, following the fall of Israel and Judah, the “Jews” who were moved great distances from Jerusalem were only required to make a pilgrimage once a lifetime. The presumption is that Jews who relocated in Galilee after their freedom from Babylon were likewise freed of any obligation to go to the Temple in Jerusalem each year, because it took several days to walk there.
In my mind, this an American Christianization of ancient Judaism, where it becomes important to see the holy people surrounding Jesus as akin to Americans that forego church attendance, if there is some vacation planned [like multi-yearly pilgrimages to fun resorts, where one’s religion gets left at home]. I have watched priests rush to finish a service because it is NFL Sunday, and a local team’s game is soon to begin. The sad thing I have realized is that American Christians tend to justify their lack of a desire to study their religious texts as if God had blessed them with a birthright as babies, and children’s church taught them everything they need to know personally. Beyond that, priests and ministers are hired by the adult Christians, with the expectation they will know the details.
If that was the original plan, I wonder why Jesus did not call the hired hands from Zebedee’s boat?
In regard to this lack of religious knowledge, consider this: When one reads in the Gospel of Luke, “Now [Jesus’] parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover” (Luke 2:41), we are told this as an indication of the piety of Mary, Joseph, Jesus, his brothers. They went every year. Because it was written, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘These are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the LORD, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies” (Leviticus 23:2), devout Jews made a point of attending EVERY FESTIVAL … religiously. Knowing that, if any were to “Come and see” and “follow Jesus,” they were expected to plan their lives around obedience to God’s commandment to the Israelites, through Moses, which called for “sacred assemblies” in the appropriate places, to recognize “the appointed festivals.”
That understood, one can grasp just how swollen Jerusalem would become during those times of festival. In the Christmas story, where Joseph and Mary could not find a room at an inn, it was not due to census registration demands creating floods of people into Bethlehem. The inns were filled with paying guests because it was at a festival time, with pilgrims everywhere. Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem while they had a place to stay near Jerusalem for festival. This means that everyone in the Jesus entourage would have to be housed while away from home. That is a logistical reality.
Because the ministry of Jesus was just getting off the ground then, it makes perfect sense that prior arrangements had not been made for Andrew, Simon-Peter, James of Zebedee and his brother John, nor Philip and Nathanael. While Jesus, his mother, and his brothers had relatives with whom they would stay, who had homes near Jerusalem, the others would be free to find their place to housed. Thus, that first Passover of Jesus’ ministry placed himself and John (the Gospel writer, not of Zebedee) at the Temple together, while the six disciples were securing places to stay. Thus, none of them wrote about this event.
In the turning over of the vendor’s tables recalled by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that was after Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey with her colt, when the pilgrims lined his path with palm branches and cried our “Hosanna, the King of the Jews.” For that festival event, an upstairs room had been secured for the Passover week, although there is indication the disciples were invited to visit where Jesus stayed, as they traveled together each day prior to the Passover Seder meal (the Last Supper), in and out of Jerusalem. John did not write of those days when Jesus was surrounded by his disciples, like he did when it was only him and Jesus entering the Temple of Jerusalem, when Jesus cleansed the Temple the first time.
The New American Standard Bible (NASB) heads this reading selection from John as “Frist Passover – Cleansing the Temple,” which indicates there is scholastic recognition for multiple events of this nature. John stated in his sixth chapter, fourth verse, “Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near.” This was when Jesus fed the five thousand at the Sea of Galilee. By the time John began his seventh chapter, writing in the second verse, “Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near,” that end of summer festival means John wrote nothing specific of Jesus having gone to Jerusalem for the second Passover of his ministry.
None of the other Gospels speak specifically of any Passover Festival, other than the last, which would be more of an indication that Jesus went to the Temple at other times without witnesses, when he could have made similar attacks on the selling of wares on the steps. One would think Jesus regularly confronted such things, rather than only occasionally making “photo ops” appearances.
What should be caught from the verse that states, “He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” is that Luke 2:22 & 24 state, “And when the days for their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord … and to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the Law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
Because the sacrifice of animals was stated in Law (Exodus and Leviticus) as a necessary rite of purification, the people were required to take animals to the Temple priests for the sacrificial rites (not go to the Temple priests and hand them payment for sacrificial animals). The sale of doves was for the poor, but that really meant the poor travelers, who brought no animals with them from home, as home was too far away.
This means Jesus was not angered at the sale of animals for sacrifice. He was angered at the presence of those sellers within the Temple grounds. That presence within sacred boundaries was an indication that the Jews had become less devoted to the Laws and appreciated the marketplace meeting their needs of the commoners. Common Jews suffered from forgetfulness, so they entered the Temple ground without the animals required. Rather than their forgetfulness of Law causing them to lose their place in line, during busy Temple times, the Temple leaders allowed the marketplace to come into a place of convenience.
This anger should be seen as also being applicable to Christians and their churches, where I have read of megachurches are similarly desecrated places. The equivalent can be seen as a ring of concession stands (coffee and pastries sales before service, then paninis after) around an auditorium, which has replaced a traditional nave and separate parish hall. Are not live bands on a stage (not an altar), with follow-the-bouncing-ball big screens (not hymnals), prompting people sitting in stadium seats with cup holders (rather than pews with prayer books) to sing along with dancing choirs, with the preacher reading sermon notes from a smart phone, pacing back and forth while a spotlight follows and lighting technicians change the coloring on stage to set the mood … all putting a “marketplace” in one’s face?
Is that circus atmosphere not selling entertainment as religion, in the same way cattle and sheep were sold back in the day?
Would you think passing a tray for money, rather than giving out free bread and dried fish from a basket, would anger Jesus today?
John writing, “His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me,” says either John or Jesus told this story to the disciples afterwards, causing them to remember Psalm 69, verse 9, which says, “for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.” The acts of Jesus made them recall a song of lament, over shame felt by those who proclaimed faith falsely.
They had all walked right by the same vendors, doing nothing to force the vendors and wares sellers out to where they belonged. The disciples remember that quote from guilt. Instead of marveling at the acts of Jesus, their hearts felt shame and regret for having done nothing themselves; and that is the kind of believers Satan loves.
John then said “his disciples remembered that he had said this … after he was raised from the dead.” They remembered because Jesus had been raised from them, who had been dead of eternal life. They remembered because the Spirit of the man who was there was within them … as them.
When John wrote that the Jews asked Jesus, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” they referred to his acts of disrespect for the merchants, their wares and the money they collected. They wanted to know how Jesus would miraculously (a viable replacement for “sign” in translation) replace a legal demand that devoted Jews had to present animals to priests, since most were pilgrims who did not come prepared to keep sacrificial animals with them outside the Temple grounds, until needed inside.
The double entendre is the Greek word for “sign,” “sēmeion,” also means “mark or token,” which is a form of payment for the sacrifices. Since this was Jesus’ first Passover as a priest of his Father, he was new to the “Jews” who ran Jerusalem. One could have seen the question they posed as rhetorical or tongue in cheek, half laughing at some young rabbi trying to make a name for himself. Without knowing Jesus, they saw him as trying to change a very set world, which the Temple leaders were quite comfortable with; and that (in their mind) would require a miracle worker.
When Jesus told them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” he was in effect saying the brains of the Second Temple (its leaders, who allowed merchants on the steps) were destroying it. By referring to his personal destruction as being the final straw on that camel’s back, such that after being dead for three days a real temple that housed the LORD would be raised in its place, Jesus was saying the only Temple to the LORD is a human body. That would be the resurrected Jesus, but it would also be every Apostle who would be prepared to also be the resurrection of Jesus Christ within them.
As a personal Lenten lesson, as a test of one’s faith, everyone represents the brain trust that had let the Second Temple of Jerusalem become a marketplace for unscrupulous people, in need of being whipped by a cord and overturned. Because John pointed out that Jesus was talking about his body being the new Temple raised, the same can be inverted onto the destroyers of the Temple of Jerusalem, as the destroyers of their own souls, which were housed in cesspools of carelessness and sin.
If one is unprepared to pass the test of faith, then one will ask, “What miracle can you show me for doing this?” It seems easy to be told not to sin; but a serious seeker of Christ wants to be told how not to sin. Most are comfortable with continual sin being absolved by a Temple leader spilling the blood of an innocent animal (aka: priest, minister, pastor, or preacher).
The answer is the same that Jesus gave, as being reborn as Jesus Christ is the only way to survive forty days in the wilderness. One has to happily serve God as His Son to make it that long. The hard part is dying and being dead of ego for three days, so that one’s corrupted carcass can be cleansed, just as Jesus cleansed the Temple in anger. One cannot build a new self before the old self is destroyed.
The test of that readiness can then be seen in how one accepts the current state of buildings called churches and the organizations that run them. In this day and age (mostly out of desperation for survival or the lusts for the profitability of religion), churches have become political arms of the subversives who see the blindly religious as lambs fleeced for value or those who follow their leaders as voter blocs that can be led to worship political figures. The test is then the way one answers the question: How do you display your anger that a church has been or is being destroyed by the will of men and women?
The accompanying Old Testament reading comes from Exodus 20:1-17, which is also the reading for the Proper 22 [Pentecost Ordinary Time], in Year A. It is the first Ten Commandments that God sent Moses down for the Israelites to agree to follow. For any test in the wilderness to be personally passed, those laws (and all others) must be written in one’s heart. A deep love of God and subservience to Him brings that, through the marriage of God and a human as One. Jesus Christ becomes the love child reborn.
This is a must to achieve, because love of God is not the same as love of Church. Modern-day churches make Jesus appear as the eraser of Laws, not the enforcer. One must have evolved through the Holy Spirit to live a life centered within the Laws, out of desire, not command. That devotion survives all tests.
In the accompanying Epistle reading that comes from 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, Paul quoted Isaiah, saying, “The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” That quote comes from Isaiah 29:14. One has to see the parallel of that quote and the “wise” [brain trust] that knows organizational and profitable things, but is incapable of discerning the truth of the words that tell of Jesus being destroyed by a cross, dead for three days.
There are no “signs” or “miracles” or “tokens” that can save a Church from a willful destruction, as the only “miracle” comes when one becomes a reborn Jesus Christ. To pass a personal wilderness test, one has to be resurrected, not perishing, as denial through personal will power (the intelligence of a brain) will fail miserably.
One has to be able to see the anger that Jesus holds for anyone who claims to be the house of the LORD, when one is doing little more than marketing oneself as marked for heaven. One has to be turned upside down and see all of one’s beloved money cast onto the ground, with the voice of God telling one to “get your sacrificial trinkets out of here!”
If one has not felt that fear of God within one’s head, then one is not prepared to pass a personal test of Lent.
Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
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This is the Gospel selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B. It will next be read aloud in church by a priest on Sunday, February 11, 2018. This is important as it includes the well-known verse in John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world …”), but this reading has greater impact from the explanation Jesus gave about what the words in that verse mean.
Leading in to that famous verse, Jesus made the comparison to eternal salvation and the serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness. The Greeks called this symbol the Rod of Asclepius, which is associated with Asclepius the god of medicine.
Moses did not follow a Greek god, so this representation goes beyond recognition of Asclepius.
To understand the background story of Moses lifting up a serpent on a staff, the Israelites (the backsliders and complainers) were dying from poisonous snake bites. The one’s who were watching those deaths were worried it would happen to them, as punishment for sins. So, the elders asked Moses to talk to God and come up with a solution that would save them from that plight. The “bronze snake on a staff” symbolizes the capturing of a snake and milking its venom, in effect the value of using evil for good. That act is what we know today as the necessary step for antivenin that comes from the snake’s venom being milked from it. Therefore, the Israelites would be saved from the punishment of snakebite for sins by drinking serpent antivenin.
Of course, the metaphor of the serpent has to be seen as the influence of evil, going back to Adam and Eve in the heavenly realm of Eden. Adam and Eve were immortals then, as it was the bite of the snake’s suggestions that injected the poison of sin that caused Eve to bite the forbidden fruit and get Adam to do likewise. They were all three banished from eternal life in heaven, with God, sent as immortal souls in the land of death. However, because Adam was required to be sacrificed to save mankind, he was the first seeding of the Son of Man (the Fall from Grace) on Earth, so that soul could be “lifted up” as Jesus Christ.
If one takes a few moments of serious thought into that Fall from Grace, which (according to Biblical timeline calculators) is the cornerstone of the 6,000-year theory of the beginning of man, those numbers alone say that the soul of Adam was punished to 4,000 years of death and reincarnation (until Jesus was lifted up at the Ascension), simply because he ate a bite of fruit from a forbidden tree in Eden.
Consider in these few moments how your sins compare to Adam’s. Are they not more from adult cunning, than from childish disobedience? Are they not more numerous than one, too many to count? To think that God will allow just any old soul back into Heaven, simply from agreeing with the thought that Jesus is the “auto-save button” for all past, present, and future sins – forever washed clean by blind faith – makes as much sense as believing snake antivenin saves everyone from poisonous snake bites, without any need to swallow that medicinal liquid and have it course through one’s veins.
This means the depth of meaning in the translation “whoever believes in him may have eternal life,” says “belief” without action on that believed yields the promise of eternal soul-life in an eternally mortal body – birth, life, death, repeat eternally. However, “belief” through the rebirth of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, means acting to save one’s soul from eternal reincarnations, by living the way that is believed.
Seeing that duality in the ways that “eternal life” goes, the Israelites who were bitten by poisonous snakes in the wilderness died in body, but their eternal souls came back in the world as reincarnated souls in new bodies of flesh. An old soul in a new body must begin again one’s quest to find God and then stay away from snakes. The symbolism of Moses supplying the Israelites with an antivenin to avoid that recycling is parallel to what Jesus offers.
Physical fluids ingested (antivenin) was a blessed gift of salvation from God, through Moses. Physical medicine saved one soul in one body of flesh, so that body and soul could serve the LORD properly. Likewise, Jesus offers a God-given gift of Salvation for one’s soul, when the Spirit of Christ becomes infused into one body, thus enabling one to deny the desires of the flesh (snake bites). One gift is physical, while the other gift is Spiritual.
The Spiritual gift from God comes from love – “For God so lovedthe world” – where one’s heart is given to the LORD, so in return “He gave His only Son” for that love.To “believe” is best when one knows belief through direct contact with the Mind of Christ, as a reborn Jesus. That path of belief means one’s soul will not perish on Earth when its fleshy host body returns to dust.
This means that when Jesus said, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him,” the use of the conditional form of “to be” (as “might be”) makes that lack of condemnation optional, or dependent on the right choice being made. God did not love the world of sin so much that He was willing to let his boy Jesus die, so eternal sinners could be saved.
Man’s best friend … but not on man’s carpet before being washed clean! You think God accepts less?
That confirmation comes when Jesus then followed that up with the statement, “Those who do not believe are condemned already (thus already born to perish continually), because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Again, “not believed in the name of Jesus Christ” means a human has not become a reborn Jesus Christ (as an Apostle – Saint), so “belief” from personal experience is impossible.
When Jesus then spoke of the light and darkness, one has to recall John writing, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:4-5) These statements about Logos, where “the Word was God,” says “the Light of men” is God, with Jesus being the manifestation of “the Light” of God on Earth.
This then is seen where John recalled Jesus saying (to Nicodemus, who came after 6:00 PM to where Jesus and John were staying, following Jesus’ first Passover in his ministry), “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” Jesus said “the light has come into the world” as a statement of God’s presence; but the world is a place ruled by darkness, which rejects God (and thus it rejected Jesus of Nazareth, born of a woman in Bethlehem).
When Jesus told Nicodemus, “People loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil,” this was how many of the Israelites with Moses in the wilderness, with no outside influences of other people or other nations to tempt them, still loved the darkness rather than the light. They sinned among each other and were bitten by deadly snakes for their punishment. Those bites probably occurred under the cover of darkness came (after 6:00 PM), when their lusts overcame them and they thought they could go out unseen. Unfortunately, the snakes were less likely to be spotted in the darkness, and the light of God knew everything they did.
This makes Nicodemus a snake by comparison, as he went at evening to tempt Jesus to serve the evil of the Temple. The Pharisees and other Temple leaders of the Law, were the ones who bit the common Jews with their ignorance, killing their belief in God’s promise. The Jews pleaded with people like Nicodemus for a cure to their maladies, to no avail. However, Jesus was raised up as antivenin to the poison Nicodemus represented, as God’s promise delivered.
When Jesus told Nicodemus, “Those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God,” this was after Jesus had told Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” For one to “come to the light,” so that “their deeds have been done in God,” the requirement is to be born again to the light.
At that early stage of Jesus’ ministry, still a distance from his execution, his resurrection and his ascension, the only ones born again to the light, in God, were the great Patriarchs – the Holy lineage – reincarnated from Adam, the first seed of those who talked with God, who had seen God, as His Son, in His Kingdom. Therefore, Jesus was not the first to be born again to the light in God; he was the God-sent snake that would kill the evil of a building in Jerusalem, and who would then be raised up as the antivenin that would be “so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
As a personal Lenten lesson, where one is tested in one’s complete devotion to God, through Christ, one must see oneself in the wilderness amid the snakes of sinful ways. One who is prepared for the test has learned that darkness serves no purpose but to ruin. Thus one has turned to the light, where one’s love of God in one’s heart blinds one’s eyes from the temptation of the world. The light of the Christ Mind exposes the dangerous influences the world offers, silencing their calls from the shadows.
Jesus Christ within becomes the name one takes on, as one is raised on the staff that reminds others of the dangers of sin.
This Lenten lesson tells one the wilderness is a land of One, where it is always day. Any dangers are clearly exposed; with the test being how one reacts. To pass the test, one’s deeds must be led by God, just as were those of Jesus Christ.
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
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This is the Gospel selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the fifth Sunday in Lent, Year B. It will next be read aloud in church by a priest on Sunday, March 18, 2018. It is important because Jesus says the time has come to be glorified, with a voice from heaven then coming to say that glorification will be repeated.
In verse 20, which is translated above to state, “Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks,” this is actually three segments of words, separated by two commas. The first literally translates to state, “There were moreover Greeks certain.” The second says, “among those coming up that they might worship,” and the last segment says, “at the feast.” By reading this as three progressive identifications of the “Greeks,” one knows they were not technically “Jews,” as they were not descended from the fallen Judah. Their ancestors had been scattered from the fallen Israel, so they were cousins of the Jews.
By association to Moses, the scattered into Greek lands became Jews.
The Greek word “tines” means “a certain one or thing,” which identifies the “Greeks” as a sect of the broad scope of “Greeks,” who were generally Gentiles. That sect of “certain Greeks” is then shown to be pilgrims coming to Jerusalem (when Jesus had just rode in on a donkey colt for his final Passover feast), which means they honored the command of God to maintain the traditions of Moses, which were performed by the priests in Herod’s Temple. We can then safely assume the Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover feast had done so because they were descended from a Northern tribe of Israel. Therefore, they were not tourists, or Gentiles who sought an audience with Jesus.
One can even question how these certain Greeks knew the name “Jesus,” as it could be that John made their request to Philip seem like they knew, when it was John who specifically identified him. By John writing the word “Lord” or “Master,” that could be his way of stating that the Greeks requested a meeting with the one they saw enter Jerusalem to much fanfare. Their request came following John writing about the one who just had the crowd cheering, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.”
The Greek word “Kyrie” (which means “Lord, Master, Sir, or the Lord”) was written by John as capitalized and separated as a one-word statement, showing a state of importance the word can hold, individually. That meaning then goes beyond the disciple who was probably the last in a string of disciples behind Jesus – Philip. Thus, the question those “certain Greeks” posed to Philip could have actually been because they tapped Philip’s shoulder to get his attention, and the pointed ahead. As they pointed, and as John witnessed, the Greeks said, “your Lord,” before saying, “may we see him?” That interpretation makes more sense than does a stranger Greek addressing a Galilean as “Sir.”
Philip then shows his lack of leadership within the disciple’s ranks. Not only probably last in line, he also showed his low ranking by not being able to answer the Greeks without asking Andrew, his closest friend. John (who was not technically a disciple of Jesus, as he was his family … the beloved), was a youth and probably closer in age to Philip and Andrew, which would explain their lack of life experience as being why they were trailing the field and why John was tagging along with them.
John was remembering this event as an underling, not a leader. John’s Gospel is the only one that quotes Philip and Andrew (the younger brother of Simon-Peter) and shows how much they leaned on Jesus for fatherly guidance, through their questions posed. This means the one John named as Philip’s friend (Nathanael) was likewise a young adult, who knew his rightful place in the back of the pecking order for those who followed Jesus.
When verse 23 says, “Jesus answered them,” the Greeks had accompanied Philip, Andrew and John to where Jesus was, introducing the Greeks to him. This means Jesus was talking to the Greeks, who were not just a quaint pair or small group, but a “crowd” of “them,” who had most likely traveled in numbers from Greece to Jerusalem, for safety reasons. Together, they had seen the adoration of Jesus as the Messiah, who had raised Lazarus from his death tomb just a week earlier, prompting that celebration. Therefore, Jesus’ answer to them was in response to the question, “Are you the Messiah we have been promised? We must know if we should follow and bring more soldiers.” (Or something along that line.)
In this reading, we get a feel of Jesus speaking a soliloquy, as there is no response to those words. Other than John’s aside, from looking back from a time long afterwards and knowing the meaning of what Jesus said, there is nothing read that “certain Greeks” in a “crowd” said. They did question Jesus, which led him to make further statements (John 12:34-36); but none of that pertains to this message Jesus spoke, of which John wrote, “He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.”
John did not mean that Jesus had just told of his coming crucifixion as the “kind of death he was to die.” That was a death that was not permanent because, “when I am lifted up from the earth, [I] will draw all people to myself,” means Jesus foresaw his continuing in Apostles and Saints. That statement, made to “certain Greeks,” who were descended Israelites and honored Mosaic Law and God-commanded festivals, they were still not Jews, per se. They would be the people sought by the Apostles, in particular Paul and his evangelical companions, who had long been assimilated into the Gentile Greco-Roman cultures and philosophies. It would be those Greeks who would “draw all people to Jesus,” in the first expanse of Christianity.
“To die or not to die. That is the question.”
This means that when Jesus said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” he was not speaking in the sense that he knew the coming ten days[1] would lead to his arrest, hearings before authorities, trial and sentence, abuse and execution, followed by burial in a tomb, and his resurrection. The intent was the return of Christ on Pentecost (a Sunday), after his Ascension on a Sabbath. This means “the hour” when the Son of Man would be “glorified” would be when disciples would be transformed into Jesus Christ reborn … still two months away.
The root word that is translated as “to be glorified” is “doxazó.” HELP Word-studies says about this word’s intent: “Cognate: 1392doksázō (from 1391 /dóksa, “glory”) – glorify; properly, to ascribe weight by recognizing real substance (value). See 1391 (doksa). “Glorifying (1392 /doksázō) God” means valuing Him for who He really is. For example, “giving (ascribing) glory to God” personally acknowledges God in His true character (essence).” [My underscore in bold.]
Thus, Jesus said the time had come for him to become the true value by which God had sent him as the Son of Man, and not the Son of God (as emperors made that claim). That “glorification” can only come from his death and rebirth in those who believe and follow afterwards as Jesus reborn.
This is why Jesus then said, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Certainly, Jesus was the seed of the tree of salvation, which had to die for that tree to grow; but a fruitless tree cannot have value, nor can it be glorified. The fruit of glorification, and the reason Jesus came to die in human form, was to have others in human form give rise to that tree of salvation. For that to happen, others must also die and be reborn. Others must also reflect the glorification of Jesus Christ as his fruit.
This issue of others also dying is explained when Jesus said, “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.” If one loves a worldly life, then death will be their reward, as death will give them what they love again – reincarnation. However, if one loves the life God gave them, as the giver of eternal life, then one will love God deeply in one’s hearts, which will cause one’s human lusts and ego to die, as had been the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
Such as that will follow Jesus as Jesus reborn. They will become servants of Jesus Christ, as they will serve the LORD just as Jesus had served the needs of the Father. As the Son reborn, the Father will honor all new Apostles and Saints as His Son (regardless of one’s human gender). However, all those who will love self more than God, they will keep a life of death for eternity, which means reincarnation time and again into the realm of Satan (potentially the illusion of paradise, as long as Earth can continue to support pleasant life).
Jesus then said, “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” This is the natural fear of death that comes to all who have been given the breath of life by God (all worldly life forms have the breath of a soul in them). Still, if one knows that death is a release of miserable recycling, by one’s soul being enabled by Jesus Christ to resist evil temptations, then one does not beg God to save one’s human life. Instead, one prays to God for Him to make one’s true value become realized, as a soul returning home to God.
That is the purpose of God sending His Son into the world: To return wayward souls home. However, each soul must choose that path, just as did the “prodigal son” in the parable told by Jesus.
John then wrote, “Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”’ This means John heard the voice, as he had great love of Jesus and God in his heart. When God said, “I will glorify it again,” this must be seen as the glorification of Jesus Christ in an Apostle – Saint. God said, in effect, every time His Son is reborn in a human being, His Son will again be glorified. That glorification will include the glorification of the one sacrificing his or her human life for a life serving Jesus Christ.
John then wrote, “The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” By understanding that “the crowd” included many Greeks of Israelite descent, “thunder” was the power of God that was sensed surrounding Jesus the Nazarene. For them to think angels had spoken to Jesus means they had belief that God was watching over his soul. However, as Jesus pointed out, the voice of God (in whatever mode of reception detected) was not directed to Jesus, but to those who find faith that Jesus is eternally the Son of God and the one to emanate. If the sins of the world are to be resisted and defeated, God must be known to speak to those who have Jesus Christ within.
As a personal Lenten lesson, where one is being tested in the wilderness, one has to first see oneself as a “certain Greek,” one who is not a Jew, but closer to a Gentile through assimilation with the ways of many nations. One has to find enlightenment through insight that exposes the errors of human philosophies of mind, which entrap the soul and keep one led away from complete faith, through deep love of God. One has to be asked the question, “Who do you serve?” as a test. If the answer is not God, then the wilderness test will fail.
Second, one has to see oneself as Philip, the least of the followers of Jesus. One must see oneself as one who has no rights to make decisions and has no power to tell Jesus what one’s will shall be. One has to be happy in that role and share one’s thoughts with others, like Andrew, Nathanael, and John, who are relatives or close friends, those who also follow Jesus like oneself. If one denies knowing Jesus, asks non-followers their opinions, or ignores the requests of strangers to get to know one’s Lord, then the test in the wilderness will fail.
Third, knowing one must sacrifice the ego and its accompanying Big Brain, one will know that fear will come. This will be a normal stage in one’s spiritual transformation. Still, if one is more afraid of dying, so that one will pray to God to save one’s life, then one is not deeply in love with God, enough to desire to be with Him eternally. One cannot enter the wilderness to be tested if one loves life in this world, afraid to lose it, because the test of faith will fail.
Fourth, if one has never heard the voice of God speaking, in any form – audible or visual – then one has denied Jesus Christ, for fear of being outed as his disciple. One cannot hide the light of truth under a bushel barrel and expect to pass the wilderness test. An inability to hear God, means one has no ability to talk with God, so the test will fail.
Finally, if one cannot see the meaning of Jesus saying “the hour has come to be glorified by the Father,” then one has not yet reached one’s own hour to be glorified. If one cannot see the intent of God saying, “I will glorify it again” as meaning God’s willingness to glorify one and all who die and are reborn as His Son, Jesus Christ, then one has not yet reached one’s own hour to be glorified. Without the glorification of God marking one as possessing Spiritual value that others can be drawn to, then one’s test in the wilderness will fail.
It is most important to understand that failure is not an end in itself. Failure is commonplace and normal. Failure is widespread across the earth. The wilderness is littered with the dried bones of those who have failed God in the past. Still, just as a first grader with a learning disability is not denied second chances to learn, so too will God not give up on those who fail a wilderness test. One has to see a willingness to be deeply tested as the first step towards glorification. And, thus, the saying, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
A marriage to God is arranged first. It is arranged through the baptism of water. Still, one’s heart must open like a flower in full bloom for that marriage to be consummated and the rebirth of the Son of Man to result. Only as Jesus Christ can one pass the wilderness test. So, it is most worthwhile to keep trying, rather than give up.
Keep in mind that this fifth Sunday in Lent will be followed by the Sunday known as Palm Sunday, which ends the Lenten period. At that time, one will be expected to mount the donkey colt and parade into town as the next sacrificial Lamb. That celebration marks a successful graduation from wilderness testing.
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[1] Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Sunday, the first day of the week. He then commuted daily from Bethany to the Temple to preach, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (four days the Lamb was inspected). Friday was the day of preparation for a Sabbath Passover, which began at 6:00 PM. He was arrested in early morning (predawn) of the Sabbath (Saturday). He was seen by the Sanhedrin on Sunday, by Pilate on Monday, sent to Herod Antipas on Tuesday and back to Pilate Tuesday afternoon, when the option of freeing a criminal (by custom) allowed him to be tried before a mob. He was convicted, flogged and mocked on Tuesday evening, and crucified on Wednesday morning, dead by 3:00 PM. His dead body hung on the cross Thursday and on Friday the request by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea allowed the spear test of death occur, when he was taken down and prepared for burial. Friday he was entombed and he arose at 3:00 PM in that tomb on the Sabbath. He would be discovered risen early on Sunday. Therefore, Jesus spoke to certain Greeks on Sunday about a death and raising that would occur in ten days time.
Rather than list almost two complete chapters from the Gospel of Mark, I recommend going to this site and reading that account of the Passion Play.
Instead of a lengthy Gospel reading, please take the time to read this lengthy explanation of what the Passion Play says, which becomes most relative to the following Holy Week.
Palm Sunday is the last day of Lent. The celebration of Jesus entering Jerusalem is the antithesis of Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), with no parades, sugary cakes, or complimentary beads are passed out. Rather than revelry prior to a difficult test, it should after the successful conclusion and the end of testing that one cheers one’s graduation to the next level of achievement. To turn this day of happiness and celebration into a day of sorrowful focus on a most necessary death is the wrong view to take, remembering how Jesus said, “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24). This is why the symbol of Christianity is not the crucifix (a symbol of punishment), but the Trinity of the spiritual intersecting with the physical (+). Death is the bane of mortality; but one has gone through Lent to be prepared for a Resurrection to eternal life. Celebrate that victory!
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This is the main Gospel selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday, Year B. It will next be read aloud in church by a combination of parishioners, a reader, and a priest, as a reenactment of the final two weeks of Jesus’ ministry, depicting his final entrance into Jerusalem, his final Seder meal with his disciples, his arrest, presentation before rulers, his trial, sentence, punishment, death, and entombment. It is important as these remembrances of Peter, through Mark, become the source of Eucharistic rites and the points of recognition that highlight the reverence of “Holy Week,” the lead-in to Easter and the risen Lord.
According to my Word program’s word count, the reading from Mark is over 2,400 words (making it as long, if not longer than one of my interpretations of much shorter readings). Whenever holy days call for readings of such length and audience involvement the priest is basically given the day off, with no sermon preached. The logic is, “I will let the reading speak for itself. Let us sit and bask in the glory of those words recited.”
And the atheists Beatles asked, “All the lonely people, where do they all belong?” Due to a lack of bodies present in this picture, it looks like the people thought they belonged some place other than church.
Involving a congregation (often with begging, pleading, and threats) makes for a great theatrical presentation, but the people should seek to know the meaning of the words; and that is what a priest is called by the Holy Spirit to provide. Anyone who has a tee time scheduled after church (or a football game to watch, etc.), or has not planned on spending extra time listening to holy words being explained on Holy Days, with no plans for spending all Sunday in church, that one needs to cease coming to a building that allows the pretense of Christianity.
Whenever twenty four hundred words of God are spoken (the Year C reading from Luke is only 2,242 words, and the Year A reading from Matthew is just under 2,700 words), true Christians should thirst for deeper understanding … not just bask in the uncertainty that is known to be present, which demands a true priest explain God’s intent. As Holy Week follows the Passion Sunday reading, it would make more sense to divide this lengthy reading into seven readings, with deeper explanation of meaning able to be given each day of a Holy Week. Because this is not done, the readings theatrically presented one day a year, without explanation (in-depth sermon), are always left up to the ignorant to discern, with ignorance begetting ignorance.
The degraded state of American church worship has created many congregations that are easily bored with “religious talk.” Therefore, I will forego any attempt to spend a week’s time writing about all the meaning that can be found in this reading from Mark.
One’s easy answer to the literal is equally a horror. Take away all idiots who have no time for understanding and the Holy Bible expands for inquiring minds, well beyond the capabilities of the literal.
Instead, here I will address the element that has been the Catholic-Anglican production of a Holy Week, which come from elements found in Mark (and the other Gospels that tell similar accounts). These will be shown to support the six days of special recognition, leading to Easter Sunday.
Let me first state that it is my opinion that Holy Week is a fabrication of the Church of Rome, as a way to mimic the Passover week-long festival, while erasing all Jewish influence that could be associated with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That would be well and fine IF (big IF) Jesus had told one of his Gospel writers, “Hey! Make sure you let it be known that I have come with a New Covenant, which means my followers two thousand years from now will need to toss out all remembrance of the festivals my daddy (God) told Moses to make sure the Israelites must recognize forevermore. Instead of Passover, let’s call that Easter and make sure bunnies, colorful eggs and yellow marshmallow chickens are part of that new festival in my honor.”
Unfortunately for many, Jesus did not say those words. Instead, he said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17)
Hint: The Law being fulfilled by Jesus would include Christians recognizing Passover, of which God sent his Son to be a memorable part of. I recommend everyone read Exodus 12, with Jesus kept in mind, as a parallel event.
Get the picture and see yourself needing to paint the blood of Jesus Christ over your body, so you can avoid the mortality death sentence. That blood represents YOUR PASSOVER through Christ, so reincarnation does not get your soul.
The erasure of the permanence of God telling Moses, “This is a day [the Passover day of blood] you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD–a lasting ordinance” (Exodus 12:14) means Christians (for the most part) know absolutely nothing about the true Holy Week that is the eight days of Passover. Most years the Jews recognize the Passover at different times than do Christians recognize Easter, when both should observe the one and the same event. Since the Roman Church made up a calendar that differs from the Hebrew calendar (not lunar-based), they artificially created a nebulous time of recognition, which only rarely aligns with the Jewish timing.
Let me add that this new tradition created by the Church centuries ago means there are dedicated priests whose faith leads them to have great belief in that tradition, as being truly holy, so their dedication is sincere. The sincerity of faith priests devote to the resurrection of Jesus on the first day of the week, following the end of the Passover festival, is a model by which Christians should match. Still, the attendance for Palm Sunday services pales in comparison to attendance for Easter Sunday services; and attendance for the Monday through Saturday services in between are sparse, at best. Thus, the faith of priests is not fully passed onto the people, which is due to an inability to explain the obvious questions that arise over Jewish Passover and Christian Easter.
Some churches like to show their non-hatred of Jews by inviting Jewish rabbis to come speak to a congregation about the Passover Seder meal. Because most churches do not incorporate the two religions regularly, only on special occasions like Passover-Easter, few Christians know anything about the Seder ritual or Jewish traditions. Even when a visit by a Jewish representative makes that awareness made, only Christian Jews would be able to explain the Passover in terms of Jesus being the God-sent Messiah to the Jews. Standard Jews would only talk about Moses and their privilege as God’s chosen people, which is why Christians do not make the same observances as do Jews.
This is why it is important to realize that Jesus of Nazareth, born of a woman in Bethlehem, was a Jew, one who said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24) The Jews were those who were lost to Babylon; but the scattered descendants of the Northern Kingdom (Israel), including the Samaritans, had become assimilated into foreign nations and cultures, earning them the distinction by true Jews as being people of “Gentile” heritage.
To be found is to be a TRUE Christian. That can be either Jew of Gentile.
As such, Christians of the Gentile nations of Europe (and the extended places the imperialism of those nations sent sheep to get lost) are therefore spiritual descendants of the lost sheep of Israel. They have become so lost they do not know why they believe in the King of the Jews, the Son of Man who called God his Father … born a Jew … but they respond to his call. Therefore, it is important to look at the Passover festival as the true root of Holy Week, so more lost sheep can hear the voice of truth calling them by name.
To first look at the element of Palm Sunday, it was John who wrote of Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus’ feet with nard, stating that event took place “six days before the Passover” (John 12:1). Since the Passover that year began on the Sabbath, six days before the Sabbath is Sunday (the first day of the week). However, when one realizes the Hebrew days begin at 6:00 PM, such that the Passover Seder meal (Jesus’ “Last Supper”) took place on technical Sabbath (our Friday evening), six days prior to that was the feast given in honor of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Because that dinner took place in the evening, it was on an actual Sabbath eve, when 6:00 PM made it technical Sunday.
Thus, when John wrote, “On the next day” (John 12:12a) Jesus entered Jerusalem to a cheering crowd and street lined with palm branches, that “next day” was actual Sunday, following technical Sunday. This is why Palm Sunday is right to be called that.
In Mark’s Gospel, it seems the timing of the anointing with nard is confusing, because Mark 14:1 states, “It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread.” That timing says when the “chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him.” This means the two days timing factor was not when the anointing took place. We can deduce that by Mark then recounting the event that drove Judas Iscariot over the edge, so that he would betray Jesus and become an asset for the Temple in their plot. Mark was then recalling an event that occurred earlier in time … six days before the Passover.
John wrote after that celebration dinner for Jesus and Lazarus, “the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death also; because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and were believing in Jesus.” (John 12:10-11) That states the nebulosity of their plot, such that it had not been finalized prior to Jesus entering Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), but Judas Iscariot helped them go with their plot to arrest and kill Jesus, by his going to them. Judas then made that commitment to betray Jesu on Wednesday or Thursday, “two days before the Passover.”
Look then at how the Temple authorities acted towards Jesus in comparison to how Pharaoh acted towards Moses “two days before the Passover.” The Passover in Egypt was the spilling of blood from sacrificial lambs (young and without blemish), whose blood was then painted over the doorways of the Israelite homes, so the angel of death would spare them. The meat of the lambs was then eaten inside the marked homes, as directed by God, through Moses [preparation, cooking, and wholly consumed].
After a series of plagues upon Egypt, the dinner on the eve of the angel of death passing over was probably a little sparse on taste. … thus bitter herbs and unleavened bread were all that was available to them for seven days. That symbolizes how the fruits of the earth were no longer pleasing to those who would serve God.
Following the deaths that occurred, which saved the Israelite firstborn, the bondage of Egypt was broken, beginning a trek of fifty days. Passover then begins a count towards that number [“Pentecost” means “fiftieth day”], which should be part of any Christian Holy Week, because God commanded that count be made. In that number of days, they were in the wilderness without the comforts of natural food and water sources for forty days, between day eleven and day fifty. That is the symbolism of Lent leading one to Palm Sunday (40 days) AND the time Jesus spent teaching his disciples after he was risen (40 days).
Jesus, being like Moses, was going to lead the Israelites (Jews and pilgrim scattered) from the bondage that the Temple forced upon them, to a similar freedom for their souls. Whereas Moses came down with the First Testament after fifty days, Jesus came down from his Ascension on Pentecost, bringing the New Covenant when the Holy Spirit made eleven disciples become reproductions of Jesus, as the Christ Mind was in them. However, before that realization of Christ being reborn could occur, Jesus had to become the sacrificial lamb (Paschal Lamb), whose blood would be spread around each individual (to avoid the death that mortal existence brings); and forty days represents the time Christians have to digest everything written that is the body of prophecy about Jesus Christ foretold, with no scraps leftover when the sunrises within one.
That parallel of Jesus leading Jews to God, just as Moses led Israelites the same way, is the reason why observing the Passover Seder meal, by Christians, is most important. Every Passover Seder meal forevermore will symbolize Jesus Christ and the New Covenant, through remembrance of the body and blood that saved their souls for eternal life. Just as Israelites had to leave the comforts of Egypt for the hardships of the wilderness, so too do Christians have to sacrifice their worldly comforts to serve God.
Because Christians (in particular those of Anglican and Protestant descent) do not have a grasp of the symbolisms practiced in the Passover Seder meal, going to lengths to project it as Jesus’ Last Supper (see Leonardo DaVinci’s famous picture that captures European dining habits, not Jewish). Calling it a supper makes it seem to be an ordinary meal. As such, Christians do not fully understand the “bread” is unleavened matzah.
The Seder ritual calls for three matzah squares be placed on a central plate, from which the middle matzah is broken into two pieces … by the father of a family, who presides over the ritual meal. The Passover is not an official requirement that is led by a rabbi, done in a synagogue. This is what Jesus did in the upstairs room, as noted when Mark wrote, “While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.”’ (Mark 14:22)
Some priests break the wafer and then raise the two halves high, held together. No priest hides half for the children to find later.
The Greek word written that translates as “bread” is “arton.” According to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, “arton” is primarily referenced as meaning this:
1. food composed of flour mixed with water and baked; the Israelites made it in the form of an oblong or round cake, as thick as one’s thumb, and as large as a plate or platter; hence, it was not cut, but broken.
The website My Jewish Learning has posted this about how much matzah one is supposed to eat:
“During the seder, one makes two different blessings over the matzah. The first blessing is hamotzi (“…who brings forth bread from the earth”), which is recited whenever one eats bread, and which is obligatory at any festival meal. The second blessing recalls the particular obligation to eat matzah (“…who has sanctified us with the commandments and commanded us concerning the eating of matzah”).”
You will notice that Mark made reference to a very standard element of the Jewish Seder ritual, when he matter of fact stated: “Took the bread, blessed it, and broke it.” Prior to that, one washes one’s hand, and after the breaking of the middle matzah, the largest piece is hidden, as a teaching game to keep the children’s interest.
The hidden half of a matzah is later to be eaten as dessert (called afikoman). That symbolism is Jesus Christ, who is broken away and hidden, causing the devoted to seek his reward. Finding Jesus Christ is the sweet dessert that comes after sacrificing one’s self ego to allow Christ to lead one’s mind.
Likewise, the washing of hands ritual, which occurs several times during the Seder ritual, was modified by Jesus as the act of washing feet (which Mark did not write about). Jesus said to Peter, who rejected his feet being washed (not a recognized ritual), “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” The feet symbolize the hidden sins that are only known by God, just as washing hands before eating symbolizes not taking in anything unclean. What only an Apostle can understand if no sins are overlooked by God, so all must be washed clean before entrance into eternal life with God can occur.
Simply from reading the Last Supper accounts of Matthew and Mark, one can easily get the impression that Jesus stood, blessed and broke bread, passed it out and then raised a toast with wine, all at the same time. That is not the case, as there are four ceremonial glasses of wine consumed during the Seder ritual, drank in an orderly and purposeful manner. Therefore, when Mark immediately followed verse 22 with, “Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,”’ (Mark 14:23-24) it can seem like it took place shortly in time. However, thirty minutes to an hour could have elapsed in between the two – matzah followed by wine.
Each of the four cups of wine has a specific symbolic meaning and name. Jesus raised the third cup, such that he was the Redeemer that Christians must remember.
Mark then wrote, “When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” That reference to a hymn meant an ending psalm in a lengthy “after dinner” ritual of singing. Many songs are sung in the Songs of the Nirtzah, with songs sung before the meal as well as after. The singing of songs can last for a couple of hours, with this accompanied by freely drinking more wine. Many Jewish children say their first experience of being drunk was from being allowed to drink wine during the Seder ritual (parents do not condone this, but aunts and uncles look the other way).
Thus, Mark’s reference was to it being late in the evening, after much drinking and singing, when Jesus led his disciples to the Mount of Olives. That exit officially ended the Passover Seder meal (first version, as the next evening the same ritual is repeated), and Mark writing, “He came and found them sleeping” (Mark 14:27a) means Jewish adult males drink themselves into sleep on that evening. The disciples were asleep because they were drunk and it was late at night (around 1:00 AM.).
That ended the eve that began the Holy Week of Passover. There were still eight days before the festival would end (Sabbath to Sabbath). However, as an aside, I will point out that when Mark wrote (and he is the only one who wrote this), “A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth,” (Mark 14:51) it was improper for a Jewish male to name a woman or child in writing (unless a significant woman, such as Mary the mother or Mary Magdalene). It was proper to generally identify such people.
That reference to “A certain young man” means Mark (via Simon-Peter) knew who that someone was (“certain”), yet he was too “young” to name. The same lack of naming can be seen in the feeding of five thousand, where a “boy” was referenced, who had five loaves and two fish. The “boy” was not just someone passing by, it was a known (“certain”) “boy” who was holding the lunch for Jesus and the gang. Thus, it was communal property, not that of the boy holding the basket.
John, my beloved son, watch what can be done with our meager lunch when we share it with others.
Both that “boy” and this “young man” referenced by Mark was John the Beloved, the child who reclined his head in Jesus’ lap and asked, “Lord, who is it?” (John 13:25b) John also wrote four chapters (John 14, 15, 16 & 17) about what Jesus taught after the Seder meal, as the child present who was eager to learn, while the adults were busy singing and getting drunk, thus not paying close attention, as was “young” John. Mark did, however, remember John was still awake, but in night clothes, as he tagged along with the adults to Gethsemane; and John was termed “a certain young man” who ran after his close relative, when Jesus was taken away, under arrest.
As the Passover Seder began on the technical Sabbath (after 6:00 PM on actual Friday), Jesus was arrested and held prisoner by the Temple Priests on the night of the Sabbath. By sunrise on the actual Sabbath, Peter had already denied knowing Jesus three times … before the cock’s crow (which is a watch that ends at 3:00 AM, followed by the Morning watch between 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM).
When Mark wrote, “As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council,” it is worthwhile seeing this as the morning of Sunday, the first day of the week, and not the Sabbath. Keep in mind the chief priests, Pharisees and other elders had previously condemned Jesus for healing and doing miracles on the Sabbath. That alone would state how they could not do the work of processing a prisoner on the Sabbath. Sending a prisoner they want condemned to death to the Roman governor would be clearly against their own laws if done then AND with it being the beginning of the Passover festival, there would be plenty of witnesses that would see them breaking the law that limited work on a Saturday, had they done that. Therefore, day one of this Holy Passover Week is like Rejection Saturday, when Judas turned Jesus in with a kiss, Peter denied him three times to strangers, and the high priest spit on him.
A Sad Sabbath? Not when it is one’s own ego that is denied.
Sunday, the first day of the week, is when the “whole council” would meet to discuss Jesus’s death by Roman decree. This means Pilate would see Jesus and question him then; but Pilate would get no response from Jesus. While Mark does not write of this, Pilate ordered Jesus be sent to Herod Antipas (who was in Jerusalem for the Passover festival), because Jesus was from Nazareth of Galilee (Herod’s area of rule). Therefore, with Sunday finished, Jesus would not be moved to Herod’s palace, until Monday. This makes the second day of Holy Passover Week be Silent Jesus Sunday.
Shhhhh. Don’t tell anyone the old you needs to be saved and returned, when you already know changes are best.
Once one has reached the second day of Holy Passover Week, one must begin counting the number of days in will take for Jesus to come down from his Ascension with the New Covenant – THE HOLY SPIRIT. That would take place in fifty days, just exactly the same as Moses came down from the mountain with the First Covenant after so much time. Keep in mind that none of these comparisons are happenstance or haphazardly took place, by chance. God commanded the timing of the events of Moses, and God commanded the timing of the events of Jesus. If you cannot believe that, then you are not yet ready to be a Christian.
The Jews do what is called “the Counting of the Omer,” where an “omer” is a dry measure, which acts as an amount of grains harvested from the first fruits of spring. That omer of first fruits would be placed in the Temple on the second day of the Passover festival. When the count reaches “Pentecost” (the fiftieth day), then the holiday known as Shavuot (a two day festival) takes place. Pentecost is the first day of Shavuot, with “Shavuot” meaning “Weeks.” There are seven weeks between the second day of Passover and Pentecost. This timing is then attached to Silent Jesus Sunday, making it be the First Day of the Jesus Return Counting.
Monday, Jesus would have waited his turn to see Herod Antipas, just a small person in a line with all the dignitaries and the others who sought his judgment or decree, as Herod Antipas was an important man during his time on earth. Regardless of how important Jesus is to Christians today, he was seen as a lowly Jew. He was the king of a couple of Roman provinces, Galilee being one. Because it was the leaders from the Temple of Jerusalem who argued against Jesus, and with Jesus not being a legally wanted man in Galilee, Antipas ordered Jesus back to Pilate for judgment. This would have taken up all Monday, with Tuesday being the big day Pilate had scheduled to free a criminal for festival time. This makes the third day of Holy Passover Week be You’re Not My Problem Monday. This is then the Second Day of the Jesus Return Counting.
Break no laws and I’ll serve you no sentences.
Tuesday is the big day. It makes the fourth day that Jesus appeared before important people. This is not to be overlooked, as Jesus was the Paschal Lamb that had to be inspected for four days and be found without blemish. No one told the truth about Jesus being a blasphemer to the chief priest, and Pilate saw no crime, and Herod did not either. Still, once back before Pilate and the crowd cheering for Barabbas to be freed and Jesus crucified, Pilate washed his hands of the mess and ordered Jesus flogged that evening, and crucified the next day. On Tuesday his jailers mocked Jesus with a crown of thorns, a purple robe, and spit upon his face as they called him King of the Jews. Jesus laid in that jail, beaten by a whip, until Wednesday morning. This makes the fourth day of Holy Passover Week be Flog an Innocent Son of Man Tuesday. This is then the Third Day of the Jesus Return Counting.
Only you know the troubles you have caused. Repentance does not come by others whipping the sin out of you.
By the time Wednesday morning came around (it begins at 6:00 AM), Jesus was too beaten to carry his cross from the jail to the place of execution. This symbolism says that Jesus never asked his disciples to carry their own crosses to their own executions, when he said, “Take up your cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). That was a reference to raising one’s state of existence and becoming a reproduction of Jesus Christ. A beaten Jesus struggling to carry a heavy crucifix of death had no bearing on his having lived a most pious life.
It was then with help (a pilgrim in Jerusalem for the Passover – Simon from Cyrene, Libya) that Jesus and his cross reached the Place of the Skull (Golgotha). The cross was able to be in position, in time for him to be crucified (a raised cross) by 9:00 AM. For three hours Jesus was taunted and ridiculed by Pharisees, chief priests and scribes, as those were the Jews who hated Jesus. Meanwhile, Jesus’ family gathered and followed him the whole way, to mourn this punishment until the end. At noon the sun stopped giving its light, which was not a natural phenomenon such as an eclipse. At 3:00 PM on Wednesday Jesus physically died. This makes the fifth day of Holy Passover Week be Death of Jesus Wednesday. This is then the Fourth Day of the Jesus Return Counting.
Death of the body is only the end of that which imprisons a soul.
Now, I have no idea why a Seder meal ritual of handwashing, which Jesus adjusted to be a symbolic foot-washing at his last Seder officiation; but it had nothing to do with a Thursday. It is laughable (in my mind) to name a day in Holy Passover Week Maundy Thursday, as Thursday was when the dead body of Jesus had hung suspended on a cross, publicly for twenty-four hours. The only indirect mention of Thursday was when Mark wrote, “When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation … Joseph of Arimathea … went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.” Because it was evening, it makes sense that the spear pierced into the side of Jesus took place on Friday morning. However, the order might have been given on technical Friday, which is actual Thursday after 6:00 PM. This makes the sixth day of Holy Passover Week be Jesus Dead on the Cross One Full Day Thursday. This is then the Fifth Day of the Jesus Return Counting.
Having a full day (24 hours) for everyone to see just how small one is makes day two become representative of when one totally commits to serve God through death (repentance) or resolves to get revenge if given another shot at life (reincarnation).
Friday is called by the Jews “the day of preparation.” This is because there can be no work done on a Sabbath, so all cooking for the Sabbath is done on Friday (before 6:00 PM). Pause for a moment and think about the significant that Jesus’ dead body was prepared for burial on the day of preparation, so Jesus would be ready to rise on the day of the LORD. After the guard pierced Jesus’ side (rather than break his legs to hasten suffocation, if he had still been alive) and reported the confirmation of death to Pilate, then his body was taken down. It was then moved to an appropriate place for washing and wrapping with his rabbinical prayer shawl (provided by family), a shroud to wrap the body (the shroud of Turin), and a face linen. By 3:00 PM on Friday, Jesus would have been dead for two full days; and at 3:00 PM is about when his body was placed in the tomb. This makes the seventh day of Holy Passover Week be Two Full Days Dead Jesus Entombed Friday. This is then the Sixth Day of the Jesus Return Counting.
Baptism from repentance is followed by baptism for reception by God, which comes before baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is a Trinity of baptisms.
In the traditional Church, there is recognition of Saturday (the Sabbath) before Easter Sunday. This recognition is known as the day of the Easter (or Paschal) Vigil. This element of a “vigil,” which means “an overnight watch,” is more than the women of Jesus going early Sunday morning to further dress the body with nard and possibly other adornments of ritual, knowing that Jesus was only temporarily placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The element of a vigil is a Jewish custom, keeping in mind the Temple authorities and the Roman guards kept a vigil overnight on technical Saturday, but were frightened away by angels and the stone being rolled away (Saturday while it was still night). Of this, Matthew wrote, “The guards shook for fear of him [Jesus appearing from the tomb bright and white as snow] and became like dead men.” (Matthew 28:4)
The Jewish word “shemira” means “watching” or “guarding.” The word becomes a noun when someone is employed as a shemira (males and females have gender modified variations of this word). A shemira is typically someone Jewish who is paid to stay with a deceased body from death to burial, rather than a close family member volunteering to stay awake with the deceased’ body overnight, at a time when funeral planning must be done.
A male shemira is a Shomin.
This night watch is for three days, which is why Jesus foretelling he would be dead for three days was significant. The belief was based on knowledge that some dead people had come back to life, when thought dead, needing assistance when that happened. Because of this having happened, and not wanting to entomb a body that might return to life naturally, a watcher was made part of the necessary funeral process. Still, as we read with Lazarus, the heat of the Middle East caused his body to begin decomposing, which brought about the stench of death. Less than three days “dead” meant a body that was possibly comatose, showing no sign of life but not dead, could awaken and make sounds for assistance. However, it was a belief that after three days no soul could come back into a dead body and return it to life (Lazarus was a true miracle, and that was why the chief priests plotted his death too).
As such, someone from Jesus’ family stayed near his body on the cross Wednesday night and Thursday night, as a vigil. On Friday night, when in the tomb, the Temple paid a shemira, who stayed with a Roman guard, in case a thief came to steal the body.
Now, if you have been keeping up with the timing of Holy Passover Week, Jesus was dead a full three days at 3:00 PM on the Sabbath, while in the tomb. The guard and shemira would not have to be there until 6:00 PM, but due to limits on walking distances on a Sabbath the shemira might have waited until 6:00 PM to leave home. The change to technical Sunday would have allowed him to walk any distance, however far away the tomb was from that home. Jesus could have been removed by angels before the watchers arrived, during the day of the Sabbath. However, Matthew indicated the guards confessed sleeping while on watch, as they only woke up when the women made a commotion and they saw the tomb opened and were questioned: “Where have you taken him?”
This means the eighth day of Holy Passover Week must be called Our Lord is Risen on the Day of the LORD Saturday. This is then the Seventh Day of the Jesus Return Counting.
Knowing God has called one His bride is a great awakening within.
Note: It is not insignificant that Jesus rose on the seventh day, which (besides being the Sabbath day – Seventh day) means the day God deemed holy. It is a day of rest, so one can contemplate God and His marvelous powers. Therefore, it is a day when the devoted spend time alone with the Father … as Jesus did inside the tomb. Plus, Jesus had time to neatly fold his shroud and face linen, as he talked with the Father.
It is important to realize that God planned for His Son to be offered up as the Paschal Lamb on a Sabbath and God planned for His Son’s soul to rise after three days dead on a Sabbath. With the day that soul rose again in the same flesh being on a Saturday AND the counting of Weeks being seven (one week passed), then one can see how seven Sabbaths later, on the eve of Pentecost, God planned for His Son to Ascend to his throne, next to God’s, on a Sabbath. On Pentecost (which then was on a Sunday, fifty days after Jesus was realized risen), Jesus Christ returned (his Spirit as the Christ) in eleven disciples, transforming them into Apostles, beginning the onset and spread of Christianity, from Judaic customs and commitments. They then realized the return of Christ, as Jesus risen within them … Jesus Returned.
When you love explaining holy words, you have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to speak in the tongue of the LORD. You begin Prophesying the truth when that resurrection comes.
It is important to see the forty days that the risen Lord spent with his followers, teaching them in Spiritual matters, stretched from the tenth day of the Jesus Return Counting, until the 49th day. Sunday, when Jesus first appeared to the women who loved him and relatives on the road to Emmaus, and his disciples in the upstairs room (twice), was the eighth day of the counting to Jesus’ Return. When Jesus appeared in unrecognizable form on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (a dream of John’s), that was on Monday, the ninth day of the Jesus Return Counting. Thus, when one reads in Acts, “To these [Jesus] also presented himself alive after his suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3), those forty days began on Tuesday, the tenth day in the Jesus Return Counting.
Hopefully, this article will become a seed for thought. Analyze what I have presented. Demonstrate your devotion by deeply pondering the possibilities, which have not been clearly seen since the lost sheep of Israel ceased relying on ritual training. I firmly believe what I have written, but each Christian must be able to see what I see for him or herself. Feel free to comment or ask questions. Again, the Passion Play is largely left up to movie directors to interpret, since priests like to let the words speak for themselves, without explanation. Each Christian must be in touch with the real meaning of this holy week of Passover.
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint Jesus. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
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This is the second option [Track 2?] for the Gospel selection to be read aloud on Easter Sunday, Year B principal service, according to the lectionary for the Episcopal Church. In the season of Easter, beginning with Easter Sunday, the Church makes a certain reading from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles be read, either taking the place of an Old Testament reading possibility [the First Lesson] or taking the place of the Epistle reading possibility [the New Testament slot]. In some way, by design or chance, this reading from Mark can be chosen over the first Gospel choice from John. The John 20:1-18 option is optional to choose in all three years of the lectionary cycle, whereas Year B primary service is the only shot Mark 16:1-8 has to be read aloud and thereby explained in homily.
Assuming this is the second option for the Gospel and it will be read if the mandatory Acts reading takes the place of the second lesson [the New Testament category], that would mean this reading from Mark will be preceded by a reading from Isaiah 25, where the prophet wrote, “Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth.” That will be followed by a selection of verses from Psalm 118, which sings, “The Lord has punished me sorely, but he did not hand me over to death.” Lastly, the mandatory reading from Acts 10 will be read, which states, “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear.”
Before delving into what Mark wrote about the first Easter Sunday, it is important to realize the Gospel of John recounts this differently. There certainly are opponents of Christianity who will challenge any seeming inconsistencies as being weaknesses that make the foundation of faith in stories that approach one event from different perspectives crumble. In this regard, I recommend a true seeker, even an opponent of Christianity read my interpretation of John 20:1-18, because I show how nothing John wrote is contrary to what Mark wrote. It should be realized that Mark wrote the accounts of Simon Peter, so John’s direct mention of Simon Peter entering the empty tomb does not mean that Mark has to also tell of Simon Peter doing that. Not telling of something is not evidence that another who told of something was incorrect.
It is now important that I attest to a divine syntax that I have been led to realize and become somewhat fluent in reading, which is necessary for grasping the deeper meaning of what is written. By reading under a new set of rules of language [by “speaking in tongues”], hidden meaning rises from the surface meaning that is all normal syntax allows one to see. In this regard, one has to admit the texts of the Holy Bible were written in either Hebrew or Greek, such that English translations [beginning with the King James Version and multiplying like rabbits ever since] have been memorized by Christians and made to seem as if the Biblical characters all spoke English – a language with syntactical rules that differ from the divine language all Scripture is written by [from the Godhead]. The source of all holy text is God [Yahweh] and must be realized as perfection as written, therefore any changes made to that perfection [to suit the needs of translators] weakens the truth that is divinely told.
With that disclaimer stated, this reading has verse 1 begin with the benign phrase, “When the sabbath was over.” That is not what Mark wrote. The Greek text shows: “Kai diagenomenou tou sabbatou,” where the first word is a capitalized “Kai.” The Greek word “kai” is ordinarily a simple conjunction that is translated as “and,” according to the normal rules of Greek and that language being translated into English. I have found that the divine rules of syntax say see “kai” as a marker word [not “and”] that does not need to be read in English, just noticed that something important will follow that marker word. In this case, where “Kai” is capitalized, such that another rule of divine language says all words capitalized take on higher meaning, of spiritual essence, this verse beginning with “Kai” [improperly translated as “When”] says the first series of words [to the comma mark] is an important spiritual statement that needs to be seen in that light, above the simple surface meaning that says, “When the sabbath was over.”
A literal translation of the Greek text “Kai diagenomenou tou sabbatou” says, “Kai having passed this seventh day.” Because the capitalized “Kai” is seen as a signal to look for higher meaning in those words, “having passed” becomes a divinely inspired statement of time elapsing. Because the last verse in Mark 15 told about the burial of Jesus [on a Friday], the spiritual meaning of “having passed” is less about the days of the week having gone by, but the timing of Jesus prophesying he would dei and after three days be raised. Seeing that, “having passed” becomes a divine statement of when those three days were officially over. By adding to that meaning “this seventh day” [not capitalized, therefore not Sabbath], Mark is making a very important statement [“Kai”] that the timeframe of Jesus’ prophecy was up on the seventh day, which was the day after his burial on Friday.
From seeing that being the deeper intent of Mark writing those words, the rest of verse 1 states, “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint Jesus.” While that seems to be Peter telling the names of three women who went to the tomb to anoint Jesus, one has to slow down and realize in these segments of words are six capitalized ‘names,’ each of them having a root meaning that needs to be understood. Those root meaning are as follows [all from Abarim Publications]:
Mary – “Beloved”
Magdalene – “Of The Tower”
James – “Supplanter” [or “He Who Closely Follows”]
Salome – “Peace”
Jesus – “Yahweh Saves”
When these root name meanings are seen as divinely raised to the intent behind the names, the rest of verse 1 can be read as: “Beloved Of The Tower, and Beloved the mother of Supplanter, and Peace brought spices, so that they might go anoint Yahweh Saves.” In this being based on the translations into English and not the literal Greek text, we find with closer inspection that some words have not been translated and the places one find “and” written and where the word “kai” is adding a mark of importance. Based on that awareness, that written literally translates into English as the following segments:
“this Beloved this Of The Tower” ,
kai Beloved this the one of He Who Closely Follows ,
kai Peace ,
purchased perfumes ,
in order that having come ,
they might anoint [the dead] him .
Again, I recommend reading what I interpreted about John having also written (similarly) of “Mary this Magdalene comes early,” where the use of the root names are discussed deeply. Here, I want to focus more on all name “Mary” are women who are deemed “Beloved.” The raised essence that must be seen now is “Beloved” means family relation, not just some friend or follower of Jesus. Because some tend to see Mary Magdalene as some woman Jesus knew, who was a female disciple, this makes it clear that she was related to Jesus [“Of The Tower”] through marriage, as the wife of Jesus. As the wife “Beloved,” she was first in the list of women responsible for preparing the dead body of her husband for transfer from a loaner tomb, to the ‘family plot’ [the one Lazarus had been buried in].
The second most important “Beloved” is the mother of James, the half-brother of Jesus. Still, the word “mother” is not written, but implied from an article – “hē.” That same word [a letter in Greek – “ἡ”] is written before the first “Maria” and before “Magdalēnē,” at neither time implying “mother.” The presence of the word “kai” before the second “Beloved” says this woman has greater spiritual importance than the wife, where “kai” becomes the indication of the mother, one who conceived Jesus without physical penetration or intercourse. This makes “James” become a statement of her having since become a mother who conceived through intercourse with Joseph, her husband, but that couple had more children than just James. Therefore, the meaning of the name says the “Beloved” mother of Jesus also was one “Who Closely Followed He” who was her divine Son of man.
After seeing that identification of Mother Mary, one finds another use of “kai,” which says “Peace” is another element that must be understood. The name of the woman Mary Salome is that of an aunt of Jesus, as the wife of a brother of Mary the mother of Jesus, who is believed to have been Zebedee. This would make Salome the mother of James and John of Zebedee, which says they were cousins of Jesus. By a third woman being announced as important to know on a spiritual level. “Peace” must be read as the strength that held all three women up, able to do the work they were leaving to do, was Mary Salome. She was a presence of calm for two women who were most distraught over the death of a husband and son.
The segment that is separated, saying “purchased perfumes” or “bought spices” has to be recognized as a statement of preparation for this day. Since there would have been no buying nor selling on the Sabbath, these three women had gone on the day of preparation [Friday] and “bought spices” for the purpose of preparing the body of Jesus for transfer, from one tomb to another. They would have done that separate from Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus taking seventy-five pounds of embalming perfumes with them to prepare Jesus’ body for burial. This segment means Jesus was representative of their Sabbath to recognize, based on prior preparations.
Most likely, these women did little more than cry and pray on the Sabbath, in preparation for doing what had to be done on Sunday morning. This becomes the focus of the next segment of words: “in order that having come.” More than them walking to the tomb as the meaning of “having come,” it was a day prepared for “having come.” Therefore, the word “hina” is written to connect that which had been bought in preparation follows an order or schedule, such that a day of work had arrived.
The final segment of words places focus on anointing. The Greek word “aleipsōsin” states the conditions planned in preparation, which were to be apply olive oil scented with fragrances to the face of Jesus. It is here that one finds the translation that has “Jesus” listed is incorrect, as that name has been applied to the Greek word “auton,” which simply means “him.” The intuiting of Jesus, a name that means “Yahweh Saves,” says two things. First, a corpse no longer has a name. Second, the plan to anoint one who had already been the Anointed One of Yahweh means the conditional (“might anoint [the dead]”) says the women had given up hope that Jesus could not die, having been given eternal life, therefore impossible to ever be dead.
Verse 2 then states, “And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.” This verse also begins with the word “kai,” although not capitalized. This says the timing is important to understand. The two word “lianprōi” translate as “very early,” but the importance of “kai” says “lian” must be read as “exceedingly” or “extremely,” where the “earliness” means the second 6:00 AM ticked off. Any earlier and it would have still been technically the Sabbath.
When Mark wrote “the first day of the week,” this is the same terminology used by John. This being stated in verse 2 says the elevated meaning found in verse 1 is correct, as that stated the timing of Jesus resurrection of death, more than identifying it was now the day after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week [Sunday]. This also says it was immediately upon that new day having arrived.
There are two segments of words, set off by comma marks, that make the NRSV translation a paraphrase. The literal translation into English show those segments as stating: “they come to the tomb , having arisen the sun.” The order of those segments is important to grasp. First, “they come to the tomb” is stated in the present inductive, not in the aorist past, meaning the women left before the sun actually rose. That says sunrise had not yet occurred at 6:00 AM. However,the aorist active participle of “anateilantos” [“having arisen”] says sunrise occurred after they left to go to the tomb.
Verse 3 then has Peter recall a conversation, one which he personally was not present to hear. By Mark writing, “They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” this says Peter could have heard the women voice their concerns “among themselves, as one present overhearing them talk. This past tense use of “were saying” could even have been early in the morning, when the women voiced that concern before leaving to the cemetery. In that case, Peter sat nearby and heard them purposefully talk so he could hear them, as a way of trying to motivate him to volunteer to go with them and do that work. In that case, Peter knew he had let the women go alone, without offering to go along and possibly help them.
That verse is introduced by the word “kai,” such that the importance becomes this element of them talking among themselves. As women knowing they were not strong enough to roll away a heavy tomb stone, they also knew it was not their place to do a man’s work. Therefore, the importance of this becomes a confession by Peter that he knew about this conversation beforehand, rather than after the fact, as hearsay.
Verse 4 then says, “ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.” Here, again, is a verse begun by the use of “kai,” showing importance needs to be seen in “having looked up they see that” [from “elegontheōrousin hoti”], such that the point of their prior discussion was then found to have been needless worry. This makes “having looked up” be akin to having a premonition or imaginary vision of them reaching the tomb and seeing a stone in need of being rolled away. From this, going back to the “bought spices” or “purchased perfumes,” these women had not been to the tomb to watch the interment, as it happened so late in the day Friday, while they were shopping. Peter most likely had watch that interment [as secretly as a casual bystander could] and knew there would be guards there to help the women. Thus, he did not offer to go and possibly help, when he knew his help would not be needed and he did not want to be arrested. The vision the women has conjured from fear of going without a man disappeared when they saw the tomb already opened.
When Mark is shown to have written, “the stone, which was very large,” the separation by comma marks says the stone for the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea was “extremely large,” using the same extremity as was found in the earliness of the hour prior. This says the imaginations of the women led them to “see” which tomb was his [an act of “perception” beyond personal knowledge from past experience] and that tomb was opened, no longer sealed by a stone greater than they had expected.
When the translation states in verse 5, “As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed,” this ignores the presence of another capitalized first word that is “Kai.” This places great importance in understanding “having entered into the tomb” [from “eiselthousaieis to mnēmeion”]. This is where linking John’s story to Marks is important, as John makes it easier to intuit that women and children did not have any rights to enter into tombs. That was only allowed to adult males. Therefore, the great importance comes from not thinking three women casually walked into an open tomb, previously where a dead body had been placed, as it has greater power coming from understanding someone [not the women] was evident as “having entered into the tomb,” because it was opened.
From grasping the importance of that statement, rather than thinking women would go into a tomb not owned by either of them, without asking permission first, makes sense that the next segment of words tells of them seeing “a young man,” not inside the tomb, but outside, “sitting on the right.” This then gives the impression that “a young man” was thought to be “an attendant” [the meaning of “neaniskon”], who was employed by the garden cemetery. By stating he was “sitting on the right,” this implies the stone had been rolled away, to the left. A “sitting” position [from “kathēmenon”] can even be a statement of “dwelling” or “residence,” implying the “attendant” was under a canopy, or tabernacle.
The next segment of words, separated by comma marks, says this “attendant” was “clothed in a robe white.” Here, the symbolism of “white” needs to be seen as a statement of “purity.” The Greek word “leukēn” can mean, “bright, brilliant,” implying dazzling white. When this is combined with the prior statement of “on the right,” where the word “dexiois” equally can translate as “the right hand,” this becomes descriptive of Jesus’s soul, which has ascended to the Father and sitting at the right hand of Yahweh. Seeing this, the word “sitting” can now be read as “enthroned.” This makes the reading from John [as explained in my commentary about that] be supported as to when Mary Magdalene was told by Jesus [who she thought was the gardener] being told, “Not me appearance.”
In the NRSV translation that adds, “and they were amazed,” this segment of words is begun by the word “kai,” signifying importance must be seen in what was witnessed. The “kai” leads to one word in Greek, which is “exethambēthēsan,” which makes the important statement: “they were greatly amazed.” Here, again, there is a superlative used [embedded in the usage applied normally to the root word “ekthambeó”], which elevates this means the women suddenly felt as if somehow in the presence of God, such that their “amazement” was actually “great fear.”
In Luke’s version of this event, two angels were said to have been seen, such that he wrote: “In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground.” While not written here in Mark that they bowed down, one can expect the women felt such a strong presence before them [unnatural and quite holy] that they would have prostrated themselves out of fear.
This state of being is then confirmed when Mark is shown to have written in verse 6, “But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.” Keeping in mind that no words have been exchanged between the women and the “attendant” or “young man,” it is not clear that the one in a robe bright knew the hearts and minds of the women. From that source of divine knowledge was spoken a series of segments that are missing important signs that keep the reader of the NRSV from taking hold of.
To best grasp this, I will not do as before and break down the segments of words, complete with the correct punctuation, and literally translate the Greek into English. What was said goes like this:
Because John wrote of Jesus speaking to Mary Magdalene, one must see this “young man” as the spirit [or soul] of Jesus, as an apparition. Rather than being a physical body, as would later appear in the upper room, the appearance of a young man makes the soul of Jesus take on the appearance of Adam, the Son of God, made by His hand. Therefore, just as John wrote that Mary thought Jesus was the gardener [knowing it was Jesus, but not the man], that same entity has just spoken.
In the first segment, the capitalized Greek word “Mē” is written, importantly stating “Not.” This then leads to the word “ekthambeisthe,” which was similarly stated as how the women felt fear and fell down. The power of “Not” is then less about being a spoken word, but a presence that spoke to the women, such that the fear they had felt from seeing holiness before them suddenly ceased being. Because these two words end simply with a period mark, there is no sense of command that should be read into words spoken, but one should see that just as suddenly as the women felt weak and meaningless, they stopped and felt secure enough to stand up or kneel before this presence in white.
The next three segments are broken into important mind-reading steps, such that all three women were thinking the same things, all of which were known by the soul of Jesus, married with the Holy Spirit and therefore one with the Father. In the segments that says, “Jesus you seek” [from “Iēsoun zēteite”], here is found the capitalization of the name “Jesus.” Returning to the previous section where I explained several names presented in verse 1, the meaning here now bears the same translation presentation. Thus, first stated is “Yahweh Will Save you seek.” That becomes the knowledge of Yahweh reading their hearts and minds, saying they sought salvation through Jesus.
When next is said, “the Nazarene” [from “ton Nazarēnon”], the capitalization of “Nazarene” brings out the name meaning [of a place, Abarim Publications] “One Of The Scattering.” While this statement can go quite deep in explanation [which I will sidestep for now], the point of this should be seen as knowledge that Jesus was born of Mary [there before this “young man”] in Bethlehem, not Nazareth. The use of “Nazarene” then speaks of Jesus as human, while also become spiritually elevated as one of Yahweh’s spiritual seeds sown on earth, as the hand of God spreading holy seeds upon Israel.
The next segment then knows the three women stayed vigilantly at the cross upon which Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and taken down dead. The reason the women had left so early in the morning to get to the cemetery was because they witnessed that death and wanted to care for the corpse. They wanted to pour olive oil with sweet fragrances only last time upon his face and say prayers of lament for him.
Then, the next segment begins a new line of though, following a period mark. It ends with an exclamation point. The word exclaimed is “ēgerthē,” which is the third person aorist passive indicative form of the verb “egeírō,” which is translated as “he is aroused, awakened, risen.” The third person is assumed to be “he,” but because the soul of Jesus is then the one speaking, and because the first person singular is not used, a better translation would be “it is risen.” The “it” would be the soul, and the use of “awakened” or “aroused” attests to Jesus saying about Lazarus (on the other side of the Jordan), “Lazarus is only sleeping,” Lazarus likewise was in need of “raising, arousing, awakening” from the sleep that is death. A body never has life without a soul, thus a body is always asleep; but, a soul never dies, as it is always awake, but in need of a body if not saved from death.
To fully understand the impact of “it is risen,” Jesus was not standing physically before the women. The brilliance of his “robe” means he was observed in a transmissional state of being, just as Peter, James and John saw Jesus “transfigured” along with Moses and Elijah. The soul of Jesus spoke to the women, saying “I am risen” to where I am seated at the right hand of God, but you can see me as an apparition now. Later, you will have my body before you as you wished, when you came early in the morning to here.
This is then confirmed in the next segment of words that state, “not being here,” ended with an exclamation point. The “being” of all living creatures is the soul in the flesh. Just as Jesus would ascend in the flesh on the forty-ninth day [day before Pentecost], and just as Elijah ascended in the flesh before Elisha, the “being” [from “estin,” a form of “eimi”] that was recognized as Jesus of Nazareth was not available at that time.
Thus, verse 6 concludes with the soul of Jesus telling the women, “behold the place where they laid him.” That becomes an invitation to peer into the tomb and see for themselves it was empty [except some linen wrappings and coverings], which acts to inform the reader that none had entered the tomb to look around.
Verse 7 then has the soul of Jesus tell them, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” In this, the exception [“but”] says seeing nothing in the tomb means nothing, because the body of Jesus has left the plane of the earth. This them speaks symbolically to the women [and Peter and John if there by then], saying, “enter your own tombs of self-ego death, so you too can “go” the same place as went Jesus. It says Jesus will “go” to “tell his disciples” after you “go.”
After a comma mark about telling the disciples, one finds another usage of “kai,” which shows the importance of specifically naming Peter and the place Galilee. In addition is the capitalization of “Proagei,” which means “It leads forward.” Again, the presence of capitalized names makes it important to see the root meaning of the name imposed into what was stated.
“Peter” – “Rock” or “Stone”
“Galilee” – “Rolling”
Simply from seeing the two names bring importance to “Stone” and “Rolling,” where the women had just arrived to find a massive stone rolled away, the instruction can now be read as: “this Stone that It leads before you towards these Rolling.” Amazingly, this statement reflects back on Jesus knowing all about the unwillingness of Peter to come to the tomb, having nothing pertinent to do with talking about Galilee [the region where the disciples lived]. The capitalization of “Proagei” becomes an important statement about “It,” as the third person present indicative, meaning the Holy Spirit. That becomes the “Leader” that will become the same power “Rolling” away the “Stone” covering their tombs, after they submit them to Yahweh and become Jesus reborn.
The last two segments of verse 7 place focus on “there you will see him, just as he told you.” The use of “there” seems to mean “Galilee,” but when the name meaning spiritually says “Rolling,” “there” then becomes a place in the future, when the Holy Spirit will allow one’s eyes to open and “see” the truth as Jesus had seen. That place in the future will then be one prepared in the spiritual realm, as a room within the Father’s house. It will mean when all the things taught by Jesus will be understood perfectly and a soul will have come to know Yahweh personally.
Finally, verse 8 states, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Here, rather than “So,” this last verse begins with another capitalized “Kai,” signaling it to be most important to grasp properly. This word leads to one word, “exelthousai,” which has been used similarly twice before, meaning “having gone out” or “having come out.” This importance is spiritually realized to be the whole experience of a glowing white presence speaking to them telepathically, as if it knew them personally. That becomes a n impact statement about Jesus having come out of the tomb to greet his relatives and loved ones, not looking like him and making them all fear God, while having their hearts warmed at the same time.
The next segment of word says, “having fled from the tomb.” This has the dual meaning [minimally] of saying they all ran away from the cemetery, returning to where they stayed quickly, while also saying deep within their souls they all knew they had escaped the fear of death, which is symbolized by the tomb.
The next segment says that before this moment they “had seized for them trembling,” meaning they feared death tremendously. That past sense of fear had been removed. Thus, the next word is set out by the use of “kai” internally in this segment of words. The “kai” states the importance of them having “amazement,” where the deeper meaning of “ekstasis” [the root for ecstatic] says they were overcome by a “trance-like state of being.” The fears they once let lead them had become disconnected, which was in itself bewildering.
The last two segments then say, “kai to no one nothing was said ; they had reverence for.” This says none of them had been told to go tell the disciples what they had seen, as they had seen nothing – the absence of what they expected to see. What the soul of Jesus had told them prior was to speak as the disciples of Jesus had been taught to speak. There was nothing they could say that Jesus had not already said, preparing them all for this time coming. Thus, they said nothing to nobody because they revered the experience and had faith everything would be better soon.
As a short Gospel reading selection for Easter Sunday, it should be seen how much can unfold from only eight verses. The depth of understanding that comes from this selection is tremendous, while on the surface it seems other Gospel selections say more. The use of names in this selection, just like in that from John, becomes powerful; but few will ever see that or point it out so others can see it. Few will stand firm and say the three Marys saw Jesus. Many will be looking for something to happen in Galilee. This all become capable of being discerned, when one knows a divine system of language is in play, but most people are blinded by the syntax of English and paraphrases dilute the truth, so no one is fluent in the language of God.
As the first Sunday in the Easter season, when it is most important to see the mandatory readings from Acts are telling Christians it is not enough to meekly believe, but one must be prepared for ministry and the works of faith, few have teachers leading the seekers to that goal. At one time the Church knew this was important, setting up a system that is inspired by Yahweh; but over time that knowledge became lost. It is time to rekindle that Spirit and be prepared by the Word of Jesus Christ to return Christianity to what it is meant to be.
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
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This is one of the two Gospel selection possible to be read aloud on Easter Sunday, Year B principal service, according to the lectionary for the Episcopal Church. While the Track 1 and Track 2 options that become vogue during the Ordinary season after Pentecost, one might presume that choosing the mandatory Acts 10 reading as the choice over the Old Testament reading from Isaiah 25 would lean one towards a Gospel reading from Mark. This reading from John seems like it would be chosen if the mandatory Acts selection were to override the Epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 15. Whichever the case [knowing Episcopalians never have the time to excessively read Scripture, preach about its meaning briefly, and then allow a full-pledged discussion that would lead anyone towards faith in Yahweh], something on the schedule will not be read and something will. When one realizes this reading from John is an option in every year of the Episcopal lectionary cycle [A, B, and C], it has a chance to be read every year. The option of Mark 15, however, is now or never. The days when someone Episcopalian asked, “Want to study more from the Bible?” and anybody said, “Yes” are long gone.
The appearance of this reading from John gives the impression it tells two stories, one of Peter and another disciple and another of Mary Magdalene. In reality it tells of three parts, where the first part is only verse 1. That first verse is John’s assessment of the eight verses that are read in Mark 16:1-8 [the alternate Gospel choice]. Matthew and Luke also wrote about this event, with both adding details that adds to the depth of Jesus being found risen. Still, the scope of Mark, Matthew and Luke does not go beyond John 20:1-10. This makes the part of John’s story about Mary Magdalene seeing Jesus unique and above and beyond what the others tell.
In the NRSV translation, verse 1 begins by stating, “Early on the first day of the week.” While this is heard and quickly understood as being Sunday, there is unseen significance in John writing this. The Jews were limited in how far they could travel outside the city on the Sabbath. The end of John 19 tells of Jesus being prepared for burial and then placed in the bomb of Joseph Arimathea, with that taking place on “the day of preparation,” which means Friday, the day before the Sabbath. This means Jesus was placed in the tomb before 6:00 PM, when the Sabbath technically began, so everyone could go to a place to observe the Sabbath. There they would be restricted as to how far they could walk, until 6:00 AM on Sunday, meaning thirty-six hours have passed since Jesus was placed in that tomb.
In actuality, the literal translation of the Greek John wrote says, “This next one of the sabbath.” In that, the word “Tē” is capitalized, which means more than that being the first word of a new chapter. Capitalization shows importance, such that divine meaning shines on those words capitalized. The word written is the feminine dative article, which normally states “the.” However, as “This” (an acceptable alternate translation), the capitalization says John is writing divinely, so “This” alerts the reader the Word of Yahweh according to John is continuing here. That is then followed by the word “de,” which is often not translated, but means “next, on top of this, or moreover.” Therefore, the first two words are importantly announcing the next divine occurrence in the story of Jesus.
The word “mia” means “one.” In Hebrew, “the first day” is written “yom echad.” That really only says “day one.” By John writing “mia” it has been assumed that “day” was implied. While that assumption can be correct, it is not the only way to read the number “one,” following the importance of “This” which follows as “next” in the story of Jesus. The number “one” becomes a new “one” of importance, which follows an older “one” of importance.
To then find the Greek word “tōn” written, which is the genitive plural form of the article “the,” this becomes translated as “of the.” As a case stating possession, “one” is “of” that which then follows. Still, rather than use the generality of “the,” it is again worthwhile to translate “tōn” as “of this.” This leads one to see “one” as the “next This of” value.
This is where the word “sabbatōn” is written, which translates as “sabbath.” Because the Greek is not capitalized, the assumption is “seventh” refers to the number of days in a “week,” so the translators see John stating “on the first day of the week.” Again, while that assumption can be seen as correct, it again becomes too limiting, especially when this series of words began with a capitalize “This,” signaling the reader to see what “This” is. What this word means, in the lower-case spelling, is a new sabbath [seventh day, a day made holy by God] is being determined from this event. Therefore, John wrote divinely, “This next one of the sabbath,” meaning Sunday will become the new Sabbath, because of the events about to unfold.
The NRSV translation then shows written, “while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.” This is a paraphrase of what was actually written. The Greek literally states, “Mary the Magdalene comes early , dark still it being , to the tomb”. By paraphrasing this, it appears that John’s sole focus was on one woman, “Mary Magdalene.” This is translated from the Greek written: “Maria hē Magdalēnē.” In that, two capitalized words [names] are written, with capitalization a signal of divine importance, such that two statements of divine importance are states as “Mary” and “Magdalene.” When the Greek “ἡ” is seen as the feminine normative article [as “the”], it too can be translated as saying “this.” By realizing that, the capitalization of “Maria” is stating the woman’s name “Mary” is importantly stated, without any further clarification as to which or how many going by the name “Mary” are now the focus of John. When that possibility of multiple people being named, all being “Mary,” John is not excluding Mary the mother of Jesus, nor Mary Salome. It includes Mary Magdalene, simply as “Maria,” because she too was a “Mary.” It is then from that name that John attached the feminine normative article “ἡ,” which then separated from three women name Mary, as “this Magdalene.”
The word “comes” [from “erchetai”] is stated in the third person singular present, meaning John’s focus is now only on the one Mary, who was differentiated from the others of the same name as “Magdalene.” That names means “Of The Tower,” which should now draw closer attention, as a capitalized name of divine meaning [as it should every time it is written]. In this, the name should not be seen simply as some weakly understood name of a place from where Mary came, as the names of places demand knowing the root meaning of that naming. Thus, John is singling out Mary Magdalene because she reflected a “tower” among the followers of Jesus.
The symbolism of a tower is confinement, in the sense “Magdalene” needs to be seen as a divine statement of one [in this case, feminine] who has submitted self-ego unto a higher power, but feels trapped by that commitment. Instead of the name being an indication of one filled with the Holy Spirit and having become a wife to Yahweh, it reflects one who has been submitted [sacrificed by others] to a commitment in marriage, for holy purposes, but not wholly of one’s own choice. For those who have pondered the idea that there was a relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, seeing this name of distinction in this light makes it easy to see such a relationship would have been arranged and Mary was not completely fulfilled by her submission to Jesus, or to an Essene religious belief system, because she was placed in a “tower” of responsibility [at a young age], never allowed the complete freedom to know life as a woman.
It is then from this grasp of the name “Magdalene” that John wrote she “comes early.” This is where the Greek word “prōi,” rather than as the first word shown in the paraphrase. The Greek implies a timeframe that is “early in the morning” or “at dawn.” Again, while this clearly leads one to assume John was referring to “early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,” that single understanding misses the importance of two names being presented. A deeper meaning surfaces, from seeing “Magdalene” as not only relative to one Mary, but to all three named Mary. They were similarly placed in “towers” of commitment at a young age [see the story of Gabriel and Mary at sixteen], where that “early in life” commitment was what led them to go prepare the body of Jesus for moving to the family tomb [see the story of Lazarus].
Following a comma mark, separating the word stating “early in the morning,” John wrote “dark still it being” [“skotias eti ousēs”]. Set apart by comma marks, those three words can be seen as standing alone in meaning, “spiritual darkness even now exists,” where John was making a statement about those in the “tower” of religious devotion still being unfulfilled. This can be better seen when one realizes “at dawn” [the meaning of “prōi”] is when light of the sun has reached the horizon. While “darkness” means the sun has not fully risen, the Jewish clock begins the “morning hour” at 6:00 AM. This timing is relative to sunrise, as well as denoting when the Sabbath officially ended and the first day began. Thus, women would be less likely to walk in darkness, and more as soon as sunrise made a trip of commitment safe in morning light.
When John then wrote the next segment of words that say, “to the tomb” [“eis to mnēmeion”], here the dual meaning says women named Mary went to the tomb where Jesus’ body had been laid the prior Friday, while also being a statement about the commitment made by the three women servants. They were prepared to go to their tombs in the darkness they were surround by, in the “Tower.”
It is at this point, following a comma mark, that John wrote the word “kai,” which signals the reader to pay close attention to the following segment of words. Here, John wrote [literally translated]: “she sees the stone having been removed from the tomb.” Once again, there can be found dual meaning coming from these words, which the use of “kai” says to look for. More than simply seeing ahead to the garden where the tomb is, and more than seeing the round stone used to seal the tomb has been rolled away, the deeper meaning speaks spiritually. As such, the sight become spiritual perception, which is the future of Mary [each of the three] perceived to lead to her [their] death[s] is because Jesus was the “cornerstone” thought to be the escape from the “Tower.” Instead, the darkness of captivity in a mortal body committed to serve Yahweh blindly is thinking Jesus’ death ends that idea.
The happy ending to this first verse of John is then by “seeing the stone” of Jesus “having been removed from the tomb.” That becomes an important prophecy [the use of “kai”] that foretells all has not been lost, as thought. Simply by seeing the tomb’s doorway opened becomes the promise that all is not lost. While the three Marys did not know this, this says their hearts began beating faster.
I have purposefully delved deeper into this first verse of John’s reading because it is important to see how this one verse more closely aligns with that which Mark wrote [as well as Matthew and Luke]. One needs to realize that this story [by all four Gospel writers] was written well after the event of Jesus being found not in the tomb. I will now more quickly address the rest of this reading.
Verse 2 then tells, “So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” At this point after realizing John did not exclude anyone named “Mary” from having the same vision of the tomb of Joseph Arimathea being opened, the immediate reaction would not be someone robbed the tomb, and certainly not that Jesus had risen like promised, but that the tomb was indeed a loaner. The women had left early to get there to prepare the body for moving. Seeing it opened would have immediately made the women thin, “Oh my! The people coming to remove Jesus’ body have already beat us here and taken the body!” It is from that panic that the two older women would have said to the younger Mary, “Run and get help!”
It is also worth thinking about where the women had walked from and Mary was now running back to. It is not written where anyone stayed, beyond the known upper room in the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem. It is unlikely that the upper room would become a place of residence for all of Jesus’ followers, as everyone had their families in or near Jerusalem for the Passover feast and the festival of the Unleavened Bread, which began on Friday and ended the day before, on the Sabbath [when Jesus was actually risen, after 72 hours of death]. I have a theory about this place.
Because Joseph of Arimathea was a secret disciple of Jesus, secret because he [like Nicodemus] was a member of the Sanhedrin, he had a place of residence just outside the wall of Jerusalem, not far from where the garden was that he had a tomb newly hewn. Not only did Joseph allow the body of Jesus be placed in his tomb, but Joseph allowed the family of Jesus to stay at his place, knowing that would make it easier on the family to move Jesus’ body to Bethany on Sunday [the first day of the week]. This would also be where Peter stayed, which would deem him a cousin of Jesus, therefore family.
When John wrote, “the other disciple, the one Jesus loved,” the translation of “the other disciple” [from “ton allon mathētēn”] is misleading. The person being identified is John himself, not naming himself directly, because at that time John was not an adult male. He was a child. He was family, based on his writing, “the one who Jesus loved,” just as was Mary Magdalene. This means the better translation of those three words is as, “this different pupil.” The one Jesus loved was taught by Jesus as his son, meaning Mary was his mother. This arrangement means Jesus was married to Mary, thus the symbolism of “Magdalene” meaning “Of The Tower.”
One should see how John had been at the execution of his father and stayed to watch the whole event with his mother and grandmother [among other women and some uncles]. Peter went and hid, along with the other disciples, making his denials more meaningful, when seen as a relative who denied being one of Jesus’ followers. John wrote about those denials, because Peter stayed with his nephew, who needed to see what was happening to his father. In Mark’s Gospel [the author of Peter’s story], John was identified on the night of Jesus’ arrest as “A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.” (Mark 14:51-52) Rather than “a young man” the text says, “a certain youth,” which was young John.
This says that Peter had taken up the responsibility of being the father figure of John, staying with the family at that time of need, knowing it was safe at the home of Joseph. This means that Mary Magdalene ran as a woman in her late twenties or early thirties, as well as a woman of that age could run in dress-like clothing. She first told “Simon Peter” and then she told her son John, telling both “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
This was heard by both Peter and John as a call to immediately respond, which they did. John then wrote, “So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in.” (John 20:3-5) Here, it becomes clear that John is more agile than Peter and able to run faster, taking shortcuts that an adult male could not take. Still, after beating Peter to the tomb and finding it open, like his mother had said, he waited for Peter. That is a clear sign that John was a child and not privileged to make adult decisions. Even after John said Peter entered the tomb, John did not enter until authorized by Peter. Peter, as an adult, wanted to make sure nothing foul had been done to the body of Jesus, which would have been traumatizing for his son to see his father’s body in that way.
When John wrote, “Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen,” (John 20:6-7) this speaks of the shroud placed around the body of Jesus the previous Friday evening [of day].
In John’s nineteenth chapter, he wrote that Joseph of Arimathea “was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.” While nothing is written that says the whole amount of embalming ointments and fragrant wood lotions were used; but one would think the face covering and shroud would have reeked of dead body mixed with sweet perfumes. The rolled up face cloth and the shroud would have had to have a scent to them, but nothing is written about that detail.
I believe that so much was taken by Nicodemus because the Temple elite feared some zealot [they called the Essenes that a lot] would come and try to steal the body of Jesus and say he rose from death, but then ran away. Matthew wrote of the guards placed around the tomb to make sure that did not happen. Thus, one can assume that Nicodemus carried with him so much strong dead body perfumes, not so much to anoint Jesus’ body with sweet smells, but to get some of that identifying scent on any would-be body thief. Still, because John did not write about a strong odor [nor anyone else], it becomes safe to assume that God [His angels] made sure there was no smell of death or perfume present.
In verse 10 the NRSV shows, “Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.” There is more to this than is shown. The literal Greek states, “Returned therefore back with themselves these disciples.” While this can be read as John simply saying, “Peter and John returned to where they were staying,” that misses the importance of the capitalization of “Apēlthon,” which means, “Returned, Arrived, or Followed,” where the divine elevation says Jesus not being found in his tomb, with the linens folded and rolled means “Jesus has risen.” He is “therefore back with these disciples,” just like old times between “themselves.”
It is at this point that the duality of verse 10 means both, in the sense that Mary Magdalene has returned to the tomb. Peter goes back to find the other disciples and tell them what he found. John, seeing his mother is there, stays with her, especially since she is crying and peering into the tomb. Just like a child not being able to make decisions left for men to make, neither could Mary Magdalene simply walk inside a tomb she did not own. By John staying, he could write about what took place next as a firsthand eyewitness. Had he returned with Peter, he would be telling something Mary told to him alone [a sign of a mother speaking to a son]. Here also, one is able to see how the other Mary women had never left. They had remained, most likely in prayer, arising to join Mary Magdalene when she returned and after Peter had left. This makes Luke’s account [mother Mary’s story] of “two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.” This is no different than John writing that “saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.” (Luke 24:4)
While the other Mary women would have seen the same “two angels,” it makes sense that the other two Marys left after being told, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.” (Luke 24:5-7) It would have been the dawning that Jesus said he would rise after three days that sent those two off to tell the others what they remembered. That would have left Mary Magdalene and John alone at the empty tomb.
Still distraught because she does not know where the body of her husband is, even if he has risen, this is when a figure comes to Mary and asks her why she is still crying. Here, John wrote, “Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” This needs to be heard with ears that understand she too heard Jesus say he would die and be raised after three days, but Jesus never said what state of life raised that would be. She probably thought Jesus was barely alive, in need of medical attention, having seen all the damages done to his body the past week. To see someone obviously not in need of medical attention made Mary see Jesus as someone else.
When John wrote, “Thinking he was the gardener,” he began that series of words with the single capitalized word “Ekeinē,” which says, “She.” As the feminine normative singular of “That one,” the proper substitute is “She.” Following the question asked, “Whom do you seek?” the divine elevation as the female companion of Jesus, “She” being “That one” who should be seeking her husband be the “Wife.” The importance of that one word statement [between a question mark and a comma mark] becomes why “She” began “thinking [Jesus] is the gardener.” This becomes a connection between Jesus and Mary as that same connection between Adam and Eve, where Adam was the gardener of Eden. In this case, “thinking” [from “dokousa”] becomes a spiritual flashback, of Freudian proportions.
John then wrote, “Jesus said to her, “Mary.”’ In that, “Mariam” is written, unlike the “Maria” of verse 1. For an unrecognized figure to speak the name of Mary, perhaps in a close personal ‘pet name’ way, it was the voice that Mary recognized. It might have even been the cemetery gardener in whom the soul of Jesus had entered and spoke, or it might have been an apparition [like the two angels or men dressed in gleaming white] that was Adam. Either way, the voice of Jesus was heard speaking lovingly to Mary, as there was no shouting her name, as if a call for her attention.
When Mary recognized her name spoken by Jesus, she called him “Rabbouni,” which John clarified meant “Teacher.” Both words are capitalized, giving them both divine essence. Both “Rabbouni” and “Didaskale” mean the same as “Master” or “Teacher,” while “Rabbouni” can mean “Rabbi,” as a clerical title. This response can mean that Mary was also a “disciple” or “pupil” of Jesus, but the divine meaning says the mind of Mary was flashing back to her soul’s time in Eden, where Adam loving called he “woman” or “wife” and she always responded, “My Master.” That means Mary responded as the wife of Jesus. Still, the highest meaning of that says the soul of Mary was remembering the Son of God, from whose DNA ribs she had been made, making the body of Jesus be her “Master” copy.
This understanding then leads one to read John write, “Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Here, the Greek importantly states, “Me mou haptou,” where the capitalization of “Me” places divine relevance of “Not.” To follow that with “me,” which is a statement of “being,” Jesus is importantly telling Mary that he is “Not Adam,” thus he is “Not” her biological twin standing before her, as that “Master.” Neither is the one standing before Mary Jesus, as the voice is “Not me” in that body. This makes the use of “haptou” go beyond a command not to touch, such that the word means “perceive.” This means Jesus appeared as something akin to a hologram or a ghost, which could only be perceived, bit not touched.
John actually wrote that Jesus told Mary, “not yet for I have ascended to the Father,” which says the body of Jesus is “not yet” back,” with his spiritual appearance being “I have ascended to the Father.” There is nothing that Mary could do to keep Jesus from doing what God would have Jesus do, so there is nothing about physical touching Jesus that would keep him from ascending to the Father [see Thomas sticking his fingers in the wounds of Jesus to grasp that point]. It had no sexual connotations, as if Mary wanted to kiss and hug someone who sounded like Jesus, but looked like a gardener. The translation of “touch” is better left alone, going with “to grasp with the senses, apprehend, perceive.” (Wiktionary)
In this set of instructions given to Mary, where the capitalized “Patera” [“Father”] is found written three times [repetition is important] and “Theon” [“God”] is written twice, says Mary was the perfect wife for Jesus, as her soul was that of Eve [not her actual name, if she had an actual name]. Thus, the uses of Father and God apply to the Father of both Adam and Eve, who were both born as immortals, having to sin to become mortal and be sent to teach the world about Yahweh – “God.”
In that set of instruction is the use of “brothers,” which should not be read as the sons of Mother Mary, sons of Joseph. Here, the use of “adelphous” means all of those disciples who would become Apostles. In that transformation, they too would become Sons of the Father, whose God would be their God too. For that to happen, they would all need to be rebirths of Jesus, all as Yahweh’s Anointed Ones, so as Sons Yahweh would be their Father and as Jesus they would all become “brothers of me” [“adelphous mou”].
With all that understood as taking place in the cemetery where Joseph of Arimathea had a tomb, John wrote, “Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.” In that, Mary spoke the capitalized words “Heōraka” and “Kyrion.” By seeing capitalization brings about a divine meaning, higher than normal spoken language conveys, she said, “I have perceived this Master.” She did not say she saw Jesus, as his body was still missing. Therefore Mary uttered a prophecy of what would happen on Pentecost, saying “I have perceived Jesus as the Lord over all of us here.” Just as Eve saw Adam as her Master copy, such that she was in Adam and Adam was in her, the same future awaited the disciples, where Jesus would be in them and they would be in Jesus.
As a Gospel selection for Easter Sunday, the depth of this interpretation shows why there should be no restriction of one or two Gospel rendition of the first Easter Sunday, but a desire by all who are true Christians to make it clear to all seeking to be come true Christians how Yahweh speaks through His prophets … like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John et al. Rather than cut out one reading, to accommodate a mandatory Acts reading, true Christians should have the desire to take all the readings into their homes and pray to God for inspiration to see the truth and more firmly have true faith.
Beginning with Easter Sunday and lasting throughout the season of Easter (including Pentecost Sunday), the standard reading choices change. Instead of a prescribed Old Testament reading, followed by a Psalm and then Epistle reading, the choices are deemed: First Lesson, Psalm, and New Testament. In this special set-up for the Easter Season, mandatory readings from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles is the reason. One reading from Acts will be selected each Sunday, which can either replace the Old Testament reading or it can replace the Epistle reading. Whichever position the reading from Acts takes, the other will either be from the Old Testament or an Epistle. This change should be seen as a statement each Sunday during the period representative of the risen Lord Jesus preparing his disciples for the times to come, when being transformed from a death of the old self into the new representation of God’s Christ becomes a time to act as Yahweh commands one to act.
In the event that the reading from Acts is not chosen to be the First Lesson, this reading selection from Isaiah 25 will be the Old Testament choice to be read aloud on Easter Sunday, according to the lectionary for the Episcopal Church. It will then precede the singing of verses from Psalm 118, which includes the verse, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” That would then lead to the reading from Acts, where Peter told Cornelius, “[The risen Jesus] commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.” That then leads to a Gospel reading from Mark, which tells of the women of Jesus going to his tomb and finding the tomb opened and “a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side.”
[Note: The season of Easter also introduces Track 1 and Track 2 choices for the Gospel reading. While such options are primarily for the Ordinary season after Pentecost – when acts of apostles become the norm of divine ministry – the same assumption can be gathered here. The reading selection from Mark is listed second, which implies it should be read along with the second option for the First Lesson, which is the Isaiah reading. If the Acts reading is chosen, then the Epistle from 1 Corinthians would be read, followed by a similar reading of Jesus found risen in John’s Gospel.]
In these four verses from Isaiah’ twenty-fifth chapter, four times are found the word “Lord” translated. Each of those times the word “Yahweh” is written. Twice the capitalized word “God” is found, with the first actually being “ă·ḏō·nāy” (“adonay”) and the second “’ĕ·lō·hê·nū” (“elohim”), which are general statements of “lord” and “gods.” Because Hebrew actually has no capital letters in its alphabet, it is translations that use capitalizations to personify and elevate a word to divine status. This can be seen as an acceptable practice for the name of God being equivaled to Yahweh. However, the practice of changing “Yahweh” to “Lord,” and the changing of the plural word “elohim” to the singular, as “God,” is misleading and wrong. It becomes too easy for lost sheep calling themselves “Christians” to read “Lord” and think, “This is a prophecy of Jesus,” without ever coming to know that Yahweh was indeed the Lord of Jesus.
With that understood, verse 6 begins by stating, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples.” Here, the word “mountain” and its repeat in verse 7, can be read as that of Mount Moriah, upon which the Temple of Jerusalem [Solomon’s Temple] was built. The literal translation of the Hebrew written says, “and will make Yahweh of hosts for all people mountain this a feast of choice pieces”. While Jerusalem rests upon seven hills (called mounts), the greater meaning comes from seeing Isaiah being led by Yahweh, as a “mountain” of God’s strength in the flesh, such that Isaiah is only one of a “host” [from “tsaba” meaning “army”] of such “mountains” spread to “all peoples.”
The translations that have Isaiah singing, “a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear,” gives the impression that Yahweh will reward His servants with fine dining and drinking. Instead, “a feast of rich food” is relative to those people made into mountains of God. They will become the “fat” [from “shemen,” translated as “rich food” or “choice pieces”] that will be served to the world, as that coming from them having sacrificed their selves [souls] to become God’s gift of the Passover feast.
This makes a “feast of well-aged wines” become those who bring with them the “blood of Christ,” which means the “well-aged wine” that is the Holy Spirit, poured out by Yahweh, into the vessels that are His Sons [not restricted to only male human beings]. It makes “the rich food filled with marrow” be the explanations of truth that comes from the bones of Scripture, sweet truth hidden deep within. It makes the “well-aged wines strained clear” be the removal of all misconstructions and errors of reasoning [also stemming from bad translations], so the Holy Spirit can be consumed by those led to one of Yahweh’s saints.
By seeing this element of a prophecy that promises the coming of a time when Christianity would mean many people will be filled with Yahweh’s Holy Spirit and sent to all parts of the world to let other seekers know the truth and also be saved, verse 7 is then translated to say, “And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations.” While that translation clearly paints a picture of destroying that which blocked so many from being told the truth of Scripture, there is deeper truth that is exposed from closer examination of the Hebrew written.
The repeating of “mountain,” which has to be seen as both Jerusalem [the collective known as Judaism today] and the individual whose soul has been saved. As an individual, the “mountain” that connects both collective and individual is Yahweh. Thus, that means “he will destroy on this mountain” [where “ū·ḇil·la‘,” from “bala,” says “he will engulf,” or “swallow up”] both means the end of Judaism [a collective mountain] and the beginning of Christianity [an individual mountain], so only those who allow the “mountain” to be Yahweh survives that flood of Spirit that will be poured out.
This makes “the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations” becomes the restrictive way the Jews forbid Gentiles from knowing their God, while also the expansive way Christianity would become the comforter all nations could welcome. Still, the word translated as “shroud” is actually written “pə·nê-hal·lō·wṭ” [from “panim lot”], meaning “face-covering; and, the word translated as “the sheet” is actually written “wə·ham·mas·sê·ḵāh” [from “maccekah”], which is more appropriately read as “a veil,” but can also mean a poured metal mask or “molten image.”
When the translation of “shroud” is used, it becomes a statement of a “face-covering” placed over a body at death, in preparation for burial. This is called a “sudarium.” It is placed under the “tachrichim” or “kittel,” which is symbolic of the canopy used in wedding ceremonies. As a statement of death,” following the “destruction,” the implication is Judaism will cease to have life, but individually born again as Jesus Christ will figuratively die – of self-ego and self-will – so their bodies of flesh have surrendered their souls to Yahweh – in marriage to His Holy Spirit. This is a most important aspect of this prophecy sung by Isaiah that needs to be realized.
Here, again, we find an Old Testament reading that includes the word “paneh,” which means “face.” This, as I have written often prior, becomes relative to the first Commandment, which actually says, “You shall were the face of no other gods before me,” such that the true meaning of a typical memorization of “You shall have no other gods before me” is one must wear the face of Yahweh, in order to become His wife. As I stated before, about the Ten Commandments, those are the agreements of marriage [wedding vows] to which that all potential wives of Yahweh must agree. Judaism wore the face of itself, as a god before Yahweh, breaking that covenant of marriage – therefore death comes to its “mountain.” Individuals who die of self-ego surrender their individual faces, in submission to Yahweh, wearing His holy face.
Your soul must wear this face at Judgment Day or be rejected … once again.
Verse 8 then confirms this imagery of death [made through self-sacrifice] by singing, “he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.” Here, again, is found the word “faces” [“panim” is the plural of “paneh”], following the combination os “adonay Yahweh.” In reality, that which will be “wiped away” is “adonay,” which is the “lord” of self, the breath of life given by Yahweh at birth – the “soul.” When the word “adonay” is followed by “Yahweh,” that becomes a statement that the soul has been wiped away from rule over its body of flesh, allowing “Yahweh” that mastery as “lord.” It must be assumed that “Yahweh” alone is Lord of all, thus it is unnecessary to use two words to describe that supremacy. Therefore, having “wiped away self-ego, Yahweh” takes over, so all “tears” of sinful living are dried up, when “Yahweh’s face” is worn by His wives.
The translation of “disgrace” is for the Hebrew word “cherpah,” which bears that intent, as a “reproach.” The same word can also be translated to imply “scorn, contempt, and taunting,” where there is a “rebuke” of those “people” whose “faces” once were [or still were] resisting marriage to Yahweh. This means those who marry God’s Holy Spirit will see their own evils and feel “shame” [another viable translation of “cherpah”], sacrificing their old faces in order to take on the face of Yahweh. As for those who will continue to wear faces that cast “shame” and “contempt” on Yahweh, indirectly through “taunts” against those transformed through figurative deaths, they will be a “disgrace” to Yahweh. Death to them means the condemnation of a mortal life in the flesh, where they commit eternal life suicide. That is the most “disgraceful way to be taken away from the earth.”
Where it is easy to seen how Isaiah threw in some add-ons, such as “for Yahweh has spoken,” that segment of words ends with the Hebrew letter “peh” [or “פ”], which is a mark that denotes the end of a “petuhah,” or a paragraph of statements. I believe that mark intends the readers of Hebrew [who read from left to right] to see that mark as a signal something very truthful has been said [or will be said]. As such, the truth of “Yahweh has spoken” is less about a booming voice coming from heaven commanding Isaiah to make sure everyone heard what he commanded, and more about those who have spoken as Yahweh, like was Isaiah. It will be those who speak in the name of Yahweh that will have died of self and been reborn wearing the face of Yahweh, speaking for Him as His wives.
With that mark seen as ending a paragraph, verse 9 must then be seen as beginning a new line of thought. The translation there says, “It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. This needs to be seen as beginning with a focus set “on that day,” when a wife of Yahweh has begun to speak for Him. Here, the importance is less about when that transformation will take place, as all wives of Yahweh begin new lives that wear His face at many times [all times]. Thus, the element of “day” must be understood as more important as the Word being spoken shines the “light” of truth, so those in darkness can suddenly see.
To grasp that concept firmly, the word translated as, “Lo,” is really written “hin·nêh” or “behold!” This makes a statement that Yahweh speaking will be “seen” by human beings who will be His wives, His spokespeople. When that sight is seen, what is witnessed is “this is our God,” where the reality is the written word “’ĕ·lō·hê·nū,” as His “elohim.” It says beholding Yahweh speaking through a human body of flesh means the “soul” [an eternal “el”] ofthat flesh has married to Yahweh, so that soul becomes one of Yahweh’s little-g “gods.” A soul alone speaks from the brain, but one of Yahweh’s “gods” speaks from the marriage of a soul to God’s Holy Spirit.
When Isaiah is then translated to say, “we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited,” This actually says [from a literal translation of the Hebrew], “this we have waited for him to save us , this Yahweh we have waited for him.” The naming of Yahweh makes it better known that the souls of the people who will be transformed into those who speak for God are those souls who were bridesmaids with lamps filled with oil. It was their keeping the light of truth shining, through prayer to Yahweh to become their husband [again, no human gender should be read into this, as I am talking neuter gender souls, not bodies of flesh], it is they who will have waited for that most holy matrimony. That becomes a statement of faith, based on self-sacrifice and the death of self-ego. It is then that marriage that becomes “saving.
In the final words of this selection, which are translated to say, “let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation,” that repeats the theme of waiting to be saved. Here, both of the word that have been translated as “be glad and rejoice” can be seen to mean a repetition of “rejoicing.” That repetition then reflects the utmost form of gladness that can come upon a body of flesh, making it sing and praise without end. Salvation means the soul has been promised something much greater than a plot of land on earth to call one’s own. It is the soul celebrating a release from the prison that is mortal death in a body of flesh. The rejoicing is a figurative death of self-ego means no physical death yet to come can ever be feared, because that physical death becomes the release of a soul trapped in a human cage, free to fly away and be forever with Yahweh in heaven.
As a reading choice for Easter Sunday, when Jesus is found risen from death, it is important to see oneself as having the same potential for resurrection, as seen in these words Yahweh spoke through His prophet Isaiah. The problem Christianity faces from seeing these words of Yahweh’s prophet is as prophetic of Jesus, and no one else. That become a repeat of the problem the Judeans faced, when Isaiah prophesied, because they had turned away from the God of their ancestor’s marriage, bolding wearing the face of believers in Moses and the Law. Christians [as seen through the wide variety of denominations bearing the name “Christ”] do the same bowing down before Lord Jesus, wearing the face of idolators, none married to Yahweh, none wearing His face, having submitted their own. Jesus is the model for all souls who seek salvation. To have a soul be saved, that soul must be resurrected as the Anointed One [the Christ], who acts and speaks just like Jesus did.
When this reading is read aloud, meaning it has trumped the Epistle reading from 1 Corinthians as the one chosen to present to seekers, it should be explained as the Acts of the Apostles having been prophesied by Isaiah. A good shepherd will choose this reading because it can clearly make points about becoming a wife of Yahweh. A good shepherd will then be one whose self-ego has long been lowered in submission to Yahweh, so Yahweh will speak through him or her, so others can be saved. The way a priest must be judged is on how many hear the truth of light and follow in the path of Jesus, themselves having had their souls become the wives of God.
[19] If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
[20] But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. [21] For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; [22] for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. [23] But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. [24] Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. [25] For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. [26] The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
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This is the optional “New Testament” reading selection to be read aloud on Easter Day (primary service), should the mandatory Acts reading (Acts 10:34-43) take the place of the “First Lesson.” If that is the case, then the Acts reading will include how Peter told Cornelius, “They [the Jews of Jerusalem & Romans] put him [Jesus] to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses.” That will be followed by a singing of part of Psalm 118, where David wrote, “Open for me the gates of righteousness; I will enter them; I will offer thanks to Yahweh. “This is the gate of Yahweh; he who is righteous may enter.” The Gospel reading to accompany all others will tell of the arrival at the tomb, early on Sunday, as told by either John (possible all Easter Days, all three Years) or Luke (only possible on Year C Easter Day). John wrote, “Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!”’ Luke wrote, “Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.”
Think about it for a moment. Wasn’t Adam living in a Garden called Eden? Wasn’t he then a gardener?
Verses nineteen and twenty were just recently read aloud – on the sixth Sunday after the Epiphany. The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth Sundays after the Epiphany, in Year C (some years never having so many Sundays after the Epiphany), all come from Paul’s fifteenth chapter of his epistle to the true Christians of Corinth. In that chapter Paul deeply addressed the issue of resurrection; but in doing so, Paul only twice mentioned the name Jesus. He wrote the name Adam three times, while writing “Christ” fifteen times (in fifty-eight verses). It is most important to realize Paul did not witness Jesus risen from a tomb in Jerusalem. His epiphany occurred on the road to Damascus; at which time Saul began to have the soul of Jesus resurrected within his soul, so he understood the truth of this resurrection others experienced (as told in the four Gospels). All knew (thus could write truthfully about) what “resurrection of the dead” truly meant.
Here, it is vital to realize the Greek word “christo” means “anointed one,” where the lack of capitalization means this is a human form of “anointment,” such as oil or water poured or smeared on a forehead of head. A lower-case “anointing” would likewise be a baptism by water, where one’s head is submerged in physical water. Such an “anointing” is significant in symbolic ways; and, that symbolism helps point a soul in a body of flesh towards Yahweh and Jesus. Still, to then capitalize this word (as Paul did), the meaning takes on a divine elevation in meaning, where the “Christ” is one’s soul being divinely “Anointed.” Such an “Anointed” state of being can only come from Yahweh (not a priest who serves Him). Instead of physical water, the “Anointing” is done by Yahweh’s Spirit (which makes one become “Holy” afterwards).
That which is also vital to understand is Paul not using the word “Christo” as a replacement word for “Jesus,” as if ‘Jesus Christ’ were one entity, incapable of being more. That is two divinely elevated words, each with its own divinely elevated meaning. Paul did not write “Christ” as a reference to Jesus, as he knew that specific word stated an “Anointment” by Yahweh; and, Yahweh can “Anoint” however many souls He sees fit to make a “Christ.” Paul was a “Christ,” who only met Jesus spiritually, after his death, resurrection and ascension had all taken place. Paul knew both the blessing of being “Anointed” by Yahweh and Paul knew the soul of Jesus personally, having been reborn in that name. While both “Christ” and “Jesus” do go hand-in-hand, one (the “Anointing”) most certainly comes before the other (the resurrection of “Jesus” within one’s soul), in the same way that marriage comes before parenthood.
Verse nineteen is shown separate from verses twenty through twenty-six for a reason. It is the last verse of eight verses (twelve through nineteen), where Paul wrote the “if” word six times. The “if” word is used to show the conditional, where something is only true “if” something else leads to that truth. It says one is dependent on the other. The pseudo-heading for those verses is “The Resurrection of the Dead” (both BibleHub Interlinear and NRSV). Verses twenty through thirty-four are called “The Order of Resurrection” (BibleHub Interlinear only). Thus, this selected reading – on Easter Day – states the “if” the meaning of “Christ” is seen by anyone as only being possible to be Jesus died, then got up and walked around again (ala Lazarus), so that view of resurrection is all one expects, then those of that mindset are to be “pitied.”
The exception stated in verse twenty (from a big “But” turning around the “if”) is seeing that which has “died” as not being Jesus, “But now” seeing the “first fruit” as that dead (picked from the limb green), so the “Christ” can raise them from that “death.” This means Jesus died in the flesh, so his soul could then be available to transform disciples into Apostles or Saints. For that transformation to take place, the disciples had to become sacrifices unto Yahweh, just as Jesus of Nazareth was. This makes Jesus be the seed that died (as a seed), so it could grow into a tree or vine that produces fruit. The “first fruits” are those who have been filled with the soul of the Jesus tree-vine (the ‘sap’ of Yahweh’s “Christ”), who are each filled within by the same seeds of Jesus reproduced.
In verse twenty-one, twice is repeated the word “anthrōpou.” That is the Genitive case form of “anthrópos,” which translates as “of man,” or generalized as “of humanity” (as “mankind, human race”). The NRSV does not show this possessive state, which is wrong. When Paul wrote, “seeing that indeed on account of of mankind death” (the first half of this verse), the thing that is “of mankind” that both eliminates “death” and results in “death” is the presence of a soul. A soul is eternal life that enters dead matter, simulating life to that death; but when that soul leaves a body of flesh, that body of flesh returns to being in a “death” state of existence. Without a soul a body of flesh is only a corpse. Thus, in the second half of verse twenty-one, where Paul wrote: “kai on account of of mankind raising up of dead” (with “resurrection” substituted as “raising up”).
This says the a body of flesh is dead, only given the appearance of life by the presence of a soul. This then means that a soul alone will eternally be recycled into dead matter, unless it has been “raised up” to a higher state of being. A soul reaches that higher state of being through the “resurrection” of the soul of Jesus within that soul born into dead matter. The only way “resurrection” can occur is when a normal soul becomes “doubly fruitful” (the meaning of the name “Ephraim”), with the “resurrection” within it by the Son of Yahweh. That is when one ceases being a son “of mankind” and becomes a Son of Yahweh – a “Yahweh elohim” … a.k.a. “Israel.” The name “Jesus” is taken on, as a soul “Yahweh Has Saved.”
In verse twenty-two, where Paul wrote a capitalized “Adam” (“Ἀδὰμ”), that reference says the hand of Yahweh formed that body of flesh (from clay and dust), putting a most holy soul within that creation (Genesis 2 calls this a “Yahweh elohim,” where “elohim” is the term used 32 times in Genesis 1, translated each time as “God,” when the term implies an “angel” that Yahweh placed into flesh). Even with such a most holy soul within Adam … he died in the flesh. Sure, Adam lived nine hundred thirty years; but he still died. That is the point of Paul. The “resurrection” is not about living nine hundred thirty years on earth. It is about being “Anointed” by Yahweh with the Spirit (divine marriage of a soul back to Yahweh); and, that leads to the resurrection of Jesus (divine pregnancy) within a divinely married soul, leading to eternal life (Salvation).
This sequence of Spiritual events is then stated in verse twenty-three. The children’s song aptly applies here: “First comes love, then comes marriage; and, then comes Jesus in the baby carriage.” This is how BibleHub Interlinear placed the heading that says: “The Order of Resurrection.” The “first fruits” are those souls that marry Yahweh and receive His Spirit to surround their souls (in their flesh). This is the “Anointment” that makes one be deemed a “Christ” by Yahweh. That first step is the Baptism of the Spirit of Yahweh, which washes away all past sins and spiritual debts. That does not happen simply because one prays to God and asks to be saved. One must show one’s love of Yahweh (LEARN TO USE THAT NAME!), by putting more than an hour a week-month-year-or-lifetime into one’s desire to know the foundation of one’s religion – SCRIPTURE. Love means showing Yahweh you want Him to Save you; and Yahweh Saves mean you must give rebirth to His Son (the meaning of the name one takes on divinely). That order is the same in all Apostles-Saints. Your flesh (be it male or be it female) will be the new flesh in which Jesus continues his ministry for Yahweh. Jesus then returns in your flesh.
The halo of a Saint is this figure shining through one’s body, with its soul.
In verse twenty-four is Paul defining the “end times.” It is not at the end of the world. It is “this end” of one’s self-will, self-worth, and selfish state of being (a sinner, which is a soul controlled by one’s flesh). It is an individual’s end time (the capitalization of “Each,” in verse twenty-three). Jesus comes at the “end” of one’s resistance to salvation. Jesus comes after one loves Yahweh, one marries Yahweh, and one is reborn as Yahweh’s Son.
Verse twenty-four then states the conditions of this return of Jesus. The “kingdom of God” is entered through divine marriage, where one’s soul receives the Spirit of Baptism. The womb into which the soul of Jesus (the soul of Adam – Yahweh elohim) will be placed must be virginal, just like in young, innocent Mary. No filthy harlot’s soul will ever conceive holiness. It must be washed clean of all past trespasses and transgressions. Once cleaned by the Spirit, Yahweh (one’s Husband) then penetrates one’s soul and divinely places the soul of His Son. This makes Yahweh become not only one’s Holy Husband, but also one’s Father, because into one’s soul will be resurrected His Son. That resurrection means one’s soul had “annulled” all past relationships with demons, even relinquishing one’s soul having control over its own body of flesh. “All power and authority” over one’s soul-flesh becomes that of the soul of Jesus, which makes his soul the “Lord” over oneself. The presence of Jesus (with Yahweh’s Spirit cleansing one as His “Christ”) means one’s soul-flesh has become totally possessed by the divine.
Verse twenty-five then say all past addictions (all demons claiming rights to one’s soul) will be under divine “Subjection.” All demons will leave. The once weak soul will give way (submission) to Yahweh and Jesus (Father and Son). The once controlling body of flesh will place all past demonic relationships under its feet, stomping them into submission. All bad habits will be kicked.
Verse twenty-five then simply says: Everything of the world that once led a soul to “death” have themselves been “put to death.” Sin no longer has any power over the righteous. The only reason Satan sends demons to enslave a soul and flesh is to lead that soul away from Yahweh, taking it down a road of mortal “death.” Because “death” is the assured “end” of a breath of life placed into dead matter, what was of the worldw ill return to the world; but what was of Yahweh will then return to Yahweh, Saved through one’s soul seeking Yahweh and His Son for Salvation.
This reading selection from Paul is selected for the purpose of it being read (if chosen) on Easter Day. That day is the foremost day when talk of “resurrection” is done. Paul’s words were led by the Spirit and by the hand of Jesus risen within his body of flesh (Paul’s Lord), to tell that “resurrection” is not of Jesus in the flesh. The “resurrection” only has meaning when the soul of Jesus has “resurrected” within one’s soul. There is an order that must be met for this to happen. When one thinks about it, the body of Jesus was never witnessed on Easter Day. The body of Jesus was taken away by angels, leaving the “appearance” (from Acts 10:40) of himself – which was within the followers in the upper room. They felt his wounds – saw his wounds – in themselves (not in the physical body of Jesus). The events of that Easter Day were Spiritual. They were of the soul of Jesus being prepared for their wombs, after they “received the Spirit” of divine marriage to Yahweh, being wombs cleans for his resurrection with in their souls (Pentecost Sunday).
Explaining the Readings 