The Divine Lamp

I highly doubt I’ll ever lecture on the Passion, but if I did here is an idea of what it might sound like:
26:1 It happened, when Jesus had finished all these words, that he said to his disciples, 26:2 “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

26:3 Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people were gathered together in the court of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas. 26:4 They took counsel together that they might take Jesus by deceit, and kill him. 26:5 But they said, “Not during the feast, lest a riot occur among the people.” (WEB Bible)

It is late morning or early afternoon on Wednesday of Passover week; or Holy Week, as we would say. It is a day known in the Catholic liturgical tradition as “Spy Wednesday” for, as St Mark tells us, it was the day on which the chief priests, scribes, and elders hatched their plan against Our Lord and, (quote) “Kept on looking for a way to arrest him.” According to Matthew, Our Blessed Lord has just ended his fifth great discourse of this Gospel. As at the end of the previous discourses Matthew provides a transitional passage into a narrative; here, however, the transition is rather emphatic: “When Jesus had finished all these words…” Matthew isn’t simply telling us that another sermon has come to an end, he is telling us that the teaching ministry of Jesus is now done, one thing only remains for him to do- to be delivered up and crucified on Passover; the great day of remembrance concerning what God had done for Israel, how he freed them from bondage so that they might serve and worship him. But the feast also pointed forward to a time Jesus was to inaugurate (the eschaton, or end-time), and to a future he was to secure for us, when, by his death, “he might bring to nothing” not a pharaoh, but him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, acb(2,15)nd might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2:14-15) and thus, transfer them from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of the Son, his own kingdom (Col 1:13).

In telling us that Jesus had “finished all these words,” Matthew is alluding to Moses, the first great deliverer of God’s people, a type, a foreshadowing of our Lord. As I noted just a moment ago, Jesus has finished his fifth discourse of this gospel, and many have seen a parallel between the five great discourses found in Matthew gospel, and the five discourses which make up the bulk of the book of Deuteronomy. In that book, the last discourse ends thus: “Moses made an end (finished) of speaking all these words to all Israel…” (Deut 32:45). The parallel with the opening of the Passion Narrative is obvious. It becomes even more obvious when we realize that the only thing left for Moses to do is climb Mount Nebo, look out into the promised land he was forbidden to enter because of his disobedience, and die.

32:48 Yahweh spoke to Moses that same day, saying, cb(32,49); 32:49 “Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and see the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel for a possession; cb(32,50); 32:50 and die on the mountain where you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and was gathered to his people: cb(32,51); 32:51 because you trespassed against me in the midst of the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah of Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you didn’t sanctify me in the midst of the children of Israel. cb(32,52); 32:52 For you shall see the land before you; but you shall not go there into the land which I give the children of Israel.”

Moses never achieved the full end for which he was chosen by God; he never led the People of God into the promised land, and in this sense he was a failure. But “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:25). Even in his failure the great prophet pointed toward the Redeemer. It was left to Joshua, or, as we would say in Greek, Jesus, the son of Nun, to finish what had begun under Moses. In this way was foreshadowed the need for a greater exodus, a greater, covenant, a greater sacrifice, a greater redemption. In two days time our Blessed Lord, like Moses before him, will ascend a mountain to die. To most of those who witnessed the spectacle it no doubt appeared he was (in the words of a song popular a few years ago) “One more starry-eyed messiah” meeting “a violent farewell,” for he was condemned by both church and state, and, as it is written: “Cursed is anyone who hangs upon a tree” (Deut 21:23). But, as St Paul tells us, Christ “ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal 3:13). He was “delivered up for our trespasses, and raised for our justification” (Rom 4:25). He was “vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed to the nations,, believed in throughout the world “(1 Tim 3:16) .

All of this seems lost on the Apostles. They may indeed “know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified,” but it seems to have had no effect on them. Our blessed Lord has just announced his fourth Passion prediction. In the first, Peter had taken him aside and rebuked him for saying such a thing (Mt 16:21-23); in the second, the apostles were overwhelmed by grief ((17:22-24); in the third, James and John focused on the glory that would result from his death and crassly sought to capitalize on it. The other disciples were indignant with them, not because of the crassness of the sons of Zebedee, but because of their own crassness (20:17-28). They may indeed know what is about to befall their Lord, but, as the anointing a Bethany and other events in the passion make clear, they do not understand its full significance and are unprepared.

The Feast of Passover was instituted before the tenth plague on Egypt. God ordered the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb, put its blood on the door-posts of their homes, and eat the lamb within their homes, for he would on the night of its inaugural celebration pass through the land of Egypt, slaying all the firstborn, but he would passover the houses marked with the blood of the lamb. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was to begin on the same night as Passover and continue for seven days. The Exodus, motivated by the Passover of the Lord, was seen as a pilgrimage to God, and this pilgrimage was commemorated by the eating of unleavened bread for the speed with which the Israelites left Egypt did not allow them time to let their bread rise. As part of the preparation for the feast, the Jews had to rid their house of leaven. Since leaven was a corrupting corrupting agent and since the events inaugurated by the Passover were seen as a new beginning, the searching out of leaven from the home became a symbol of the need for the people to search out all that was corrupting their covenant life with God and with their fellow Jews. In Jesus’ day, and in our own, devout Jews would begin ridding their houses of leaven up to a week before feast began. They would take a candle and search out every dark corner, lest a crumb of bread be missed. Also, they washed every inch of the interior of their homes, but always with the understanding that such meticulous outward preparation was to be matched by an interior cleansing of their hearts. It is against this ceremonial and moral backdrop that the Jewish leaders plot their course of action. At a time when they should have been preparing for the celebration of the deliverance of the first-born from death, and the liberation of their people from bondage, they are planning to take away the liberty and the life of Jesus by arresting him, and having him put to death.

“‘But,’ they said, ‘not during the feast, lest a riot occur among the people.’” As we will see, however, God is not acting on their timetable.

Posted by Dim Bulb.  Check out my other site for lots of great online books, articles and audio by going to CATHOLIC BOOKWORM and clicking on the various pages listed on the left.