Good Friday

Good Friday, a day Christians to refer to as when Jesus was crucified.  This is western thinking if we hold it to the actual day time day.

In all actuality, Jesus crucifixion took place on Thursday with His actual death taking place at the beginning of the Jewish Friday which was Thursday evening.

You might say, where did I come up with this?

Remember Genesis?  "it was evening and morning the first day" and so on.  The day of Jews begins at evening and ends at the evening following.  The scripture bears this out as the Jewish leaders came to Pilate and requested they hasten the deaths of the condemned as Passover was at hand and it would have been defiling for the bodies to have remained on the crosses during the holiday.  So it isn't really about "Good Friday" but about His death occurring at the beginning of Friday, the evening of the previous day.

Yes Jesus did raise from the dead on the Sunday, which is the first day of the week and He was definitely in the tomb for 3 days.

This time is an incredible time of God revealing His pointing to this time in history through the feast of Passover.  Tonight at our church, we will celebrate the feast in a Seder.  It is such a powerful time of seeing God's foretelling of His provision for all mankind that relationship between ourselves and Him could be restored.

Shalom

Jesus Enters Jerusalem

For a moment set aside all of what you have heard about this day called Palm Sunday.  You know the day Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.

In the American church, we have heard that Jerusalem responded to Jesus riding into it's streets with shouts of adoration and excitement.  In fact you may have heard, "they were sang His praises on Sunday and cried for His death on Thursday." This is so far from the truth it is unbelievable how we could have held such a thought.

The truth is this is the day the Passover lamb was chosen and a special lamb for Israel was paraded through the streets.  It had a tag tied around it's neck which identified it as such.  The lamb was headed through the streets of the city on it's way to the Temple where it would be on display for the next four days for everyone to look at and examine it to ensure it was "without spot or blemish".  This is what the city was cheering about.

O there were those who were part of Jesus entourage who were praising Him as they believed He was to be king.  But the masses were not praising Him.  Jesus came into the city as the procession was heading toward the headed for the temple which is where He was headed as well.  Isn't it interesting that for the next 4 days He was on display at the temple for all to test, examine and ensure that He was without fault, sin or blemish.  The Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, scribes, Herod, Pilate, Counsel and all of those who were there daily to hear His teaching had to say, "they could find no fault in Him."

So the stage was set for Jesus to be the Passover Lamb for all of human kind.