SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/23/2024 10:52 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-6
“Setting the Time”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
26:17-19
Message of the verses: “17 On the first
day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do You
want us to prepare the Passover so You may eat it?” 18 “Go into the city to a certain man,” He said, “and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My time is
near; I am celebrating the Passover at your place with My disciples.’” 19
So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover”
(HSCB).
I pick up from where I left off yesterday from John
MacArthur’s commentary as this is a very, very long section.
“Some
three hours later, ‘about the ninth hour,’ Jesus cried out from the cross, My
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ (Matt. 27:46). Shortly after that, ‘Jesus cried out again
with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit’ (v. 50). John therefore specifically recounts that our
Lord died within the prescribed time of the sacrifice for the Passover lambs,
from three to five o’clock in the afternoon of Passover day. At the very time those lambs were being
sacrificed in the Temple, ‘Christ our Passover also [was] sacrificed’ on Cavalry
(1 Cor. 5:7).
“In
addition to that evidence for a Friday Passover and crucifixion is the fact
that, just as the tenth of Nisan was on a Monday the year Jesus was crucified,
the fourteenth (the day of Passover, Ex. 12:6) was on the following
Friday. Still further evidence is Joseph
of Arimathea’s taking Jesus’ body down from the cross on ‘the preparation day,
that is the day before the Sabbath’ (Mark 15:42; cf. John 19:42). That day of preparation referred to the
weekly preparation for the Sabbath, not preparation for the Passover, as in
John 19:14. Unless it was qualified
(such as being for the Passover), the day of preparation always referred to
preparation for the Sabbath (Saturday).
“Why, then, did Jesus observe the Passover on the
previous evening?” This seems to me the
critical question that MacArthur is bringing up and I will begin to look now at
his answer to this question.
“The
answer lies in a difference among the Jews in the way they reckoned the
beginning and ending of days. From
Josephus, the Mishna, and other ancient Jewish sources we learn that the Jews
in northern Palestine calculated days from sunrise to sunrise. That area included the region of Galilee,
where Jesus and all the disciples except Judas had grown up. Apparently most,
if not all, of the Pharisees used that system of reckoning. But Jews in the southern part, which centered
in Jerusalem, calculated days from sunset to sunset. Because all the priests necessarily lived in
or near Jerusalem, as did most of the Sadducees, those groups followed the
southern scheme.
“The
variation doubtlessly caused confusion at times, but it also had some practical
benefits. During Passover time, for
instance, it allowed for the feast to be celebrated legitimately on two
adjoining days, thereby permitting the Temple sacrifices to be made over a
total period of four hours rather than two.
That separation of days may also have had the effect of reducing both
regional and religious clashes between the two groups.
“On
that basis the seeming contradictions in the gospel accounts are easily
explained. Being Galileans, Jesus and
the disciples considered Passover day to have started at sunrise on Thursday
and to end at sunrise on Friday. The
Jewish leaders who arrested and tried Jesus, being mostly priests and
Sadducees, considered Passover day to begin at sunset on Thursday and end at
sunset on Friday. By that variation,
predetermined by God’s sovereign provision, Jesus could thereby legitimately
celebrate the last Passover meal with His disciples and yet still be sacrified
on Passover day.
“Once
again we see how God sovereignly and marvelously provides for the precise
fulfillment of His redemptive plan.
Jesus was anything but a victim of men’s wicked schemes, much less of
blind circumstances. Every word He spoke
and every action He took were divinely directed and secured. Even the words and actions by others against
Him were divinely controlled (see, e.g., John 11:49-52; 19:11).”
And
with that this section is done and in tomorrow’s SD, Lord willing we will look
at “Sharing the Table” (Matt. 26:20-21a).
4/23/2024 11:44 AM
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