An excerpt from the book
"Jesus and the Mystery of the Tamid Sacrifice"
(available at Amazon here)
From the Passover Sacrifice to the Resurrection
Silence before Lord Yahweh, for the
Day of Yahweh is near! Yahweh has prepared a sacrifice, he has consecrated his
guests.
Zephaniah 1:7 (NJB)
And after the feast of the new moon
comes the fourth festival, that of the Passover, which the Hebrews call pascha,
on which the whole people offer sacrifice, beginning at noon day and continuing
till evening.
Philo of Alexandria, Special Laws II, XXVII.145
As the ancients counted, six days after Jesus' Saturday Sabbath meal in Bethany, on Thursday the 14th of Nisan, it was the day of the Passover sacrifice (Jn 12:1). As was the custom in the first century AD, St. Matthew combines the feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread into one eight-day celebration and calls the day of the sacrifice of the Passover victims "the first day of Unleavened Bread." It was the day the disciples came to Jesus asking where they were to celebrate the sacred meal of the Passover victim: Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?" (Mt 26:17). St. Mark's Gospel reflects this same tradition but is more explicit in identifying the day the disciples came to Jesus as the day the Passover victims were sacrificed: And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover [lamb], his disciples said to him, "Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?" (Mk 14:12). The word "lamb" is not in the Greek text which reads: when they sacrificed the Passover (IBGE, vol. IV, page 140) and has been added to the English text; both lambs and goat-kids were offered in sacrifice at Passover (Ex 12:5).
The animal for the Passover sacrifice had to be an unblemished male lamb or goat-kid not younger than eight days and not older than a year (Ex 12:5; Lev 22:27). The animal had to be large enough to feed not less than ten people and not more than twenty: So these high priests, upon the coming of their feast which is called the Passover, when they slay their sacrifices, from the ninth hour [3 PM] till the eleventh [5 PM], but so that a company not less than ten belong to every sacrifice (for it is not lawful for them to feast singly by themselves), and many of us are twenty in a company ... (Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 6.9.3 [423]). If there were more than twenty people, two groups could be formed with a separate Passover victim for the second group, or if the Passover victim was not large enough to feed a designated group, in addition to the Passover sacrifice a festival communion Hagigah offering was necessary. For the Hagigah, a male or female animal from the flock or the herd was offered in addition to the Passover sacrifice to allow for everyone to be adequately fed (Mishnah: Pesahim, 6:3-6:4). The communion Hagigah festival peace offerings were also offered for each day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was the way the people ate together for the entire week-long celebration after the morning Tamid service in noon-day meals of joyous celebration within the walls of the city of Jerusalem.
Jesus sent the Apostles Peter and John to prepare the place where the sacred meal of the Passover was to take place after sundown on the day of the sacrifice. When Peter and John arrived at the house, they discovered that an upper room was already arranged with the banquet tables and the couches for reclining at the meal (Mk 14:15; Lk 21:12-13a). However, Peter and John still needed to make certain necessary preparations (Mt 26:19; Mk 14:16; Lk 21:13b). They needed to be certain that there was an adequate supply of red wine for the banquet's four ritual communal cups and the additional wine that the guests were to consume during the meal (Mishnah: Pesahim, 10:1C). They needed to insure that there were stone vessels filled with enough water for the three ritual hand washings. They needed to provide the other necessary foods for the women to prepare for the meal, and if it was not already prepared, they needed to set up a roasting pit and a spit of pomegranate wood to roast the Passover sacrifice (Mishnah: Pesahim, 7:1B).
In addition to all those arrangements, Peter and John also had to personally inspect the premises to be certain that all leaven, a sign of sin, was removed. According to the Law, it was necessary for the covenant people, prior to noontime on the day before the beginning of Unleavened Bread, to do a thorough search of the rooms of their houses in Jerusalem to be certain that all leaven was removed for the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Ex 13:6-7; Mishnah: Pesahim, 1:3-1:4).(1) They were also required to begin their fast at noon: On the eve of Passover from just before the afternoon's daily whole offering, a person should not eat, until it gets dark (Mishnah: Pesahim, 10:1A). The "afternoon's daily whole offering" is the afternoon Tamid and the "eve of Passover" refers to the Passover meal eaten on the first night of Unleavened Bread. The Mishnah and the writings of the Rabbis only refer to the entire eight days as "Passover," as does the Gospel of John and Jews today.
The site that is identified as the Upper Room of the Last Supper is above what is believed, by both Jewish and Christian tradition, to be the location of King David's tomb in the older part of Jerusalem known as the "Citadel of Mount Zion" or "the city of David" (2 Sam 5:7-9). It is located on the eastern ridge of the city just south of the Temple Mount. In his homily on the Sunday of the Jewish feast of Pentecost (Weeks), fifty days after the Resurrection when the Holy Spirit took possession of the New Covenant Church, St. Peter stood on the street outside the Upper Room and spoke to the Jewish crowd of Jesus' fulfillment of the Messianic promises. As he gave his Gospel message, Peter mentioned King David's tomb, perhaps even gesturing to the lower floor of the building (Acts 2:29). We do not know who owned the house in Jerusalem, but Acts 12:12 records that the house of the Jewess Mary of Jerusalem was where the Apostles regularly assembled after the Resurrection. Mary of Jerusalem was the mother of John-Mark, the inspired writer of the Gospel of St. Mark, and she was a kinswoman of Jesus' disciple Joseph Barnabas (Col 4:10).
All four of the Gospels and two thousand years of Christian tradition agree that the Jewish festival of the Passover, when the Passover victims were slain, took place on the Thursday of Jesus' last week in Jerusalem, the day before His crucifixion on Friday.
Those of the covenant community, who were offering the Passover sacrifice for their family and friends, gathered at the Temple with their Passover victims at noon for the afternoon Tamid worship service. The sacrificial ceremony of the Passover lambs and kids began immediately after the body of the afternoon Tamid lamb was placed on the altar fire (Mishnah: Pesahim, 5:3).
On the day of the Passover sacrifice, it was necessary for the afternoon Tamid lamb to be offered an hour earlier to give enough time for the many Passover victims that were to be sacrificed (Mishnah: Pesahim, 5:1B). There was, however, an exception to the timing of the service if the day of the Passover sacrifice fell on a Friday, "Preparation Day" for the Sabbath (Mk 15:42; Jn 19:31). In that case, the Temple priests offered the Tamid sacrifice even earlier. This gave the people enough time at the end of the worship service to prepare for the Sabbath restrictions: If, however, the eve of Passover [meal] coincided with the eve of the Sabbath [Friday], it [the Tamid] was slaughtered at half after the sixth hour [12:30 PM] and offered up at half after the seventh hour [1:30 PM] (Mishnah:Pesahim, 5:1D).
On that Thursday, the 14th of Nisan, the lamb or goat-kid was taken to the Temple, probably by Peter and John. It was not necessary for everyone to attend the sacrifice. A relative or even one's slave, if he was a Jew, could present the animal for sacrifice since the Passover sacrifice was not a pilgrim festival (Mishnah: Pesahim, 8:1-8:4). The sacrifices for the Passover took place at the time the Tamid service normally took place, from the ninth hour (3 PM) to the eleventh hour (5 PM) at which time the Temple services were normally completed (Mishnah: Pesahim, 5:8B). The only other change in the liturgical service of the afternoon Tamid during the Passover was in the offering of the incense. The incense was normally offered immediately after the afternoon Tamid lamb was laid on the altar fire and was followed by the concluding prayers of the worship service. However, on Passover the incense offering was delayed and was not offered until the last of the Passover sacrifices. The offering of the community's prayers in the burning of the incense was always the climax of any worship service.
The groups that represented their households assembled at the Temple with their animals at noon. In fulfillment of Exodus 12:6, the different groups were divided into three large divisions: And the whole assembly of the congregations of Israel shall slaughter it ... (Mishnah: Pesahim, 5:5A-B):
After the afternoon Tamid was placed on the altar fire, the first division came forward with their animals into the Court of the Priests. As soon as they entered the courtyard, the doors were locked. The priests blew three blasts on the silver trumpets as the signal that the lambs and goat-kids were to be sacrificed. The leader of each individual family/group carried a sacrificial knife with which to slit the throat of the animal while a Levite collected its blood in a chalice. The Levite then handed the chalice to a priest who tossed/splashed the blood against the base of the altar (2 Chr 30:16; Mishnah: Pesahim, 5:5-5:6). At this time, if the size of the Passover victim was not sufficient to feed the number of people who intended to eat the sacred meal in that particular group, then a free-will festival sacrifice (Hagigah), a male or female animal from the flock or herd, was also sacrificed at the same time and its blood was also collected and splashed against the altar (Mishnah: Pesahim, 6:3-6:4).
While the sacrifices were taking place, the Levitical choir sang the Hallel Psalms 113-118, also called the Egyptian psalms. Psalms 113-117 recounts the story of the Exodus liberation, while Psalm 118 gives joyous thanksgiving to God the Savior and speaks of the Messiah as "the stone which the builders rejected" which "has become the cornerstone" (Ps 118:22). The Egyptian Hallel Psalms were repeated until all the animals of a division were sacrificed (Mishnah: Pesahim, 5:7). After the first division sacrificed its victims, the bodies of the animals were skinned, the entrails were removed and cleansed, the inside fat was removed, and then those parts were put in a bowl to be salted before being placed on the altar fire (Mishnah: Pesahim, 5:10). When all was completed for the first division and they left with the bodies of their animals, the second division entered the Court of the Priests and the same ritual of sacrifice was repeated. When all the animals (Passover lambs and kids and the communion Hagigah offerings) were sacrificed, the afternoon Tamid worship service was concluded by the burning of incense on the Altar of Incense in the Holy Place of the Sanctuary and by the officiating priests praying the priestly blessing over the congregation.
Flavius Josephus wrote that during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero (AD 54-68) a count was taken of the number of slain animals in the Temple during the Passover sacrifice. The count was 256,500 sacrifices meant to feed not less than ten and not more than twenty people. At the end of the afternoon, the blood from the sacrificial victims splashed against the sacrificial altar reached to the ankles of the priests, and the Kidron brook, where the Temple drains emptied out, became a river of blood (Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 6.9.3 [424]); Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, page 44, note 33).