Jesus Passion

Countdown to the Passion: Jesus' Last Week in Jerusalem

Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him.
John 12:1-2

Count the days as the ancients' counted with no zero-place-value by counting the first in the series as day #1; note that sundown began the next Jewish day.

Day #1. Saturday, Nisan 9^th: Jesus ate the Sabbath dinner at the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus in Bethany. He received His second of three anointings when Mary anointed His feet. The Gospel of John records it is six days to the Passover sacrifice as the ancient's counted (Jn 12:1-11; anointing #1 Lk 7:38).

Day #2. Sunday, Nisan 10^th: Jesus made His triumphal ride into the city of Jerusalem, cleansed the Temple a second time (the first time was at the beginning of His ministry in Jn 2:13-16). After He taught the people at the Temple (Mt 21:1-17; Mk 11:1-11; Lk 19:36-40; Jn 12:12-19), He left Jerusalem to spend the night at Bethany on the Mt. of Olives (Mt 21:17; Mk 11:19).

Day #3. Monday, Nisan 11^th: Jesus cursed the fig tree and cleansed the Temple a third time. The chief priests, scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees challenged His authority, and He taught at the Jerusalem Temple (Mt 21:18-23; 22:15; Mk 11:12-19; Lk 20:1).

Day #4. Tuesday, Nisan 12^th: Jesus continued to teach at the Jerusalem Temple (Lk 21:37-38).

Day #5. Wednesday Nisan 13^th: Jesus' last day teaching in Jerusalem. He condemned His generation, taught about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. He prophesied His Second Advent, the Last Judgment, and announced that "the hour" (of His Passion) had come. At the announcement of His coming Passion, God the Father's voice was heard from Heaven declaring His approval of God the Son. He had dinner with friends at Simon the Leper's house in Bethany where a woman anointed His head (the third anointing), and He was betrayed by Judas to the chief priests ( Mt 23:34-25:37; 26:1-2, 6-16; Mk 13:1-37; 14:1, 3-11; Lk 21:5-36; 22:1-6; Jn 12:27-33; 13:1-2a).

Day #6. Thursday, Nisan 14^th: The day of the Passover sacrifice. Jesus sent Peter and John to prepare the room for the sacred meal of the Passover victim (Mt 26:12-19; Mk 14:12-16; Lk 22:7-13).

Sundown was the beginning of Friday, Nisan 15^th, the appointed time of the sacred meal of the Passover victim on the first night of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was after eating the feast with His disciples that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper and instituted the Eucharist. Judas decided to betray Jesus and left without completing the meal. It was that night before dawn when guards arrested Jesus (Mt 26:47-50; Mk 14:43-50; Lk 22:47-53; Jn 18:2-11). They took Him to the former High Priest, Ananias (Jn 18:19-24) before His trial by the Sanhedrin (Mt 26:57-66; Mk 14:53-65), as Peter denied Him three times before the Night Watch trumpet signal of the cockcrow at 3 AM (Mk 13:35; Mt 27:69-75; Mk 15:66-72; Jn 18:25-27).

In the 1^st century AD, Jerusalem, as in all the cities of the Roman Empire, the nighttime hours were divided into four time periods called "Watches." Jesus named the four Watches in Mark 13:35: "Watch, therefore; you do not know when the lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning."

#1: Evening watch	Sundown to 9PM
#2: Midnight watch	9 PM to Midnight
#3: Cockcrow watch	Midnight to 3 AM
#4: Dawn watch	3 AM to Dawn

Jesus' reference to "cockcrow" and Peter's denial (Mt 26:34; Mk 15:30; Lk 22:34) was to the trumpet call of the "cockcrow" that was a precise military signal given by the Levitical guards in the Temple and by the Romans in the Antonio Fortress (Fr. Fitzmeyer, S.J., The Gospel According to John, page 828).

From the Crucifixion to the Ascension

The next Jewish day began at sunset with the night hours divided into 4 Watches (Mk 13:35) while the Jewish daytime hours were divided into 12 seasonal hours beginning at dawn (Jn 11:9). Roman time, which is also modern time, began the new day at midnight and dawn was the beginning of the 6^th hour. Noon was the 6^th hour Jewish time and the 12^th hour Roman time. When John 19:14 records that it was "about the 6^th hour" when Jesus was with Pilate, it is 6-7 AM Roman time in agreement with the Synoptic Gospels that record they took Jesus to Pilate at about dawn (Mt 27:1-2; Mk 15:1; Jn 18:28). The ancients did not count with the concept of a zero place-value, and this is why Scripture records that Jesus was in His tomb for three days from Friday to Sunday.

The Jewish leaders took Jesus to the Roman governor just after dawn on Friday morning (Mt 27:1-2; Mk 15:12; Lk 22:66-23:1; Jn 18:28). He sent Jesus to Herod Antipas who did not find Jesus guilty of any crime (Lk 23:6-11, 15). After threats from the chief priests, Pontius Pilate reluctantly convicted Jesus of treason after pronouncing Him "without guilt" three times (Jn 18:38; 19:4, 6). It was Preparation Day, the day before the Sabbath of the week long Passover/Unleavened Bread Feast (Jn 19:31, 42) and about the sixth hour (6-7 AM) Roman time (Jn 19:14).
The Romans crucified Jesus at the third hour Jewish time = 9 AM our time (Mk 15:25).
Jesus was tried, crucified and died during the daytime of the same Jewish day, the day before the Jewish Sabbath, which was known as "Preparation Day" (Mt 26:20-27:61; Mk 14:17-15:41; Lk 22:14-23:46; Jn 13:2b-19:31). The Temple gates opened for the morning Tamid worship service and required Sacred Assembly for the Feast of Unleavened Bread at the 3rd hour Jewish time = 9 AM our time (Lev 23:6-8; Num 28:17-25). Darkness descended from the 6^th hour Jewish time to the 9^th hour = from noon until 3 PM (Mt 27:45; Mk 15:33; Lk 23:44).
Jesus gave up His life on the altar of the Cross at the 9^th hour, Jewish time = 3 PM our time when the second Tamid lamb was sacrificed. As the ancients counted, Jesus suffered for six hours and gave up His life at the beginning of the seventh hour (Mt 27:45-50; Mk 15:34-37; Lk 23:44-46; Jn 19:25-30). He offered Himself as the unblemished sacrifice for the sins of humanity (2 Cor 5:14; 1 Jn 1:7).
After His death, Jesus descended to Sheol (Hades/the grave) to preach the Gospel to the souls waiting for His coming since the time of Adam and Noah (1 Pt 3:18-20; 4:6).
On the first day of the week (our Sunday) Jesus arose from the dead on the Feast of Firstfruits (Lev 23:9-11), the day we celebrate as Easter Sunday (Mt 28:1-8; Mk 16:1-8; Lk 24:1-10; Jn 20:1, 9; 1 Cor 15:3-23) as the "Firstfruits" of the resurrected dead just as He foretold ( Mt 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; Lk 9:22; 18:33). Sunday became the first day of the new creation and was the first day of the old Genesis creation (the 7^th day of Creation was the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday).
Jesus taught the New Covenant people of God for 40 days before His Ascension to the Father in Heaven to become the High Priest of His eternal sacrifice (Dan 7:13-14; Acts 1:1-3, 9; Heb 8:1-3; Rev 5:6).
Jesus will return in glory to judge the living and the dead (1 Cor 15:22-28, 51-53; 1 Thes 4:13-17; 2 Thes 1:7-10; 2:1-12).

**Jesus Last Seven Statements from the Cross**
Statement	Scripture
1. "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."	Lk 23:34
2. "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."	Lk 23:42
3. "Woman, behold, your son"... "Behold, your mother."	Jn 19:26-27
4. "Eli, Eli lema sabachthani," "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" ~ Hebrew	Mt 27:46 (*Ps 22:1a quoted Hebrew)
"Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani," "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" ~ Aramaic*	Mk 15:34 (Jesus quoted from Ps 22:1/2a in Aramaic)
5. "I thirst."	Jn 19:28
6. "It is fulfilled."+	Jn 19:30
7. "Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit."+	Lk 23:46 (Ps 31:5/6 quoted)
Michal E. Hunt Copyright © 2012

*Jesus alluded to Psalm 22 in Mt 27:35, 39 and 43. Matthew records the Hebrew as it would have been written in the Hebrew scroll of Psalm 22, while Mark records Jesus' actual Aramaic statement. +It is hard to know which of these two statements are His last words from the Cross.

What is the link between Jesus' Passion and death and the single sacrifice of the Tamid lambs offered daily for the atonement and sanctification of the human race? The single sacrifice of the two unblemished male Tamid lambs perfectly coincided with Jesus' Passion and death.

The two lambs offered in a single sacrifice of the Tamid prefigured the sacrifice of Jesus Christ who, as fully man and fully God, was the single, unblemished sacrifice for the atonement and sanctification of humanity.
The Jewish Sanhedrin condemned Jesus and judged Him worthy of sacrifice at dawn as a priest in the Temple judged the Tamid lamb of the morning was worthy of sacrifice.
At 9 AM Jesus suffered crucifixion and shed His blood on the altar of the Cross as a priest slaughtered the morning Tamid lamb at the Temple altar.
he world turned dark as the second lamb was led out at noon, and its sacrifice took place at the Temple altar at 3 PM as Jesus gave up His life on the altar of the Cross.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ~ For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
The "he" refers to God and the "him" to Christ. This verse is another of Paul's statements that is misunderstood to mean that Jesus took the sins of the world on Himself on the altar of the Cross. Such an interpretation is called "penal substitution" and is a Protestant Calvinistic doctrine of atonement. That theory suggests that God made Jesus to be guilty of the sins of humanity, and then punished Him in our place. St. Paul does not mean that Jesus took on all the sinful guilt of humanity. There are two reasons why the Church refutes that interpretation:

We can't say God imputed our sins to Jesus because St. Peter wrote that Jesus was a sinless, unblemished lamb: Now if you invoke as Father him who judges impartially according to each one's works, conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning, realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct ... with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb (1 Pt 1:17-19).
Paul doesn't write that God made Jesus "guilty of our sins;" instead, he writes God "made him to be sin." That is a different statement, but it is also difficult to understand. A person cannot be sin any more than a person can be a letter in the alphabet or a prime number. Therefore, Paul meant something different. In the Old Testament Greek translation of passages like Hosea 4:8 and Exodus 29:14, the inspired writer uses the Greek word for "sin" to mean "sin offering," referring to the sacrifice one offered in reparation for sin. If you give this meaning to Paul's sentence, it becomes: "For our sake He made Him to be a sin offering," which is in agreement with the Catholic teaching about atonement that Jesus was a sacrifice offered for the sins of humanity.

Jesus was born and remained the sinless and unblemished Lamb of God. Catechism 603 states: "Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned. But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all,' so that we might be reconciled to God by the death of his Son'" (quoting from Jn 8:46; Mk 15:34/Ps 22:1; Rom 8:32; 5:10).

Resources:
Mapping Time, E.G. Richards, Oxford University Press, pages 77-79
Calendar, David E Duncan, Avon Books, page 189
The Gospel According to John, vol 1-4; Fr. Raymond Brown, Doubleday, New York, 1966
The Gospel According to Luke, vol. I and II, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., Doubleday, 1970.
Jesus and the Mystery of the Tamid Sacrifice by M .E. Hunt