Catholic Devotion to
the Saints, in the light of Jewish Scripture and Tradition
(Author's contribution to an
upcoming
apologetics anthology)
As a Jew who has gratefully entered the Catholic Church (which is
really nothing other than the continuation of Judaism after the coming
of the Messiah), I find it curious to see the objections which some
non-Catholic Christians have to the Catholic devotion to the
saints.
For this, too, seems an organic continuation of Judaism, well supported
by the Jewish scriptures as well as tradition. If Catholic
devotion
to the saints truly constituted a veiled form of idolatry, as is
sometimes mistakenly suggested, than it should be more offensive to
Biblical Judaism than to any other religious system, since it was the
Jews who were given the honor of introducing to all of mankind the
worship of the one true God,
to the exclusion of all other gods or "idols", for the very first time
in
history. The rejection of idolatry is at the very heart of God's
revelation
to the Jews. There are over one hundred vehement prohibitions
against
idolatry in the Jewish scriptures, including, of course, the very first
of the Ten Commandments: "I am the LORD your God;You shall have no
other
gods before me;" (Exodus 20:2-3). Jesus Himself names this as the most
important
-- the "first and greatest" -- of the commandments in Matthew 22:38.
Other
stringent prohibitions against idolatry also appear in Leviticus 26,
Deuteronomy
29 and 32, Psalms 31, 97, 106, 115, and 135, and throughout the
prophets
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea, and elsewhere as well.
So obviously if anyone should object to the veneration of the saints as
a form of idolatry, it is the Jews. Yet profound veneration for
saints permeates the very same scriptures in which one finds the
prohibitions against idolatry. God even identifies Himself in
reference to the greatest of the Jewish saints, the three Patriarchs
Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob (later renamed Israel). When asked by Moses who
He is, He replies: "I am;the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob." (Exodus 3:6).
Abraham is considered the first and greatest of the Jewish saints,
rightly held by the Jews in the highest veneration, because all of the
blessings which God promised for all eternity for the Jews came to the
Jews solely because they were the offspring of Abraham. God was
rewarding Abraham for his fidelity by showering blessings on his
posterity. It was to reward Abraham's willingness to
sacrifice his dearly beloved
son Isaac, that God promised: "By myself I have sworn, says the LORD,
because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only
son, I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as
the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your
descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your
descendants
shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have
obeyed
my voice." (Genesis 22:16-18). How could the Jews not hold
Abraham
in the highest veneration, since he was the sole source of the
extraordinary
blessings which they have received ever since? Not to do so would
be the rankest ingratitude, as well as being a violation of the Fourth
Commandment, "Honor your father and your mother" (Exodus 20:12), since
the Jews are the "seed of Abraham". From a Christian perspective,
there is a striking symmetry between Abraham's willingness to sacrifice
his only legitimate, dearly beloved son on the top of Mount Moriah
(Genesis
22:2) out of obedience to God, with God's later willingness to
sacrifice His dearly beloved, only-begotten Son two thousand years
later on the very same mountain top, then known as Calvary. The
implication is inescapable
that somehow, on a deep mystical/theological level, it was Abraham's
fidelity
to God which was reciprocated two thousand years later in the ultimate
blessing which brought about the redemption of all mankind, giving
Christians their own reason to be grateful to Abraham.
The same principles can be applied in understanding the Catholic
veneration of the Saints. Let us take, as an example, the
"greatest" (and most controversial) of the saints, the Blessed Virgin
Mary. As the Jews owe Abraham veneration as the source of all of
their blessings, certainly no less do all Christians owe Mary
veneration as the source of all of theirs. For as it was
Abraham's pleasingness to God which brought about the Jewish blessing,
so it was Mary's pleasingness to
God which enabled the greatest blessing known to mankind -- the birth
of
God as Man, Jesus -- to come about. Let us look at the moment
when
the Incarnation took place -- the moment when Jesus was conceived in
the
virginal womb of Mary. When the angel appeared to her, he
addressed her saying "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!;you
have
found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb
and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus."(Luke
1:28-31). Clearly, the Incarnation of Jesus in the womb of Mary
was not unrelated to her virtue, to her having found favor with
God ! As the blessings of the Jews were the result of the favor
which Abraham found with God,
the blessings of Christianity flow from the favor which Mary found with
God. And as God's gift to the Jews came about because of his
willingness
to say "yes" to the sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22:16), so did God's
gift
of His Son come about because of Mary's willingness to say "yes" to the
Incarnation: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me
according
to your word." (Luke 1:38) Mere common decency would demand that
the Jews venerate Abraham, and the Christians Mary, if only out of
gratitude
for the blessings which they enjoy as a result of these saints' virtue.
In prayer, it is typical for Jews to refer to God as the "God of
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel" (Jacob's name was changed to Israel
in Genesis 22:38), much as God had named himself to Moses. This formula
was used by the prophet Elijah ("And at the time of the offering of the
oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, 'O LORD, God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Israel;'"-- 1 Kings 18:36), by King David ("O LORD,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers;" -- 1 Chronicles
29:18), and by the prophet Hezekiah ("O people of Israel, return to the
LORD, the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel" -- 2 Chronicles 30:6), and reappears
constantly in the Jewish liturgy. Such a formula serves to
indirectly remind God of how pleasing the Patriarchs were to Him, and
asks Him to bestow blessings on those making the prayer as their
descendants. This technique is sometimes explicit, as in the
liturgy of the Jewish weekday Morning Prayer: "We are Your people, the
sons of Your covenant, children of Your beloved Abraham, with whom You
made a pledge on Mount Moriah. We are the seed of Isaac,
Abraham's only son, who was bound upon the altar. We are Your
firstborn people, the congregation of Jacob, whom You named Israel and
Jeshurun because You loved him and delighted in him." (Weekday Prayer
Book, Rabbinical Assembly of America, 1961, p.13) In a similar
way, when Catholics name and honor Jesus as the son of Mary (e.g.
"blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus" in the "Hail Mary"), they are
reminding
Jesus of the love and filial devotion which He had for His mother Mary,
and
laying claim to some of that special favor as her adoptive children.
For
Jesus gave Mary as adoptive mother to all of his "beloved disciples"
from
the Cross"; standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother...and the
disciple whom he loved;He said to his mother, 'Woman, behold, your
son!' Then he
said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!'" (John 19:25-27) The
Catholic who embellishes his prayers to Jesus with references to Mary
thus
is doing the same thing as the Jew who makes repeated reference to
Abraham
-- reminding God of His special love for the named person,
and
laying claim to some of that love as his/her descendant. And
since Abraham
is the father of the Jews, and Mary the adoptive mother of every
disciple
of Jesus, the respect shown to them is no more than the fulfillment of
the
fourth commandment "Honor your father and your mother." (Exodus 20:12)
It also undoubtedly grates on some non-Catholics when they hear of Mary
referred to as the "Queen of Heaven", as in the well-known Easter
prayer the Regina Coeli: "Rejoice, Queen of Heaven, Alleluia! For He
whom thou didst merit to bear for us, Alleluia! Has arisen, as He
promised, Alleluia ! Offer now our prayers to God, Alleluia
!" (The Blessed Virgin Mary's stature as Queen of Heaven was
formally defined by Pope
Pius XII in the 1954 encyclical Ad Coeli Reginam.) Yet
here,
too, the role of Abraham in Judaism provides a parallel which can shed
some light. At the time of Jesus, the Jews called their "heaven"
the "bosom of Abraham" (this was, in fact, not heaven proper -- which
was inaccessible to mankind until Jesus descended to the dead after
dying
on the Cross -- but a place of lesser happiness, bereft of the full
blessedness
which consists of the vision of God, and known in Catholic theology as
the "Limbo of the Fathers"). It was to this "bosom of Abraham" that
Jesus
made reference in his parable about Lazarus and the rich man in Luke
16.
If the blessedness of the "Jewish heaven" flowed from intimacy with the
greatest of the Patriarchs, Abraham, how logical that the joys of the
ultimate Heaven should flow, in part, from intimacy with the most
perfect
human being ever created, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
There is also another, more mysterious, way in which it is natural for
me as a Jew to see the Blessed Virgin Mary as the "Queen of
Heaven". In Judaism the Sabbath is the summit of pre-Messianic
life on earth, a kind of antechamber of Heaven, a foretaste of the life
to come. And the Sabbath itself is seen, mystically, as a Virgin (i.e.
bride) Queen -- the Sabbath Queen. Each Friday evening the
oncoming Sabbath is greeted with the following song/prayer:
"Come, my Beloved.
Let us welcome Sabbath the Bride, Queen of our days.
Come, let us all greet Sabbath, Queen sublime,
Fountain of blessings in every clime.
Annointed and regal since earliest time,
In thought she preceded Creation's six days.
Arise and shake off the dust of the earth.
Wear glorious garments reflecting your worth.
Messiah will lead us all soon to rebirth.
My soul now senses redemption's warm rays.
Awake and arise to greet the new light
For in your radiance the world will be bright.
Sing out, for darkness is hidden from sight.
The Lord through you His glory displays.
Then your destroyers will themselves be destroyed;
Ravagers, at great distance, will live in a void.
Your God then will celebrate you, overjoyed,
As a groom with his bride when his eyes meet her gaze.
Come in peace, soul mate, sweet gift of the Lord,
Greeted with joy and in song so adored
Amidst God's people, in faith in accord.
Come, Bride Sabbath; come, crown of the days.
Come, my Beloved.
Let us welcome Sabbath the Bride, Queen of our days."
Repeatedly thoughout this prayer there are parallels between the images
of the Sabbath Queen and the Catholic understanding of the Blessed
Virgin Mary as the Queen of Heaven. It is Mary who is the "fountain of
blessings" -- that is, the channel though which all of the graces won
by Christ flow (source). In thought she preceded Creation, which
is the justification for the Catholic identification of Mary with the
personification of Wisdom in the deutero-canonical Book of Wisdom and
in Sirach. Through her the Lord's glory of God is displayed, as
sunlight through a flawless crystal. The destruction of her enemies was
foretold in Genesis 3:15, a passage known as the "protoevangelium"
precisely because in it Eve
foreshadows the Blessed Virgin Mary. And so forth, throughout the
prayer. And just as the Sabbath is the precursor and foretaste of
the Kingdom of Heaven on earth for Jews, so is the purity of the
Blessed Virgin Mary a precursor and foretaste of the perfection of
virtue of the God-Man.
Another aspect of Catholic devotion to the saints which sometimes draws
criticism is the typical attention Catholics pay to the bodies of
"dead" saints. Yet this form of devotion is also familiar to
Jews and to the Jewish scriptures. The burial site of the three
Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has been venerated continually by
Jews since their deaths about four thousand years ago. As
Catholics make
pilgrimages to the tombs of "dead" saints (sometimes enclosed in
churches)
to pray, so do Jews, both in Biblical times and still today. Today it
is sometimes at the risk of their very lives, as a number have been
killed praying there in recent years, yet they continue. Other
tombs of Old Testament saints to which Jews go to pray include those
of Joseph, Rachel, King David, and of the prophets Haggai, Malachi, and
Samuel, all of which have been venerated for millenia. We know
that
the tombs were held in great respect at the time of Jesus, for he
himself
mentioned that the Jews "build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the
monuments
of the righteous" (Matthew 23:29).
Jews make also pilgrimage to, and pray at, the tombs of many
post-Biblical Jewish "saints", too. These are typically the great
Jewish rabbis of the past two thousand years, such as Rabbi Shimon Bar
Yohai (credited with composing the great Jewish mystical work the Zohar
in the 2nd century A.D.), Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel (who dying young and
unmarried in the first century A.D., promised that whoever would pray
on his tomb for a match would marry within the year), Rabbi Akiva
(killed in the Bar Kochba rebellion of 132 A.D.), the great medieval
Jewish scholar and rabbi Maimonides (d. 1205 A.D.), and on and on.
Thousands of
Jews from around the world visit these sites, year after year, to pray,
make petitions, and pay their respects. No, although there were
many
new aspects which I had to get used to when I embraced the Catholic
faith,
praying at the tombs of saints was not one of them!
The Catholic use of relics, too, is sometimes accused of being
"idolatrous" and "non-Biblical", but again it is well substantiated in
the Old as well as the New (which I'll leave to another contributor)
Testament. How can one accuse a Catholic as being superstitous
when
he applies a relic of a saint to a sick person in the hopes of
obtaining, with prayer, a healing, when in the Old Testament mere
contact with the bones of the great prophet Elisha -- without any
prayer
-- brought a dead man back to life?: "So Elisha died, and they buried
him. Now bands of Moabites
used to invade the land in the spring of the year. And as a man was
being
buried, lo, a marauding band was seen and the man was cast into the
grave
of Elisha; and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he
revived,
and stood on his feet." (2 Kings 13:20-21)
Catholics are also sometimes criticised for praying to "dead" saints
for their intercession; that is, praying for them to ask God
for some special favor, relying on their relationship with God to
obtain
something which He might not grant the petitioner without such
intercession. Yet the Old Testament is full of cases in which God
granted special favors through the intercession of saints which He
would not have granted the petitioner directly. Well known
examples include Abraham petitioning for God to spare Sodom if just ten
righteous men could be found (Genesis 18), Moses interceding with God
not to destroy the Jews for their worship of the Golden Calf (Exodus
32), and Elijah praying to bring a dead child back to life (1 Kings
17). In fact, Elijah is a particularly interesting example,
because according to Scriptures, he never died, but went up to Heaven
alive (2 Kings 2), from whence he will return just before the end of
the
world (Malachi 4). So the question is: If Elijah was
willing
to intercede on behalf of a petitioner before he was taken up to
Heaven,
and his prayer was particularly effective, would he not be equally
willing,
and even more able to, now that he is in heaven in the presence of God
?
He is not even dead! And it cannot be that he no longer has any
interest
in affairs on earth, because we know that he will return in the last
days
to "turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of
children to their fathers, lest [God] come and smite the land
with a curse" (Malachi 4:5). Of course, there is no reason why
being dead should prevent any other saint from being able to do the
same thing;
We know that the Blessed Virgin Mary is both interested in,
and effective in, asking her Son for special favors for others --
remember that at the wedding at Cana, it was she who got Jesus to turn
water
into wine for the wedding feast, even though he was initially unwilling
to, and had not yet begun his public ministry!:
On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the
mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with
his disciples. When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said
to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "O woman, what have
you to do with me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the
servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of
purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to
them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim.
He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the
feast." So they took it. When the steward of the feast tasted the water
now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the
servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called
the bridegroom and said to him, "Every man serves the good wine first;
and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept
the good wine until now."
This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee,
and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him. (John
2:1-11)
As we began with the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is with her that we
conclude. As she led others to Jesus at Cana when she pointed to
him and said: "Do whatever he tells you", so it was she who led me to
her Son Jesus, even before I had any interest in, or sympathy with, the
claims of Christianity. Although the story of my conversion is
too
long to go into here, the conversion began with an unintended visit to
a Marian shrine, and culminated with Mary's appearance in a
dream.
Thus it would be the rankest ingratitude for me not to acknowledge the
role she played, to thank her for her intercession, and to pray, in the
spirit of the Old Testament reliance on the intercession of the special
friends of God, the saints, that she, the greatest of all the saints,
make
use of her unique relationship with God and the resultant intercessory
power to bring us all -- Catholic and Protestant, Christian and Jew --
closer
to her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Kolbe's
Gift to the Jews
(from Kolbe, Saint of the
Immaculata, ed. Bro. Francis Mary Kalvelage, F.I.)
As a Jew, albeit one who has received the grace to recognize the
Catholic Church as the fulfillment of the promise God made to the
Jews, and as the son of German-Jewish holocaust refugees, I find
it particularly offensive that St. Maximilian Kolbe -- who has done so
incalculably much to aid the Jews -- is the object of calumnies
accusing
him of anti-Semitism. I would like to take this opportunity to
address this unfounded libel.
The accusations against Kolbe seem to fall into two
categories -- that he held to an "anti-Semitic" personal theology, and
that anti-Semitic writings were published in his Knight of the
Immaculata. Addressing the first category first, a Catholic
cannot be accused of being an "anti-Semite" simply for adhering to the
revealed truths of the Catholic faith! Catholics know as an
incontrovertible fact that
Jesus was, in fact, the long-awaited Messiah promised to the Jews, and
was in His person the fulfillment of the promise of the Old
Covenant. Therefore, Jews who do not accept Him are in error,
although not necessarily through their own personal fault, and the
tenets of the religion to which they adhere -- the necessity of
adhering
to the Mosaic covenant, and the awaiting of the (first-coming of) the
Messiah -- are no longer valid. This is not to say that there is
no merit in their fidelity to the one true God and to the
divinely-revealed faith to which they remain loyal. Nonetheless,
either the Catholic faith is true or it isn't. If the Catholic
faith is true, then there is something fundamentally flawed in the
theology of a Jew who rejects Jesus as the Messiah of Judaism.
Kolbe
should not be accused of being an anti-Semite simply for believing in
the
fullness of Catholic doctrine!
Then there is the issue of Kolbe's attitude towards Jews who actively
engaged in what he saw as destructive social movements. There is
no doubt that he considered that the Jews who were actively promoting
Communism and freemasonry were working for the forces of evil.
Again, Kolbe cannot be accused of anti-Semitism for being strongly
morally opposed to what they were doing. And when he made
reference to
these individuals, it is true that his description at times mentioned
the fact that they were Jewish. Although this may appear
distasteful
to us, it does not reflect anti-Semitism on Kolbe's part. It was
merely an accurate description of the individuals and events being
described, and if there was a particularly visible presence of Jews
involved in
the emergence of Communism, is that not more a matter of shame for us
Jews, than a cause for "shooting the messenger of bad tidings."?
And yet, rather than admitting the fault and perhaps expressing the
sort
of corporate contrition which the Holy Father John Paul II recently did
with respect to sins committed by his fellow Catholics, the chairman of
the American Section of the World Jewish Congress in the middle of the
20th century, Rabbi Israel Goldstein of New York City, named Leon
Trotsky
-- who played a key role in afflicting the world with the horror
of
atheistic communism -- as one of the "Ten Greatest Jews of the Last
Fifty
Years." On which side is the religious chauvinism? And
Kolbe
cannot be faulted if he felt that it was not entirely irrelevant that
many
of the key players in the Communist revolution were Jewish. For
having
discarded the possibility of the Messiah-hood of Jesus Christ, their
rightful
desire for a betterment for mankind's condition -- a "messianic"
impulse,
if you will, which might be particularly pronounced among Jews given
their
God-given role to pray for the coming of the Messiah -- had to search
for
other outlets, sometimes tragically falling on ones diametrically
opposed to all that was truly good for the future of man.
It is also true that Kolbe mistakenly put credence in the anti-Semitic
libel of the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion -- a fictional
anti-Semitic work which had recently appeared, purporting to be a
secret insiders' account of a plot among a group of Jews to take over
the world. Although Kolbe fell for the scurrilous anti-Semitic
hoax, so did almost the entire non-Jewish world at the
time. And in the era of world-shaking conspiracies in which Kolbe
lived -- that of freemasonry, which
had brought about the French revolution and tried to destroy the
Christian faith causing tens of thousands of martyrdoms in the process,
and that of communism, which brought about the Bolshevik revolution and
untold millions of deaths -- was it absurd for him to put credence in
yet another "secret-society" based conspiracy behind world events?
As to the claim that anti-Semitic writings were published in Kolbe's
Knight of the Immaculata, much of the furor stems from an article in an
April 1982 issue of the anti-Catholic Austrian periodical, Wiener
Tagebuch. That article makes reference to a particular issue of
the Knight, one which was in fact produced during a period in
which Kolbe was in Asia. Kolbe therefore could have had no prior
knowledge of it nor any part in approving it. Could it, in fact,
have been the very same issue which prompted the following reprimand
from
Kolbe to the acting editor? (letter written by Father Kolbe in Nagasaki
to Father Marion on July 12, 1935, acting editor of the Knight back in
Poland, reproving him for some of his editorial decisions):
"When speaking of the Jews, I would be very careful not to arouse by
accident nor add to the hatred for them, which some readers already
entertain, for many people are already ill-disposed in their regard, or
are even actually hostile towards them. ... our main purpose is,
as always, the conversion and sanctification of souls, winning them
over to the Immaculate through love for all souls, including those of
Jews..." (The Kolbe Reader, Fr. Romb Editor)
That Kolbe felt a special love and concern for the Jews, and for their
conversion, is reflected by the fact that he chose to
celebrate his very first Mass at the "St. Michael" altar in the church
of San Andrea della Fratte in Rome -- the very spot where the Blessed
Virgin
Mary appeared to the agnostic Jew Alphonse Ratisbonne, resulting in his
instantaneous conversion. Ratisbonne went on to become a
Carmelite
priest, and started a religious community in the Holy Land to pray that
the Jewish people, too, would come to know the Messiah for whom they
had
waited so long -- Jesus. (this miraculous conversion is recounted
in
more detail in the book Marian Shrines in France, published by the
Franciscans of the Immaculate.)
The fact that Kolbe looked after the temporal needs of Jews
as well is documented elsewhere in this book. Many stirring
accounts are also narrated in Patricia Reese's excellent biography of
Kolbe, A Man for Others. While head of the friary in Poland Kolbe
fed, clothed and sheltered thousands of Jews who had nowhere else to
turn -- often
at the expense of adequate resources for his own monks. And in
Auschwitz he gave love and hope, and much of his meager ration of
bread, to Jewish as well as non-Jewish fellow prisoners.
But as important as it is to relieve the
suffering of our brothers while on earth, it pales in insignificance
in comparison to assuring their eternal salvation. And Kolbe
never
stopped for a moment -- either before or after his internment in
Auschwitz
-- to pray, suffer and work for the salvation of Jews as well as
atheists
and fellow-Christians. And by being present at Auschwitz -- a
fate
which Kolbe willingly took on, declining at least one opportunity to
avoid it -- and in voluntarily taking on his own intentional execution,
Kolbe perhaps performed one of the greatest services to the Jewish
people
in the history of the world. Because through his own
identification
with the suffering Christ, and his presence and his prayers and his
love
for his fellow-prisoners, he was perhaps able to serve as an
intermediary
in uniting the suffering of even his fellow-prisoners who did not know
Christ with those of our Savior and Redeemer, and thereby ensure that
their
sufferings and deaths too would have redemptive value, for themselves,
for
their co-religionists, and for the world.
A Response to
"Reflections on Covenant and Mission"
The following letter appeared in a recent issue of Inside the
Vatican magazine (slightly edited) in response to the magazine's
coverage of the "Reflections on Covenant and Mission" document,
addressing the relationship between Judaism and the Catholic
Faith, put out in August 2002 by a subcommittee of the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops. The original document along with
a number of thoughtful responses, many by Jewish converts to the Faith,
appeared in the Summer-Fall 2002 issue of the Journal of the
Association of Hebrew Catholics, available here.)
Dear Editor,
As a Jew who has gratefully entered the Catholic Church, I thank you
for your thoughtful coverage of the recent USCCB "Reflections"
document (Inside the Vatican,"A Troubling Document,"
January 2003). An intelligent response to it could fill a book -- in
fact, the book I just wrote, Salvation is from the Jews
(forthcoming
later this year from Ignatius Press), is in many ways such a
response. Yet I would nonetheless like to make a few comments.
The
'dual covenant' theory which has emerged from the US Bishops-sponsored
Jewish/Catholic dialogue portrays Christianity as a modified version of
Judaism, one appropriate for the Gentiles (non-Jews), enabling them to
worship the one true God and share the moral and ethical truths of
Judaism without being part of the special covenant which God made with
the 'seed of Abraham'. Since this both confirms the objective
validity of Judaism and establishes the inappropriateness of Jewish
conversion to Christianity, it is naturally very appealing to the
Jewish side of the dialogue, which is willing, in return, to
acknowledge the value and virtue of the Christian religion and of its
founder, the Jew Jesus. It is an ideal solution to eliminate any
tension between the two sides and enable them to be mutually supportive
of each others' faiths. It is, unfortunately, entirely
incompatible with the truths of Christianity. For the
Gospel
makes abundantly clear that Jesus came first for the Jews, for
instance,
Matthew 15:24 -- "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house
of Israel." It was to Jews that He said "unless one is born of
water
and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God"(John 2:5) and to
Jews
that He said: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his
blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). Jesus spent his
entire life and ministry evangelizing Jews, not Gentiles; He was
crucifed for
evangelizing Jews, not Gentiles (cf. Luke 20:14, John 11:47-53).
If God did not intend the new covenant for the Jews, then Jesus got it
wrong;
St. Peter, the first Pope and the "apostle to the Jews" got it wrong;
St.
Paul, the premier theologian for all of Christianity got it wrong, not
only
in his epistles but in his own conversion and in his repeated
sufferings
for evangelizing Jews; St. Stephen, the very first Christian martyr,
stoned
for evangelizing the Jews, got it wrong (cf. Acts 6-7); all twelve
Apostles,
all 'converted' Jews, got it wrong; and on and on and on.
The
theology presented by Reflections is a tragedy for both Catholics and
for Jews. It is a tragedy for Catholics because it not only sells
out the fundamentals of the faith, but it deprives them of seeing the
incomparable beauty of God's plan for salvation over its entire span; a
plan that begins mysteriously at the fall of Adam; which develops
through the preparation of the Jewish people culminating in the only
perfect human being ever (the Jewish Virgin Mary), and which is
fulfilled in the Jewish Messiah, Jesus and the Church, the Catholic
Church, which He left behind. It also does a disservice to God,
for it denies the words of His son Jesus; it denies the truths He
revealed, and it denies Him the joy He has in receiving His especially
beloved Jewish people in the intimacy available only thorough His
Church and its sacraments. But it is most of all a tragedy for the
Jews, for it deprives them of the opportunity of knowing the fullness
of the truth of revelation; it deprives them of the incomparable joy
and consolation of the intimacy with God achieved only though the
sacraments; it deprives them of the eternal salvific benefits which
flow from the Church and the sacraments. And most ironically, it
deprives them of the true honor and glory of their own religion, of
their own identity - of being part
of the people and the religion which brought about the salvation of all
mankind, the people through whom God became man, the people related to
God
in the flesh.
"Reflections" was presumably motivated by charity, however
misplaced. I beg the Bishops and all other Catholics to
prayerfully consider where true charity to their Jewish "elder
brethren" (in the words of John Paul II) lies and reach out to them
with the truth, the full truth, of the glory, the beauty, the
importance of being Jewish -- a glory which is
found in the truths of the Catholic Faith.
Notes on the
Relationship between Christ and Passover
Background: "God Himself will Provide the
Sacrifice"
One can think of salvation history as beginning with God's choice of
Abraham to be the father of the "Chosen People"; chosen to be
especially close to him, and chosen to bring about mankind's redemption
by bringing forth the Messiah. And the process began, in large
part, with the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac
on Mount Moriah. We read the history in (Genesis 22):
1 After these things God tested Abraham, and said to
him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." 2 He said, "Take your son,
your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and
offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which
I
shall tell you." 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his
ass,
and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; and he cut
the
wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which
God
had told him. 4 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the
place afar off. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with
the
ass; I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to
you." 6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering,
and laid it on
Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they
went
both of them together. 7 And Isaac said to his father
Abraham, "My father!" And he said, "Here am I, my son." He said,
"Behold,
the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" 8
Abraham said, "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering,
my son." So they went both of them together. 9
When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built
an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son,
and
laid him on the altar, upon the wood. 10 Then Abraham put forth his
hand, and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD
called
to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am
I." 12 He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him;
for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your
son,
your only son, from me." 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and
looked,
and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns; and
Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up as a burnt offering
instead
of his son. 14 So Abraham called the name of that place The LORD will
provide;
as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be
provided." 15 And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a
second time from heaven, 16 and said, "By myself I have sworn,
says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your
son, your only son, 17 I
will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the
stars
of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your
descendants
shall possess the gate of their enemies, 18 and in thy seed shall
all
the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my
voice." (Genesis 22, RSV, except v.18 NKJV)
It was Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac which inspired God to
reciprocate, two thousand years later, with the sacrifice of His
only-begotten son, born also from Abraham's seed, on yet another mount,
that of Calvary. And so we see that Abraham's utterance "God
himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son"(v. 8) was
prophetic far beyond anything he knew, referring not only to the
provision of the ram "provided" by the Lord, but referring far more
profoundly to the only truly acceptable sacrifice, that of God's Son
Himself on the altar of Calvary.
Jesus was the true Paschal Lamb, sacrificed on Calvary to bring us true
freedom, freedom from our sins, freedom to be sons and daughters of God
through participation in the sacrifice of His Son the Messiah.
Since the first Christians, Jesus has been seen as the true Paschal
lamb. St. Paul, St. Peter, and the author of the letter to the
Hebrews make the connection:
1 Corinthians 5 :
7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as
you really are unleavened. For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been
sacrificed.
1 Peter 13:
18 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways
inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as
silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of
a lamb without blemish or spot.
Hebrews 9-10:
11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good
things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent
(not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once
for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves
but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the
sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and
with the ashes
of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much
more
shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
himself
without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve
the
living God. 15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that
those
who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a
death
has occurred which redeems them from the transgressions under the first
covenant.
...
18 Hence even the first covenant was not ratified without blood.
19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by
Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with
water
and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all
the people, 20 saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God
commanded you." 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both
the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law
almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of
blood there is no forgiveness of sins. 23 Thus it was necessary for the
copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the
heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For
Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the
true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God
on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high
priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own; 26 for then
he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the
world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age
to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is
appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so
Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear
a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly
waiting for him.
10: 1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things
to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by
the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make
perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to
be offered? If the worshipers had once been cleansed, they would no
longer have any consciousness of sin. 3 But in these sacrifices there
is a reminder of sin year after year. 4 For it is impossible that the
blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. 5 Consequently, when
Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings thou
hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; 6 in burnt
offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. 7 Then I said,
`Lo, I have come to do thy
will, O God,' as it is written of me in the roll of the book." 8 When
he
said above, "Thou hast neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices
and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings" (these are offered
according to the law), 9 then he added, "Lo, I have come to do thy
will."
He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that
will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. 11 And every priest stands daily at his service,
offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away
sins.
12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for
sins,
he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 then to wait until his enemies
should be made a stool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has
perfected for all time those who are sanctified. 15 And the Holy Spirit
also bears witness to us; for after saying, 16 "This is the covenant
that
I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my
laws
on their hearts, and write them on their minds," 17 then he adds, "I
will
remember their sins and their misdeeds no more." 18 Where there is
forgiveness
of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. 19 Therefore,
brethren,
since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,
20
by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain,
that
is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the
house
of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of
faith,
with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies
washed
with pure water.
The first time that Jesus, prophetically, is refereed to as the lamb of
God is when the Messiah to come is spoken of in Isaiah 53:
3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows,
and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he
was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten
by
God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was
bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us
whole, and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have
gone
astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid
on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was
afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the
slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he
opened not his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of
the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 9
And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his
death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his
mouth.
The fact that these verses referred to Jesus was made explicit in Acts
8:
26 But an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Rise and go
toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza."
This is a desert road. 27 And he rose and went. And behold, an
Ethiopian, a eunuch, a minister of the Candace, queen of the
Ethiopians, in charge of all her treasure, had come to Jerusalem to
worship 28 and was returning; seated in his chariot, he was reading the
prophet Isaiah. 29 And the Spirit said to Philip, "Go up and join this
chariot." 30 So Philip ran to him,
and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, "Do you understand
what you are reading?" 31 And he said, "How can I, unless some one
guides
me?" And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the
passage
of the scripture which he was reading was this: "As a sheep led to the
slaughter or a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he opens not his
mouth. 33 In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe
his generation? For
his life is taken up from the earth." 34 And the eunuch said to Philip,
"About whom, pray, does the prophet say this, about himself or about
some one else?" 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with
this scripture he told him the good news of Jesus.
John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the "lamb of God" on several
occasions, including in John 1:
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and
said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
And finally, the scenes in Heaven in the Book of Revelation
consistently show Jesus as the Lamb who was slain. An example is
in Revelation 7:
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude
which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and
peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb,
clothed
in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out
with
a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne,
and to the Lamb!" 11 And all the angels stood round the throne and
round the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their
faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, "Amen! Blessing
and glory and
wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God for
ever and ever! Amen." 13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying,
"Who are these, clothed in white robes, and whence have they come?" 14
I
said to him, "Sir, you know." And he said to me, "These are they who
have
come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and
made
them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 Therefore are they before the
throne of God, and serve him day and night within his temple; and he
who
sits upon the throne will shelter them with his presence. 16 They shall
hunger no more, neither thirst any more; the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will
be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water;
and
God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
The Exodus from Egypt
The Exodus from Egypt has always been seen by the Jews as a
foreshadowing of the coming of the Messiah; that's one reason why the
celebration of Passover is so central to the Jewish faith. The
Messianic significance of the Passover is evident in several aspects of
the Passover Seder. One is the eager waiting for Elijah. A
place is set for him and late in the service the door is opened to see
if he is there, for the Jews
know that Elijah will come before the Messiah to prepare the way for
him. Another is the fact that every Seder ends in the shout "Next
Year in Jerusalem!"; for when the Messiah comes all of Judaism will be
reunited in Jerusalem.
In this understanding of the Passover as being "Messianic" the Jews are
absolutely right; perhaps even more right than they realize. For
the Church has always seen Messianic significance to every aspect
of the Exodus and the Passover celebration -- in fact, the entire
Passover event was a "foreshadowing" of the New Covenant, of the
Redemption of Man through the Messiah, Jesus Christ. In the words
of St.
Augustine, (Contra Faustum Manichaeum)
When you ask why a Christian does not keep the
feast of the paschal lamb, if Christ came not to destroy the law, but
to fulfill it, my reply is, that he does not keep it precisely because
what was thus prefigured has been fulfilled in the sufferings of
Christ,
the Lamb without spot. ... In the gospel we have the true Lamb, not in
shadow, but in substance; and instead of prefiguring the death, we
commemorate it daily, and especially in the yearly festival.
And of Clemens Alexandrinus, one of the post-Nicene Church Fathers:,
... in the years gone by, Jesus went to eat the passover
sacrificed by the Jews, keeping the feast. But ... he was the Passover,
the Lamb of God, led as a sheep to the slaughter...
Each event in the Passover narrative is seen as a prefigurement of an
aspect of our redemption through Christ. As an example, let me
quote St. Cyril of Jerusalem, another of the post-Nicene Church
Fathers, in his First Lecture On The Mysteries.
1. I have long been wishing, O true-born and dearly
beloved children of the Church, to discourse to you concerning these
spiritual and heavenly Mysteries; but since I well knew that seeing is
far more persuasive than hearing, I waited for the present season; that
finding you more open to the influence of my words from your present
experience,
I might lead you by the hand into the brighter and more fragrant meadow
of the Paradise before us; especially as ye have been made fit to
receive
the more sacred Mysteries, after having been found worthy of divine and
life-giving Baptism . Since therefore it remains to set before
you
a table of the more perfect instructions, let us now teach you these
things
exactly, that ye may know the effect wrought upon you on
that
evening of your baptism.
2. First ye entered into the vestibule
of the Baptistery, and there facing towards the West ye listened to
the command to stretch forth your hand, and as in the presence of Satan
ye renounced him. Now ye must know that this figure is found in ancient
history. For when Pharaoh, that most bitter and cruel tyrant, was
oppressing
the free and high-born people of the Hebrews, God sent Moses to bring
them
out of the evil bondage of the Egyptians. Then the door posts were
anointed
with the blood of a lamb, that the destroyer might flee from the houses
which had the sign of the blood; and the Hebrew people was marvelously
delivered. The enemy, however, after their rescue, pursued after
them
, and saw the sea wondrously parted for them; nevertheless he went on,
following close in their footsteps, and was all at once overwhelmed and
engulphed in the Red Sea.
3. Now turn from the old to the new, from the figure
to the reality. There we have Moses sent from God to Egypt; here,
Christ, sent forth from His Father into the world: there, that Moses
might lead forth an afflicted people out of Egypt; here, that Christ
might rescue those who are oppressed in the world under sin: there, the
blood of a
lamb was the spell against the destroyer; here, the blood
of
the Lamb without blemish Jesus Christ is made the charm to scare evil
spirits:
there, the tyrant was pursuing that ancient people even to the sea; and
here
the daring and shameless spirit, the author of evil, was following thee
even
to the very streams of salvation. The tyrant of old was drowned in the
sea;
and this present one disappears in the water of salvation.
Briefly, the crossing of the Red Sea, passing from slavery to
freedom, was seen as a prefigurement of Baptism freeing us from
original
sin; the Blood of the Lamb on the doorpost turning away the avenging
angel and sparing the Jews from death was seen as prefiguring the Blood
of Christ on the Cross turning away God's rightful judgment, sparing us
from eternal death; the forty years journey in the wilderness until
reaching
the "promised Land" and Jerusalem was seen as a "type" of our lifetime
here
on earth until we reach our eternal home the "Heavenly Jerusalem"; and
the
manna with which God miraculously fed the Jews in the desert was seen
as
prefiguring the true read of life, the Eucharist, with which God feeds
us
with heavenly food during our pilgrimage on earth.
The identification of Passover with the most sacred mysteries
of the Church is not dependent just on the writing of the Church
Fathers -- it is evident in the circumstances of Christ's life, and is
made explicit in the New Testament itself. The miracle of the
multiplication of the loaves (always seen as representing the
Eucharist) and the subsequent "Bread of Life" discourse both, as John
is careful to point out, took place at Passover time (John 6):
1 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of
Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. 2 And a multitude followed him,
because they saw the signs which he did on those who were diseased. 3
Jesus went up on the mountain, and there sat down with his disciples. 4
Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up his
eyes, then, and seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said
to Philip, "How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?" 6
This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7
Philip answered him, "Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread
for each of them to get a little." 8 One of his disciples, Andrew,
Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 9 "There is a lad here who has five
barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?" 10 Jesus
said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the
place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand. 11 Jesus
then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them
to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12
And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, "Gather up
the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost." 13 So they gathered
them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley
loaves, left by those who had eaten. 14 When the people saw the sign
which he had done, they said, "This is indeed the prophet who is to
come into the world!" 15 Perceiving then that they were about to come
and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the
mountain by himself....
24 So when the people saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples,
they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking
Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said
to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" 26 Jesus answered them,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs,
but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not labor for the
food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life,
which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father
set his seal." 28 Then they said
to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" 29 Jesus
answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom
he has sent." 30 So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that
we may see, and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers
ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, `He gave them bread
from heaven to eat.'" 32 Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say
to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father
gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that
which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world." 34 They
said to him, "Lord, give us this bread always." 35 Jesus said to them,
"I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he
who believes in me shall never thirst....
47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.
48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the
wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from
heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread
which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will
live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the
world is my flesh." 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying,
"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" 53 So Jesus said to them,
"Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you
have
no life in you; 54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal
life,
and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink
indeed. 56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me,
and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of
the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the
bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and
died; he who eats this bread will live for ever."
So here we see not only that Jesus Himself made clear the parallel
between the Eucharist and the manna in the wilderness, but he did so at
Passover time! And of course, as we all know, the Passion and
Death of Jesus itself took place at Passover, (see, Luke 22) and the
Last Supper, which was the first Mass, not only took place at Passover
but was itself a Passover ritual meal (a Seder). Exodus 12 makes
it clear that no Jew can claim membership with the Jewish people if he
doesn't participate in eating the Passover lamb; similarly, Jesus makes
clear that one cannot participate in the redemption He offers without
eating the true Passover lamb; his flesh and blood in the
Eucharist. The Old Covenant was
a foreshadowing in symbols of the New Covenant.
The final stage in the Exodus was, of course, the entry of the Jews
into the Promised Land. As mentioned, the Church Fathers saw this
as a figure of the entry of man into Heaven after his earthly
pilgrimage is over, and here, too, Jesus, and Jesus as the sacrifice
which makes
it possible, appears in veiled form. The Jews' entry into the
Promised Land was barred by the walled city of Jericho, and it was by
blowing
the Shofar, the ram's horn, that the walls fell (Joshua 6). But
the Shofar, the ram's horn, is a reminder of the ram who was caught by
its horn in the thicket, and which substituted for Isaac in Abraham's
sacrifice
on Mount Moriah. But that ram itself was only a "place-holder"
for
the true sacrifice which the Lord Himself would provide in the place of
Abraham's son; that is, God's own only-begotten Son Jesus. And so
it was the
evocation of God's promise of the "sacrifice the Lord Himself would
provide",
Jesus, which caused the walls of Jericho to come tumbling down.
And,
at the risk of pointing out the obvious, it was Joshua -- that is,
Jesus
-- who led the Jews in that battle and in their entry into the Promised
Land...
The Death of Jesus
The most powerful "equation" between the death of Our Lord and the
Passover offering is made by the circumstance itself of the crucifixion
occurring on the eve of Passover, even at the very hour -- noon
-- that the Passover offerings were being slaughtered in the
temple (John
19):
13 When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out
and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, and
in Hebrew, Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of Preparation of the
Passover; it was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, "Behold
your
King!" 15 They cried out, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!"
Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests
answered,
"We have no king but Caesar." 16 Then he handed him over to them to be
crucified. 17 So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own
cross,
to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew
Golgotha.
18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either
side,
and Jesus between them.
John 19 explicitly considers the Crucifixion to be the Passover
offering:
31 Since it was the day of Preparation, in order to
prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the sabbath (for that
sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be
broken, and that they might be taken away. 32 So the soldiers
came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been
crucified with him; 33 but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was
already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers
pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and
water. 35 He who saw it has borne witness -- his testimony is true, and
he knows that he tells the truth -- that you also may believe. 36 For
these things took place
that the scripture might be fulfilled, "Not a bone of him shall be
broken."
This is clearly a reference to the rules for the Passover sacrifice
found in Exodus 12:
43 And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "This is the ordinance of
the passover: no foreigner shall eat of it; 44 but every slave
that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised
him. 45 No sojourner or hired servant may eat of it. 46 In
one house
shall it be eaten; you shall not carry forth any of the flesh outside
the
house; and you shall not break a bone of it. 47 All the
congregation
of Israel shall keep it.
The role of Elijah in the Passover celebration, most particularly at
the seder itself, is an additional poignant reminder of the
relationship between Jesus and the Passover. A prominent theme
during the Passover Seder is the eager awaiting of the return of the
prophet Elijah, for Jewish prophecy foretold that Elijah would return
before the coming of the Messiah (Malachi 4):
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the
great and terrible day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts
of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their
fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse."
We know from the New Testament that John the Baptist fulfilled this
prophecy, in his coming in the "spirit and power" of Elijah. This
was already announced when the birth of John the Baptist was foretold
to his father Zachariah (Luke 1):
11 And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord
standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12 And Zechariah
was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. 13 But the angel
said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer is heard,
and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his
name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will
rejoice at his birth; 15 for he will be great before the Lord,
and he shall drink no wine nor strong drink, and he will be filled with
the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. 16 And he will turn
many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God, 17 and he will
go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of
the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the
just, to make ready for the Lord a people
prepared.":
We also know this from the words of Jesus himself, for instance in
Matthew 11:
7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds
concerning John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to
behold? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 Why then did you go out? To see
a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, those who wear soft raiment are
in kings' houses. 9 Why then did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes, I
tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is he of whom it is written,
`Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way
before thee.' 11 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there
has
risen no one greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the
kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 From the days of John the
Baptist
until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of
violence
take it by force. 13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until
John;
14 and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. 15
He
who has ears to hear, let him hear.
And again after John the Baptist was killed by Herod (Matthew
17; also recounted in Mark 9):
10 And the disciples asked him, "Then why do the scribes
say that first Elijah must come?" 11 He replied, "Elijah does come, and
he is to restore all things; 12 but I tell you that Elijah
has already come, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever
they pleased. So also the Son of man will suffer at their hands." 13
Then
the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the
Baptist.
So the "presence" of Elijah at the Seder table reminds us again that
Jesus was the true fulfillment of the Passover sacrifice.
Postscript: Other Events in Jesus' Life which Occurred
during Passover
For further meditation it is worthwhile to consider that other
significant events in Jesus' life also took place at Passover
time. Jesus' first "entry" into public life may be thought of as
being when he was "lost" in the Temple for three days, disputing with
the rabbis. This occurred during Passover (Luke 2):
41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the
feast of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went
up according to custom; 43 and when the feast was ended, as they were
returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents
did not know it, 44 but supposing him to be in the company they went a
day's journey, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and
acquaintances;
45 and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking
him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among
the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; 47 and all
who heard him
were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 And when they saw
him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, "Son, why have
you
treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you
anxiously."
49 And he said to them, "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know
that
I must be in my Father's house?" 50 And they did not understand the
saying
which he spoke to them. 51 And he went down with them and came to
Nazareth,
and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her
heart.
52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God
and
man.
Jesus' first public miracle, at the wedding at Cana, seems to
have been shortly before Passover, and the next public action of Jesus,
chasing the money-changers out of the Temple, during Passover
itself.
This is particularly significant because it was the first occasion when
Jesus publicly, although somewhat cryptically, announced his death and
resurrection (John 2):
11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in
Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in
him. 12 After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his
brothers and his disciples; and there they stayed for a few days. 13
The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and
pigeons,
and the money-changers at their business. 15 And making a whip of
cords,
he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he
poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.
16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away;
you shall not make my Father's house a house of trade." 17 His
disciples
remembered that it was written, "Zeal for thy house will consume me."
18 The Jews then said to him, "What sign have you to show us for doing
this?" 19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days
I will raise it up." 20 The Jews then said, "It has taken forty-six
years
to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?" 21 But
he
spoke of the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from
the
dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed
the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken. 23 Now when he was
in
Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they
saw
the signs which he did...
|
