Category: Feasts and Seasons

19Apr

Mysterious Goings-on at the Temple?

On a bleak day in the year 33 of the Common Era, Jesus of Nazareth, a righteous man who had run afoul of both Jewish authorities and the Roman government, had been hastily sentenced to death, and had just trudged his way to Golgotha, the “Place of the Skull.” This man, Jesus, was then nailed to crossed beams of wood and forced to hang there until dead. As if this weren’t awful enough, accounts of the event suggest that while he hung on the cross, eerie events occurred: Blackness filled the sky, and other supernatural portents punctuated the event of his death. Matthew relates:

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
(Matthew 28: 50-54)

One of the most shocking of these aspects of the New Testament accounts of the death of Jesus is the spontaneous tearing of the massive “temple veil”. This is generally thought to have been the barrier that guarded the entrance to the “holy of holies”, the sacred space into which only the high priest could enter; However, this isn’t perfectly clear, and could also refer to an outer court veil that would be more visible. Naturally, secular historians don’t believe that this actually occurred, and even Christians, who accept it on faith, treat it as a minor footnote between the agonies of Jesus’ death and the glories of the Resurrection, which is a much more impressive miracle.

Intriguingly, extra-biblical sources do also attest to some weird goings on at the Jewish temple, in about the year 30. In an interesting article entitled, “Something Awry in the Temple?” Robert L. Plummer, a New Testament professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, reviews six of these sources, which include the Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud, the Midrash Rabbah, and the writings of Josephus.

The Jerusalem Talmud presents four disturbing and inauspicious signs:
It has been taught: Forty years before the destruction of the Temple the western light went out, the crimson thread remained crimson, and the lot for the Lord always came up in the left hand. They would close the gates of the Temple by night and get up in the morning and find them wide open. Said [to the Temple] Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, “O Temple, why do you frighten us? We know that you will end up destroyed. For it has been said, ‘Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars!’” (Zech 11:1).17

In a work known as “the lives of the prophets”, dating to the first quarter of the first century, an oracle attributed to “Habakkuk” states:
At that time,” he said, “the curtain of the Dabeir [that is, the temple curtain separating the Holy from the Holy of Holies] will be torn into pieces, and the capitals of the two pillars will be taken away, and no one will know where they are; and they will be carried away by angels into the wilderness, where the tent of witness was set up in the beginning. And by means of them the Lord will be recognized at the end, for they will illuminate those who are being pursued by the serpent in darkness as from the beginning.”

Josephus’ account mentions the spontaneous opening of the eastern door, as well as other portents, including a comet, the shining of a mysterious bright light from the altar, and a heifer that had been brought in for slaughter mysteriously giving birth before it could be slain. An earthquake in the Temple grounds was also reported, as relayed by Plummer:

For purposes of confirming the NT records, it is significant that Josephus speaks of an earthquake that was felt in the temple precincts. According to Josephus, this earthquake was accompanied by a loud sound—like the sound of many voices—which some present interpreted as saying, “Let us depart from here” (not a particularly auspicious statement). Josephus dates this particular event to an unnamed Pentecost preceding the destruction of the temple.

It should be noted that these stories differ significantly from each other, and from the Gospels. Furthermore, the dating of these stories cannot be correlated precisely to what we would call “Good Friday.” But they do testify to a belief on the part of Jewish people, that some mysterious portents occurred in and around the Temple, around the year 30.

Sources:
1. Holy Bible, English Standard Version.
2. Plummer, Robert L, “Something Awry In the Temple? The Rending of the Temple Veil and Early Jewish Sources That Report Unusual Phenomena In The Temple Around AD 30.” Journal of the Evangelical Theologicsl Society 48 (June 2005): 301–316. Online at:
https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/48/48-2/48-2-pp301-316_JETS.pdf

12Apr

Reflections Around the End of Lent

Today is the Friday before Palm Sunday, and it is a day that as far as I know has no particular name on a church calendar. It is just another day in Lent, that season of fasting and penitence that in many traditions of Christianity precedes Easter. In exactly one week we will have one of those days which does have a famous name, “Good Friday”, which will commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus. The great pageants and commemorations coming in the next week will be a liturgical—and potentially emotional—roller coaster for Christians around the globe.

Palm Sunday looks back to “The Triumphal Entry” of Jesus into Jerusalem, just before his death, when adoring crowds waved palm branches and shouted “Hosanna!” as Jesus entered the city. In many churches these ceremonies take on almost a cheerful and festive tone, a kind of foretaste of Easter. The rest of Holy Week reverts back to the solemnity of Lent, with Good Friday being a focal point—we look back through the corridor of time to Jesus lifting his bloodied head one last time as he hangs from those dreadful crossed planks; He cries out in a loud voice as he slumps into death, and the land is covered in an eerie blackness. By Easter Sunday, the tomb of Jesus is empty and churches explode into full-on celebration. Even fairly dormant mainline Protestant churches will, for one glorious day, be overflowing with people. Some of their left-leaning pastors will even deign to choke out an orthodox sermon for the occasion.

A part of me is glad for the coming of Easter. Austerity, discipline, and penitence are not always fun. I am sitting here at what could be “happy hour”, sipping tea in place of my usual Manhattan or Gin and Tonic, because one of my own Lenten observances is to give up alcohol; in just over a week I’ll permit myself to enjoy those libations again.

Lent is, of course, a voluntary observance. It’s not something you’ll find in the Bible. You can have Christianity without it, and many people do. Still, I appreciate Lent. It may not be “fun”, but it is spiritually enriching. I embrace it willingly, and even look forward to it. I feel that I get an enhanced sense of clarity and perspective, even joy, from the increased attention to my spiritual well-being. Even though the Christian life is a 24 hr/day, 365 day-per-year endeavor, I yet find it useful to have seasons that focus our energies in particular ways.

By not drinking that Manhattan, my mind is almost forced to obey the command of Colossians 3:2: “Set your affections on things above.” It must be something akin what a runner feels when training—All that exercise and giving up sweets has had its benefits.

So, I will raise my glass of ice tea to you as a toast. There’s still some time to fast and pray, if you feel so moved, before the dawn of Easter.

18Mar

Why We Should Honor St. Patrick

”The difference between Patrick’s magic and the magic of the druids is that in Patrick’s world all beings and events come from the hand of a good God, who loves human beings and wishes them success.”

”With the Irish — even with the kings — he succeeded beyond measure. Within his lifetime or soon after his death, the Irish slave trade came to a halt, and other forms of violence, such as murder and intertribal warfare, decreased.”

Whether or not you are Irish, or Roman Catholic, or even Christian, it might be argued that you in fact owe a lot to St. Patrick. Christians—of all varieties—should be especially grateful to him. While it is hard to tease fact from myth, it is clear that this giant of the faith was instrumental in converting the Celtic people of Ireland to Christianity.

These Christians in turn would be instrumental in planting centers of learning in continental Europe after the collapse of Rome.  This is an argument that was made in a delightful little book I read many years ago: Thomas Cahill’s How The Irish Saved Civilization (New York: Anchor Books, 1995). His introduction summarizes his thesis:

”Ireland, a little island at the edge of Europe that has known neither Renaissance nor Enlightenment—in some ways, a Third World country with, as John Betjeman claimed, a Stone Age culture—had one moment of unblemished glory. For, as the Roman Empire fell, as all through Europe matted, unwashed barbarians descended on the Roman cities, looting artifacts and burning books, the Irish, who were just learning to read and write, took up the great labor of copying all of western literature—everything they could lay their hands on. These scribes then served as conduits through which the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian cultures were transmitted to the tribes of Europe, newly settled amid the rubble and ruined vineyards of the civilization they had overwhelmed. Without this Service of the Scribes, everything that happened subsequently would have been unthinkable. Without the Mission of the Irish Monks, who single-handedly refounded European civilization throughout the continent in the bays and valleys of their exile, the world that came after them would have been an entirely different one—a world without books. And our own world would never have come to be.”  

Not all will agree with the strongest form of this assertion (after all, some of the classic writings of antiquity may have survived the predations of barbarian hordes; furthermore some credit is probably owed also to Islamic scholars and the Byzantine empire). Nonetheless Irish monks clearly played a role that had been been overlooked and under-appreciated.

Today I tip my green plastic hat to the Irish, and to the man who in middle age returned as a missionary to a people that he could easily have despised for kidnapping him at age 16.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

07Mar

“Remember, O man …

that dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return”

(Words upon imposition of ashes, Ash Wednesday)

23Feb

Agreeing to Disagree

I recall an old slogan:
“In essentials, unity.
In nonessentials, diversity.
In all things, love!”

The early bishop and martyr Polycarp, whose feast is celebrated on Feb 23, was involved in a dispute that is a model of Christian brotherhood in the midst of disagreement. The dispute is known by the obscure name “Quartodecimanism” from a Latin term meaning “fourteenth”.

The controversy arose because Christians in Jerusalem and Asia Minor, following guidance from the Apostle John, chose to celebrate Passover on the 14th day of the “first month”. They felt that the crucifixion of Jesus should carry the emphasis, and that this day should be the principle feast for Christians. On the other hand, churches in and around Rome had changed the principle celebration to the following Sunday (as is the commonplace today for most Christians). The dispute became quite heated at times, leading almost to excommunications.

We have a record of how Polycarp and his opponent treated each other on this issue:

And when the blessed Polycarp was at Rome in the time of Anicetus, and they disagreed a little about certain other things, they immediately made peace with one another, not caring to quarrel over this matter. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it as he said that he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him. But though matters were in this shape, they communed together, and Anicetus conceded the administration of the eucharist in the church to Polycarp, manifestly as a mark of respect. And they parted from each other in peace, both those who observed, and those who did not, maintaining the peace of the whole church.

(Eusebius, quoting a letter by Irenaus, available at earlychurchtexts.com)

Eventually the debate was settled, and the Roman practice prevailed, though a few holdouts persisted into the fourth century. Today Easter Sunday is the biggest feast on the Calendar for Christians throughout the world.

Other sources:
Campbell, T. (1907). Pope St. Anicetus. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved February 25, 2018 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01514a.htm

04Feb

A Motet for Candlemas

Byrd: Senex puerum portabat

Hereford Cathedral

Senex puerum portabat:
puer autem senem regebat:
quem virgo peperit,
et post partum virgo permansit:
ipsum quem genuit, adoravit. 

translation by William Mahrt
The old man carried the child,
but the child ruled the old man;
him whom the Virgin brought forth,
and after childbirth remained a virgin
him whom she bore, she adored.

11Jan

Now the Work of Christmas Begins

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart. –Howard Thurman

06Jan

Epiphany Bidding Prayer from New Zealand Prayer Book

O God, by the leading of a star
you revealed your Son Jesus Christ to the gentiles;
grant that your Church may be a light to the nations,
so that the whole world may come to see
the splendour of your glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
Amen.

24Dec

A Joyeux Noel

To all of you, we wish a very Merry Christmas!

21Nov

Thanksgiving: A Feast With Jewish Roots?

I came across a posting of a 2000 essay by Rabbi Elias Lieberman, suggesting a connection between the New England Thanksgiving celebrations and the ancient Jewish festival of Sukkot, known to us as the “feast of tabernacles” (or “festival of booths”) or the “feast of ingathering”.

Sukkot is mentioned in the Old Testament books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy; From Leviticus 23:

On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. You shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

Our early Pilgrims, known as The Separatists, were a persecuted Calvinist sect who left England and sojourned in Holland for a time. Predominantly they settled in the university city of Leiden, where they produced cloth for the textile industry. They would have rubbed shoulders with another persecuted minority group, the Sephardic Jews, who had fled from persecution in Roman Catholic Spain.

In his 1996 book The World of Jewish Cooking, Rabbi Gil Marks notes:

Before reaching Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrims spent several years in Holland, where they came into contact with Sephardim who had immigrated to that country, following the expulsion from Spain.

He points out that a classic Pilgrim dish, Boston baked beans, are a variation of a slow baked sabbath bean stew known as “Shkanah”.

As Rabbi Lieberman puts it:
While we cannot be certain about what motivated those Pilgrim settlers to initiate a feast of thanksgiving, it is likely that they consciously drew on a model well-known to them from the Bible they cherished. Seeing themselves as new Israelites in a new “promised land,” the Pilgrims surely found inspiration in the Bible, in the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, in which God commands the ancient Israelites to observe the Feast of Booths — in Hebrew, Sukkot, “to rejoice before Adonai your God” at the time of the fall harvest [Lev. 23:40].
(Available at interfaithfamily.com)

There exists debate as to how much the early Pilgrims were influenced by Jewish practices. As quoted in Jewish News Service, Brandeis University professor of American Jewish History, Jonathon Sarna says,

The Puritans did not believe in fixed holidays. If it was a good season, they would announce a thanksgiving, but it’s not like the Jewish holiday which occurs on the 15th of the month of Tishrei (Sukkot). They did not believe in that. So in that respect it’s different.”

Regardless, we offer our warmest greetings to all who celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow. It is customary at Sukkot, to sing Psalm 136:1-3, and we here take up the refrain as well:

O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.
O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever.
O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever.