Recently, I read of someone expressing joy that Maundy Thursday was coming this week; and, that was his or her favorite day of the church year. I did not read the explanation why; but I hope he or she changes socks and takes regular baths. I would hate to be a priest who had to wash the feet of someone like the TV character Al Bundy (known for having stink-foot when he took his shoes off).
The Western churches like to call the week between Palm-Passion Sunday and Easter Sunday “Holy Week.” In reality (if you read the Gospels) this is called Passover week. John wrote (my literal translation, recognizing the Genitive case), “before of six of days of this of Passover” (“pro hex hēmerōn tou pascha”) [John 13:1] and “Before indeed of this feast of this Passover” (“Pro de tēs heortēs pascha”) [John 14:1]. Matthew also identifies “this Passover” (“to pascha”) [Matthew 26:1], with Mark writing, “Exists indeed this Passover,” while importantly adding (use of “kai”) “these unleavened bread” (“Ēn de to pascha kai ta azyma”) [Mark 14:1]. Luke only says “Was nearing this feast of these unleavened ones” (“Ēngizen de hē heortē tōn azymōn”), where the plural number projects multiple days recognizing this “feast;” but Luke then added, “this called Passover” (“hē legomenē Pascha”) [Luke 22:1], where Luke is the one of the four to capitalized “Pascha.” All of this means (as “holy” as this period of feast was to serious Jews), they did not call it such. It had (and still does have) a name.
Now, the “Week” part is very important to catch hold of, as “of this of Passover” relates back to Moses and the gang leaving Egypt. Once they got to a safe place, Moses said eight days would be recognized eternally, beginning on the day of the first full moon in the Hebrew month called Nissan (meaning “first month”). Of course, Christians do not follow Moses (for some reason) and the lunar calendar of the Jews; so, Holy Week and Easter rarely get recognized when the true Passover festival (“eight days a week,” as The Beatles sang) was ordered by Moses (commanded by Yahweh) to recognize eternally.
Now, in this eight-day week, the Passover always begins on the same day of the week as it ends. This is vital to understand. Not every Passover begins on the same day of the week. When you grasp this (and … if you were to pretend to be God for a moment), a Passover beginning on a Tuesday and ending on a Tuesday is not as “holy” as would be … say … a Passover beginning on a Sabbath and ending on a Sabbath. That is precisely the timing of this last week of Jesus’ life, before death (physically) and resurrection (spiritually). If you put your feet in the sandals of Yahweh – a phenomenal planner and All-Knowing seer of the future – you would want Passover (an eternal event not always beginning and ending on a Sabbath) to be that Holy, when it is your Son’s body destroyed and his Spirit-soul released to do Yahweh’s heavenly work.
Now, in the Gospels we read that Jesus instructed some of his disciples to go prepare the upstairs room. They were sent on “the day of preparation,” which we call Friday. They prepared for an event beginning on a Sabbath (when no work can be done – a day of rest) on a Friday. Likewise, when Jesus was dead on the cross and proved to be dead (the spear), Pilate allowed his body to be taken down and entombed. It was another Friday – another day of preparation – when that work was done. Because there was not enough time to prepare his corpse with perfumes and wrap him in fine linens (along with his tallit), so his corpse could be carried to Bethany for entombment (where Lazarus was laid), his body was put in the unused tomb of Joseph of Arimathea (a loaner for the Sabbath only). That meant the stone was rolled into place and sealed by Roman guards not long before 6:00 PM, with that calculating to be around three hours work, taking the body off the cross, carrying it to a corpse preparation place near the cemetery, and then setting the body in the tomb.
In the Christian “Holy Week,” that Friday is called Good Friday, which confounds many Christians (like me), who ask, “What was “good” about it?” It is like getting one’s emotional arms around “Passion Sunday,” when only the Sanhedrin got emotional erections watching Jesus be falsely accused, wrongly tried, unfairly scourged, and inhumanely ridiculed … and that took place over several days, not on Friday. The dead corpse of Jesus was removed from the cross and covered with so much heavy funeral perfume that if anyone did steal that corpse, then it would just be a matter of following the scent to where they took it (bring out the bloodhounds).
The element of “Maundy Thursday,” where this is when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, including Judas Iscariot, could not possibly have been on a Thursday. It was on a day early in the eight-day week of festival, when Jesus dined with his disciples and closest followers. This event’s Christian name implies the Passover feast was held on a Thursday, which is ludicrous to believe. The timing of the eight-day week needs to be realized.
Again, with early Christians (around 400 AD … those originally playing God in Rome) replacing "Passover" with “Holy Week” … to separate Christianity from Judaism … (so the two recognitions do not often coincide on the same date the Jews recognize), the Roman church did not teach many classes that explained to Gentiles what Yahweh commanded His souls (those within Yahweh baptized saintly bodies) to eternally recognize. One of these basics is there was then (and still is today) two recognitions of the “feast of the unleavened bread” – one beginning at sundown on 15 Nissan and the second beginning at sundown on 16 Nissan ["sundown" means 6:00 PM]. When we calculate the Friday day of preparation was on 14 Nissan, the upstairs room was all laid out before 6:00 PM (at least an hour), when the Hebrew calendar changes dates (to the Sabbath that was then 15 Nissan).
The “Last Supper” (or “the Lord’s Supper”) is a recognition of Yahweh (“the Lord”) passing over those firstborn males in homes whose doorways were painted with the blood of the paschal lamb. The ”Last Supper” is then the second Passover feast of the unleavened bread. When you read very carefully, the first feast Jesus celebrated was with his family (in Bethany), at the home of Simon the Leper. Most of the disciples went to the places where their families were staying (near or in Jerusalem) and were not with Jesus in Bethany [although some, including Judas Iscariot, were at both Seder meals]. By realizing this, one sees Jesus first dined on the Sabbath with his family in Bethany, at Simon’s home. Second, he dined with his disciples in the upper room, in the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem. All of this is written in the Gospels.
Notice Simon the Leper in the center, with Jesus having the halo, while Mary Magdalene is anointing the feet of Jesus with nard. That was Seder meal number one that Passover week.
In fact, the only day of the week that an eight-day Passover week cannot begin (and thus also end) is on Sunday. This is because the day of preparation would be the Sabbath, when no work can be done. To begin a Passover on a Sunday would require doing the work of cooking lamb, making unleavened bread, gathering bitter herbs and setting the table on a Sabbath. When Jesus sent his disciples to do the work required for a Sunday Seder (what the Jews call the feast of unleavened bread) meant he knew all this [from the Godhead leading him]. Therefore, it was Yahweh that planned to have Sunday be set aside as a special day for those souls who would eternally follow His Son (spiritually).
That means the second feast of the unleavened bread was on Sunday (the Christian recognition of God’s day of rest). When we read of Jesus taking an after-Passover feast stroll, outside the gates of the Essene Quarter (where the upper room was located), down and around the walls of Jerusalem and up to the garden of Gethsemane, that was actually more distance than Jews were allowed to walk (outside the city or town) on a Sabbath. So, we now know that it was on a Sunday that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, not Thursday or Friday or the Sabbath. On the Sabbath Seder meal (at Simon's home), Mary Magdalene anointed the feet of Jesus with nard (a perfume used to prepare corpses for burial), poured from an alabaster jar [depicted in the picture above]. That made the first Seder meal (feast of the unleavened bread) be in honor of Jesus as THE Paschal Lamb, whose SPIRITUAL blood would save all the firstborn Christians soon to come (after a successful escape from the bondage of a world that worships many lesser gods, not Yahweh nor His Son). That means Sunday is an important day in the New Covenant that Jesus gave to his disciples. That New Covenant (as seen by the different times recognized as holy by Christians and Jews) does not set expectations for the whole world to recognize. It is only a commandment for true Christians, who truly have their bodies [the threshold to the soul] immersed with the Spiritual blood of Yahweh's Lamb.
One cannot be born Christian or raised by religion to be Christian, as Christianity is a spiritual marriage between one soul and Yahweh's Anointment. The only souls truly Christian are those in whom the soul of Jesus has resurrected, becoming the Lord over that soul and its body of flesh. Those who choose to worship worldly gods, as did the Temple priests, as did the pagan Romans, those who worship material things (including the gray matter that grows between a human's ears), they have that power to choose such devotion; but only those who completely sacrifice addictions to the material plane, in promise to serve Yahweh as His spiritual wives in the holiest of matrimonies, can they then be raised spiritually to being a Christ of Yahweh ["Christ" meaning "Anointed by Yahweh"].
So, when you see a false pope going down on the smelly feet of Muslim immigrants in Rome (who are naturally trained by Islam to hate Christians AND Jews) and kissing them (like Judas kissed the cheek of Jesus), that totally misses the point that the foot-washing is designated solely for Christians (and more so metaphorically than physically). That means helping other disciples of Jesus to stay out of the filth of sin, by speaking as Jesus to Jesus, while teaching others to become Jesus too. So, Christianity is only to be observed by those who serve Yahweh as His Son reborn into new flesh (the true definition of a Christian).
Now, after the second Passover feast (called the Seder meal) on Sunday, we can determine that Jesus was then arrested around 2:00 AM on a Monday morning. He was then taken to the home of the chief priest Caiaphas (back in the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem), with a series of appearances before important people subsequently taking place. Those appearances each took time to pass between them. You have to be able to account for the days of the week in this eight-day week of festival, when Jesus met with one leader after another.
The churches of Christianity pretend that magically it became Thursday; and, that is when it becomes time to load up twenty pounds of dung and then try to stuff it in a sandwich Baggie. That pretends that Jerusalem was some ho-hum, laid back place with nobody around. In an eight-day festival week, the priests of the Temple had jobs to do to accommodate the masses. As important as physical Jesus is to Christians today, he was not a household name back then (as far as Jewish pilgrims from all over the known world is concerned). The clock did not skip merrily forward from one Friday to the next Thursday. All the trials of Jesus took place in real time, which means from Judas inspecting him on Sunday, then Caiaphas on Monday, Pilate and Herod on Monday and Tuesday, before back to the time of execution on Wednesday. On Wednesday, after Pilate had Jesus flogged and forced to drag his cross to Golgotha, Jesus died at 3:00 PM. There was an earthquake and the sky went dark for the three hours leading up to his death.
The Paschal Lamb was inspected for four days. Those days were the Sabbath, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The inspectors were Judas Iscariot, Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate, and Herod Antipas (along with the Sanhedrin chiming in). He was then sacrificed on the altar on the next day - Wednesday - when Pilate heard the others agree that Jesus was blemish free. The blood of the Lamb was then to be raised within those bodies with souls believing absolutely in Yahweh (through His servant Moses' teachings). The blood of the Lamb on one's doorposts – surrounding one's soul inside a body of flesh – means the resurrection of Jesus' soul becomes one with the soul and body of another. Only that spiritual 'blood' will save a soul for eternity.
My wife’s mother was some kind of volunteer teacher in her Episcopal church. She taught a class called Education for Ministry. To do that, she had to be taught what that program teaches and then follow the rules the program has for its teachers, as she taught others. She had to 'get with the program' and believe a number of error-filled theories the program stands behind. She was fully on board that ship. When I asked her one day, “What about Jesus repeatedly saying ‘after three days dead’? How do you get three days from Thursday to Saturday?” She explained, “three calendar days does not need to be a full 72 hours.”
Oh. Okay.
I learned it was not nice to argue religion with my mother-in-law; so, I let her point go unchallenged.
She (rest her soul) was flat out wrong. Three days dead means seventy-two hours. Jesus died on Wednesday at 3:00 PM; so, Thursday at three o'clock was one full day. He washed no feel while hanging dead on a cross. On Friday (the day of preparation, bright and early) there was a petition to have Jesus' corpse taken down, so it could be prepared for burial. Since it was proved to be a dead corpse (the spear), Pilate agreed to that request. Had Jesus proved to still be alive, then his legs would have been broken to make him die very quickly; but no bones were broken (a prophecy fulfilled). The other two who were crucified alongside Jesus were still not dead; so, they were not taken down and treated special. Jesus' body was down and being prepared by three in the afternoon that day; so, that was then two full days dead. He was placed in the tomb on Friday, before 6:00 PM; so, Jesus resurrected in the tomb at 3:00 PM on the Sabbath. Yahweh the Father would have His angels remove the corpse (and the smell of perfume, taking the physical away forever. Yahweh would leave the Spirit-soul of Jesus, as the Yahweh elohim that was - an eternal soul that can never die - to be then resurrected in those souls who married Yahweh and received His Holy Seed within the womb of their flesh.
Jesus' corpse was discovered to be not in that tomb early on Sunday, with the women leaving as soon as 6:00 AM clicked by. Angels greeted those followers of Jesus, telling them, "His physical body has gone bye-bye." The Spirit-soul of Jesus appeared as a gardener within Mary Magdalene's soul-body. The Spirit-soul of Jesus then appeared as a stranger pilgrim walking on the road to Emmaus. The Spirit-soul of Jesus then appeared within each of the fearful disciples, allowing their own bodies to become the physical bodies of Jesus reborn (complete with nail holes and spear wounds of persecution). Sunday is then important to Christians because that was when the first souls that were married to Yahweh and Jesus began to feel Jesus' presence within them.
To fully grasp an eight-day week had passed (from Sabbath to Sabbath), it was Sunday (the first day of the week) that uncle Cleopas and his wife Mary (the wife of Cleopas, a.k.a. Mary Jacobi or Mary the mother of James) were walking home to Emmaus. They were walking home because the eight-day Passover festival was over. That was when they became the firstborn of Yahweh, both reborn as the one they physically knew as their nephew; but their eyes were opened to see Jesus' soul was that of Adam, the firstborn of Yahweh, made by His hand to save souls.
Please … do not take my word on this. Read the Gospels and prove to yourselves this is true. That is hard for Episcopalians, because in their churches you will never hear a priest say, “Please open your Bibles to ….”