We begin our journey with Jesus as He entered the city of Jerusalem, riding on the colt of a donkey. This was His public declaration of Who He was and what God the Father had sent Him to do.
Next, we will look at His observance of the Passover meal, His private conversation with His disciples about why He had called them out of the world, and what He was sending them back into the world to do.
Then, we will look at His public crucifixion and burial, His personal demonstration of How God the Father so loved the world that He allowed His only begotten Son to give His life as a ransom for the sins of all mankind.
Finally, we will rejoice in His physical resurrection and ascension, His public confirmation that He was Who He said He was, and that he did what He said He did for all those who would believe in Him.
This is the most significant week in human history: the time and the place where Jesus proved Himself to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Even many unbelievers recognize the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as the two central events of the Christian Faith. Without the physical resurrection of Jesus’ body, there would be no Christian Faith.
The essence of the gospel is that Christ died for our sins and that He was raised from the dead to prove He was truly God! Because of that, we can understand several things about the church and human history.
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- The early church recognized the significance of the resurrection by moving the day of Christian worship from the Jewish Sabbath – 6:00 PM Friday to 6:00 PM Saturday to Sunday, the first day of the week.
- Acts 20:7 is the first place in the scriptures that tell us that Christians gathered on the first day of the week for the purpose of breaking bread, fellowship, and worship.
- If they were following the Jewish calendar, that means they gathered any time after 6:00 PM on Saturday, which coincides with the timing of the Lord’s resurrection from the grave.
In Revelation 1:10, written 70 years after the Lord’s resurrection, the Apostle John said he was in the Spirit on “The Lord’s Day,” and by the end of the 1st century, Sunday was the accepted day for Christians to assemble and celebrate the resurrection of Christ.
Soon a great discussion arose on the date Christians should observe the annual celebration of the Lord’s resurrection.
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- Some wanted to continue to connect it to the dates of the Jewish Passover, and rightfully so, as Jesus was the fulfillment of that “type” or that illustration of our salvation. However, the Jewish Feasts follow the Lunar calendar, which caused the date of the event to shift from year to year.
- Since Sunday had been established as the day for Christians to assemble for worship, in 325 A.D., the council of Nicaea instructed churches to celebrate the Lord’s resurrection on the Sunday following the full moon after the equinox of March 21; the first day of Spring.
- Unfortunately, that decision to sever the religious celebration from the historical revelation distorted the truth and diminished the spiritual significance of the resurrection.
- Over time, the celebration of spring became more important than the resurrection of Christ, which is why Christians still connect the Lord’s resurrection with Easter, or “Ishtar.” the name of an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring.
Join us tomorrow as we continue our journey “From Gethsemane to Golgotha to Glory!”