Our recent story, Stealing Easter from Jesus, about Jewish Messianic church leaders of largely Christian congregations, has prompted many responses, some of which say we are just plain wrong about Jesus and Passover; some of these came from pastors and religious professionals.

Stealing Easter states it is un-Christlike to celebrate "Passover" on Good Friday in Christian churches, because it alters Jesus’ message.

I asserted that Passover is part of the old "Traditions of the Elders" that Jesus denounced. These traditions, practiced by the Pharisees, misled the "lost sheep of the House of Israel" as Jesus called them. Jesus denounced these man-made "traditions" being added to the simple written law of the Ten Commandments.

 
Jesus may well have attended other passover services, words in the New Testament suggest it. Jesus always went to the point of contact, particularly the Temple of Herod and synagogues (schools) of his days. You change good people by associating with them. You shun those who are deliberately wrong, as Jesus shunned the Pharisees, but only after trying to convince them of their error.

 Jesus stated he came to fulfill the "Law" of the Old Testament. He made it clear he was speaking of the simple law we all can remember; he was asked about the Ten Commandments and which was the most important of the ten. Jesus also stated at every opportunity that the "traditions of the Elders," among which are today\’s written Talmud, are Hebrew corrupt mythology. 

 

Essentially, Stealing Easter From Jesus states that Passover has nothing Christian in it, but is  about Old Testament Hebrew folk-tale, garnished with unbelievable imagination, varnished with a thick layer of todays\’ orthodox Jewish Chosen People chutzpa. It has nothing to do with Jesus, and the celebration of Passover should not be substituted for Jesus’ Last Supper on Good Friday in any church that calls itself "Christian."

My view flies in the face of some evangelical Christian dogma that states that "every word" of the "Bible" is literally true. Lately evangelical Zionist-leaning churches have begun stating the Bible is true "as originally written." This is an even more untenable position, but one that cannot be assailed, since no one has the original writings.

Three Gospels contain references to Passover by Jesus and by his disciples nagging him to go to Jerusalem. Jesus uses the celebration of Passover to confront the Pharisees at the high tide of human activity, a sort of Superbowl Sunday, in Jerusalem. The Gospel of Mark did not mention the Passover. The Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John recount not a word of the Passover  lithergy in the "upper room." The four accounts of Jesus’ Last Supper and Jesus’ lecture to his 12 apostles, with the washing of feet, do not seem to mentions any Passover traditions or prayers.

 
Some have written to us that Passover is "prophetic" of Jesus, contradicting my statement is that the Seder celebration and the Last Supper have nothing in common except the presence of food. Professional Christians do not always see the difference between Jesus’ teachings about love and commitment to others, and the self-serving story of passover from the ancient "Hebrew" writers. Passover is about a bloody tale of brute force and God’s wrath being inflicted upon everyone but the Israelites.
 
The Hebrew writers provided us with Egyptians who are monsters and a God of unimaginable ferocity, who seems to glory in retribution, and who loves only the Hebrews out of all of mankind. Could God not have simply warmed the heart of Yul Brynner (Ramses in The Ten Commandments) to let the "Hebrews" go? Why all the plagues, if not for drama sake? Why would God need to torment the Egyptians with boils, blood, frogs and suffocation of all their firstborns? Are these Egyptians not the same civilization that, a few generation before, took in and fed Joseph and his scheming brothers when they were about to starve?
 
The Hebrew "God" is one about whom Cecil B. DeMille could fashion a three-hour movie! But He is not the God Jesus calls "father." Has God transformed himself, like putting on a new outfit? Or are the Hebrew scriptures works of imagination and exaggeration, telling of a ruthless, violent God who loves only them.

The answer can only be Jesus told of God, a loving Father. Muslims never forget to say, "God is good." But Hebrew scriptures give us their self-serving account of a violent God who loves only them–the "Chosen People." No wonder their celebrations are of violent events like Purim and Passover. We Gentiles are the Egyptians and Syrians in these "Hebrew" celebrations.

 
 Jesus attended Passover to change it…even abolish it, just as he came to the Temple to destroy it because it was part of the same corruption as Passover and Purim.  Passover is a pagan seeming celebration that calls for celebrants to drink four cups of wine, one by one, as they glory in the account of the Exodus.  Durring the second wine cup they are to spill a little wine on the ground with each plague is recited. What a contrast to what Jesus called for…love you brother, even your enemy.

Jesus did not pass on to us a Passover traditon, not one Talmudic teaching about God’s wrath on the Egyptians.  Jesus knew He was about to suffer Judean Pharisee wrath. Each of the four accounts of the Last Supper speaks only about Jesus’ mission that he passed on to his followers, and this is what we should note and recite on Good Friday.

Jesus needed no boils, scorpions or mass killing to sway people to follow him. He offered peace and love. How can one equate this God of love with the Seder God of the Old Testament\’? The Messianic movement is attempting to steal Easter and take us back to the God of the Israelites. There, once again, we will find a God who loves Jews first and Gentiles later. Jesus put that behind us.


*Our story last week, the Messianic Movement Smuggles Zionism into the Mainline Church, Stealing Easter from Jesus.