Archive for April 2006
History of May Day
Reading Time: 2 minutesHISTORY OF MAY DAY May Day is many things to many people. Etymologically, it is a homophone (same sounding word) for the international call for help. It is a corruption of the French imperative “M’aidez,” meaning “Help me!” It is a holiday claimed by many. May Day as a Pagan Holiday It is known…
Read MoreHistory of the Players
Reading Time: 4 minutesSO WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO OLD… You may be asking yourself, “Self,” you ask, “where are they now?” and well you might ask. What happened to our players AFTER the events in the Easter story? HEROD ANTIPAS You may remember that I had said Antipas’ taking to wife his brother’s wife Herodias led to his…
Read MoreHistory of Good Friday
Reading Time: 2 minutesGOOD FRIDAY For centuries, pilgrims have walked the Via Dolorosa, “the way of sorrow” in Jerusalem, following the path Jesus took from the judgement seat of Pilate at the Antonia in the eastern part of the city through several “stations of the Cross” to the ultimate location at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the…
Read MoreHistory of the Trial of Jesus
Reading Time: 6 minutesTHE TRIAL OF JESUS Beginning Thursday night and extending into Friday morning of Holy Week, the trial of Jesus, which led to his crucifixion, was, in reality, a series of about half a dozen trials distributed across several locations in Jerusalem. Some of these locations are captured in the tradition of the Via Dolorosa, the Way…
Read MoreHistory of Passover
Reading Time: < 1 minuteHISTORY OF PASSOVER This evening at sunset marks the beginning of Passover. Exodus 12 in the Bible tells the story of Passover from the life of Moses. Ten plagues were visited upon the Egyptian pharaoh (starring Yul Brenner, but much better in “The King and I”) to get his attention to release the “children of…
Read MoreHistory of Maundy Thursday
Reading Time: 2 minutesMAUNDY THURSDAY Amid the bustle of Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter, Maundy Thursday is easy to overlook. Few calendars label it, and some churches don’t observe it at all, though it may be the oldest of the Holy Week observances. It’s worth asking why, and how, generations of Christians have revered this day. The…
Read MoreHistory of the Sanhedrin
Reading Time: 3 minutesSANHEDRIN The Greek word ‘sunedrion’, translated council is referred to in the New Testament as “the Great Law-Court”, “the Court of Seventy-One”, and “the rulers and elders and scribes”. It was the supreme theocratic court of the Jews and reflected the local autonomy which the Greek and Roman powers granted the Jewish nation. Its origin…
Read MoreHistory of Herod Antipas
Reading Time: 2 minutesHEROD ANTIPAS Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great (whom we met in the Christmas story) and Malthake. After his father’s death in 4 B.C. he was made tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea in Trans-Jordan. Like his father, he was a great lover of great and artistic architectural works, and built the beautiful…
Read MoreHistory of Pontius Pilate
Reading Time: 3 minutesPONTIUS PILATE His name provides two valuable clues to his background and ancestry. The family name, Pontius was that of a prominent clan among the Samnites, hill cousins of the Latin Romans. They had almost conquered Rome in several fierce wars. The Pontii were of noble blood, but when Rome finally absorbed the Samnites, their…
Read MoreHistorical Climate of Easter
Reading Time: 3 minutesHISTORICAL CLIMATE What was the historical climate surrounding the last week of the life of Jesus of Nazareth? This man born to die, not just in the normal sense, but in some special sense, entered Jerusalem amidst a torrent of political, social and economic turbulence. The events in Palestine at this time are rarely linked…
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