*Why Passover and Not Easter?

While most professing Christians consider the Passover to be a Jewish festival, it should also be a sacred observance for all Christians. The apostle Paul writes to the predominantly Gentile church in Corinth:

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same manner, He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” (I Corinthians 11:23-25)

This is not, as is commonly believed, the command to take communion as often as one likes. In reality, this is Jesus’ own command, communicated through the apostle Paul, for the church to celebrate the Passover “on the same night in which He was betrayed,” which was the evening of the Passover, Nisan 14 on the Hebrew calendar (see Leviticus 23:5). This was the practice of the New Testament church—in fact, it kept all of the holy days of Leviticus 23—as long as the original apostles lived.

However, like all men, the apostles died one by one until only the apostle John was left, an old man living in or near the city of Ephesus. Around the turn of the second century, John died at an advanced age. For a few generations under the leadership of John’s disciple, Polycarp (AD 69-155), and a successor, Polycrates (c. 130-196), the Ephesian church remained faithful to the teachings and traditions of the early church, including the keeping of the Passover on Nisan 14.

Those few who stubbornly resisted the change to the celebration of Easter, which had supplanted Passover throughout most of Christendom, were called Quartodecimans (“fourteenthers”) and Judaizers. By Origin’s day (c. 185-254), they were, he wrote, “a mere handful” among the millions living in the Empire. Even so, the Roman Church did not effectively ban the practice of keeping the Passover on Nisan 14 until AD 325 at the Council of Nicea, when rules were set down to calculate the date of Easter for the entire Church. Canon 29 of the Council of Laodicea (held in 363-364) later anathematized those Judaizers who kept the seventh-day Sabbath, many of whom were also Quartodecimans.

The controversy over Passover or Easter boils down to following Scripture versus following Roman Catholic tradition. Frankly, the reason that the Roman Church chose to keep Easter rests on two faulty pillars: 1) an intense prejudice against “the perfidy of the Jews” in the crucifixion of Christ (which has come to be known as the “blood libel”) and 2) the widespread celebration of Easter among pagan cultures throughout the Empire. The convoluted theological arguments that have come down from the so-called apostolic fathers, repeated endlessly by their successors, are window dressing to obscure these unpleasant factors.

Even during the first-century, an anti-Jewish element had begun to creep into the church of God. In his epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians, the apostle Paul had attempted to explain the place of God’s law under the New Covenant, but as Peter later testified, in Paul’s epistles “are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction” (II Peter 3:16). And twist them they did, moving the church away from the truths written in the Old Testament and expounded by Christ and His apostles. Soon, many Greek-speaking Christians, not wanting to be constrained by the “Hebrew” law, entertained Gnostic ideas that encouraged spiritual license. Finally, the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 ratcheted up anti-Jewish fervor to a fever pitch, and across the Empire, association with Jews and things Jewish was generally avoided.

In this way, the church that appears in second-century history is quite different from its first-century counterpart. It is largely Gentile, keeping Sunday (which it calls “the Lord’s Day”) rather than the Sabbath, and growing in power and political influence. It is also attracting new converts, not only out of Greco-Roman paganism, but also from the gods and goddesses of the frontier areas like Britain, Germany, and Dacia. This church found it easier to assimilate these new converts by syncretizing the “Christian” Easter celebration with their pagan spring festivals, often called after the name of the widely worshipped fertility goddess, Ishtar (or some close variation: Astarte, Eoster, Ostara, Isis, Aphrodite, etc.). It is from these heathen influences that the Easter Bunny, dyeing eggs, giving candy, and other non-biblical Easter traditions have sprung.

Conversely, the Christian Passover is not a celebration but a solemn observance that commemorates the agonizing blood-sacrifice of Jesus Christ to pay for our sins (Matthew 26:28; Romans 4:25; I Corinthians 15:3; Ephesians 1:7; Titus 2:14; I John 1:7), to redeem us from spiritual bondage (Matthew 20:28; Galatians 1:4; Ephesians 2:1-3; Hebrews 2:14-15; I Peter 1:18-19; Revelation 5:9), and to open the way to fellowship with the Father (Romans 8:34; Ephesians 2:18; Hebrews 7:25; 10:19-22). Each year in the Passover ceremony, baptized Christians wash one another’s feet to follow Christ’s example of selfless service (John 13:1-17), as well as partake of the bread and the wine, recommitting themselves to the everlasting covenant that they have made with God. As Paul writes in I Corinthians 11:26, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.”

Easter, however, celebrates, not the Savior’s death, but His resurrection, which most professing Christians believe occurred at sunrise on the Sunday morning after His death (please see “After Three Days” which explains from the Bible that this is not the case). Neither Jesus nor His apostles mention anything about observing or memorializing His resurrection. In fact, His death is the only event of His life that the Bible consistently commands us to remember (Luke 22:19; I Corinthians 11:24-25; see the principle in Psalm 116:15; Ecclesiastes 7:1).

And, yes, this excludes His birth too, making Christmas another non-biblical addition to the liturgical calendar. Despite the human desire to mark such times, Christians must be careful to do only what God’s Word commands lest they be guilty of adding to or taking away from it (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Joshua 1:7; Proverbs 30:5-6; Revelation 22:18-19). When we add to or take from what God has said, we alter His revelation to us and are sure to veer from His way.

If you are interested in further information regarding God’s Sabbath and holy days, please visit our website on this subject, www.Sabbath.org.

Beating the Rat Race (Part Six)

Only when we are still can we truly concentrate on knowing God. When our lives are upside-down, confusion and chaos reign, events and ideas rush by, and our attitudes and expectations are in flux. Under these conditions, the odds are against real spiritual growth. Often, we are just barely hanging on spiritually because circumstances have so distracted us and perhaps have even taken us down a side path that leads away from God. We may be trying to solve the problem—which is fine and right—but our minds are not straying very far from our own concerns. Like Job, we are failing to see the bigger picture of what God is doing.

In such times, we need to find that still place—a peaceful, quiet environment—where we can meditate on what God has done and is doing, and resolve to let Him work. Only in a setting of peace and calm do we have the opportunity to take stock and work on improving ourselves and our relationship with God.

The previous essays have discussed five spiritual activities that are enhanced by our being still:

1. Being still helps us to have the right attitude (Job 37:14).


2. Being still helps us to see righteous reasoning (I Samuel 12).


3. Being still helps us to receive instruction (Numbers 9:6-9).


4. Being still helps us to see God at work in us and for us (Exodus 14; Ruth 3).


5. Being still helps us to come to know God (Psalm 46; James 3:18).

Despite observing this principle at work in these Old Testament examples, we have yet to see the best biblical example of being still in God's Word. It is, of course, the example of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The gospels record several scenes in which He leaves His disciples to be alone or climbs a high mountain to pray. Perhaps the most "severe" of all of His attempts to carve out a small zone of tranquility for Himself occurred just before He began His ministry.

Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, he was hungry. . . . Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time. Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region. And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. (Luke 4:1-2; 13-15)

Verse 13 suggests that Satan had tempted Him much more extensively than what is recorded for us, but He was more than up to the challenge. During those forty days in the wilderness, Jesus was so still that He did not allow even food and water to distract Him from His unity with His Father, who gave Him the strength to endure and to overcome the Devil's every test. Preparing for His ministry was so vital that He had to be entirely focused on His relationship with God. It took total seclusion from the world to fix His mind on what God wanted Him to do.

The result is that, when He walked out of the wilderness, He came with power and strength to do the difficult, intense work that He knew would end in His sacrificial death to pay for man's sin. That power carried Him forward for a long time, and He frequently recharged it by going to a still place and refocusing on His mission. The product of being still before God is to be filled with spiritual power to do God's will.

Hebrews 4:1-11 contains two points that will help us in being still:

Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to [the Israelites]; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: "So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,'" although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works;" and again in this place: "They shall not enter My rest." Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, "Today," after such a long time, as it has been said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.

The first point is a long-range one, and the second is more immediate:

1. We need to be diligent to enter the rest that is the Kingdom of God. This is the true rest toward which all Christians should be intently pressing. It will be a true rest from the sin, confusion, and turmoil that are hallmarks of this age.
   
2. In the mean time, as verse 9 reads, "There remains therefore a rest for the people of God." The word "rest" is sabbatismos in Greek, and it refers to both the weekly Sabbath rest and the ultimate rest in God's Kingdom, of which it is a type. God has given us a weekly, twenty-four-hour period when we can be still and use that time to come to know Him.

The people of God need this one day to recharge physically, but more importantly, they need it to pull out of the world, to remove themselves from the rat race, and to get into communion with God. The Sabbath day gives them the opportunity to adjust their attitudes, to understand godly reasoning, to receive instruction, to see God at work, and to come to know Him more intimately.

Being still need not be limited to the Sabbath day. We should make a concerted effort to find time during the workweek to stop our headlong rush through life, be alone with God, and simply, prayerfully think, which is biblical meditation. In a world like ours, we frequently need to evaluate ourselves and reevaluate our course, and the way to do these things is to be still.

In John 14:27, our Savior says to us: "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." If we can learn to be still, we will enjoy the wonderful benefits of Christ's peace in us.

The Pre-Incarnate Christ

Where did Jesus come from? A person reading the Bible for the first time could easily finish the last verses of Malachi and begin to read Matthew only to feel somewhat blindsided by the sudden announcement and birth of Jesus, called Immanuel, "God with us." From one page to the next, the Messiah appears out of the blue, as it were, the divine abruptly breaking into human affairs.

Of course, this is only a perception by some, not reality. In fact, many Jews of that day, watching the signs of the times, were expecting the Messiah at any time. First-century ad Judea was awash in Messianic expectation and fervor. Every few years, a new Messianic candidate would arise, gather a following, revolt against the Romans, and be executed (see, for instance, Acts 5:36-37; 21:38). Between the death of Herod the Great in 4 bc and the suppression of the Bar Kochba Revolt in ad 135, as many as eighteen men, including Jesus of Nazareth, were acclaimed Messiah in the region of Roman Judea.

In the midst of this period, the apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3:24, "Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ," a principle suggesting that the Old Testament is a guide in preparation for Messiah. In this context, it implies that the Old Testament is full of references, allusions, prophecies, and instructions concerning the true Christ. In other words, far from being mostly silent about Jesus, the Old Testament is a vital source of revelation about Him! Jesus verifies this Himself in Luke 24:44, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me" (see also Acts 18:28; 28:23).

Most people realize that the Old Testament contains many prophecies of Christ, and in fact, Jesus fulfilled about 300 individual prophetic details. More broadly, however, the Old Testament chronicles, not just prophecies of His coming, but also the historical activities of the One who became Jesus Christ. Unlike other humans, Jesus was not a created Being but God the Word who "became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14). In short, He pre-existed as God—with all that entails—before His physical life and ministry.

In the famous passage in Philippians 2:5-8, Paul declares:

. . . Jesus Christ, . . . being in the form of God, did not consider it [a thing to be grasped] to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Clearly, Paul believes that Jesus had existed as a divine Being before His birth, and that He volunteered to divest Himself of much of His glory, power, and prerogatives to become a lowly human being and to die to redeem humanity from its sins. Moreover, the apostle asserts in other places that the pre-incarnate Christ was Creator of all things (I Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2), that He led Israel through the wilderness (I Corinthians 10:1-4), and that, as "Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, . . . [He] met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him" (Hebrews 7:1-3).

Did Jesus makes similar claims about Himself—that He had existed as God before His birth to Mary? Yes, many times! The Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—contain many claims of divinity and pre-existence, though few of them are explicit. In Matthew 12:8, He proclaims, "For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath," equating Himself with the Creator, who "rested on the seventh day" and hallowed it (Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:11). When Jesus drove out the moneychangers, He claims the Temple to be "My house" (Matthew 21:13). In lamenting over Jerusalem, He grieves over how He wanted to comfort and protect the people "often" throughout history, but they resisted (Matthew 23:37). After the scribes argue, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Jesus specifically says, ". . . the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins," a not-so-subtle declaration of His divinity, which He backs up with an astounding miracle of healing (Mark 2:7, 10-12). In Luke 10:18, He tells His disciples, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven," referring to an event that occurred before man was created (see Isaiah 14:12; Ezekiel 28:12-16). Later, under arrest and facing the Sanhedrin, He answers the question, "Are You then the Son of God?" with a firm, "You rightly say that I am" (Luke 22:70).

In contrast, the gospel of John proclaims the divine nature of Christ from its opening salvo: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). John shows Jesus doing little to obscure His divinity. Before the first chapter ends, He is acknowledged as "the Son of God" and "the King of Israel" (verse 49), and He Himself declares, "Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man" (verse 51). When in John 5:17 Jesus asserts, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working," the Jewish authorities "sought all the more to kill Him, because He . . . said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God" (verse 18). In John 5:26, He claims to have "life in Himself," that is, inherent life as ever-living God. He informs the Jews that He knew Abraham, who "rejoiced to see My day" (John 8:56), and when they protest that He was far too young, He announces, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM" (verse 58), taking upon Himself the divine name of the Eternal God. Later, He tells His disciples, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9), meaning that Jesus is "the express image" of the Father (Hebrews 1:3). In His final prayer with the disciples, He asks, "And now, O Father, glorify Me . . . with the glory which I had with You before the world was" (John 17:5).

These few examples only scratch the surface of the Bible's claims to the divinity and pre-existence of Jesus. Our salvation, in fact, depends on it, for if He were merely human, His death would be insufficient to pay for others' sins, even though He never sinned. However, if He were more than human—say, the Creator of all things—His sinless death would be priceless, more than enough to atone for the sins of all humanity for all time. Only the sacrificial death of the blameless Creator God makes redemption possible, and only His resurrection to life makes salvation and eternal life available to the called and chosen (Romans 3:21-26; 5:6-11). For this, we can truly be thankful.

A Lesson from the Diamond

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Please indulge me a moment as I boast about my eight-year-old son, Jarod. Thursday evening, in his last baseball game of the season, he hit a two-out, inside-the-park grand-slam home run, scoring what would become the winning run of the only game his team has won all season. Jarod's team just barely won the game, as the opposing team scored five runs in its half of the next inning. The final score was 13-12. Afterward, his elated coach gave him the game ball.

This was Jarod's first year of playing organized baseball. For Sabbath-keepers, finding a nearby league that does not play most of its games on Friday nights and Saturdays is a chore. We are fortunate that a local community, just a few miles from the church office in Fort Mill, runs such a league. So, Jarod and his cousin, Zachary Onisick, 7, were signed up in the hope that they would be put on the same team.

No such luck. Zachary was chosen to play on the black-and-tan team sponsored by Pineville Rehabilitation, while Jarod was picked by the red-and-white team, whose shirts displayed the cute but not very athletic moniker, Punkin's Awards. However, both Jarod and Zachary both wore the number 5 on their jerseys. Joe DiMaggio would be proud.

Punkin's Awards was behind the eight-ball from the beginning. Evidently, either the league was late in choosing a coach for the team, or the coach himself was tardy in contacting the boys on his roster, because the team lost a few days or a week to the other teams in terms of practice time. As the first practices showed, this team would need a great deal of work to hone it into a winner. Only a handful of the boys could throw well (half of one practice consisted of the boys throwing ball after ball into a fence), and only one or two of them could be counted on to stop any of the balls hit in their general direction. As for hitting, well, it looked as if it would be a long season.

Jarod, if I may say so, had the most natural swing from the beginning, and proved to be among the most consistent hitters on the team, eventually being chosen to fill the important leadoff slot. He is a natural athlete with good hand-eye coordination and a desire to hustle and play well. When members of the local congregation played softball during the summer months, Jarod had participated as much as he could, especially on the offensive side of things, and those experiences helped him immensely. Though lacking baseball experience, he brought with him a good feel for the game, so he was not at all far behind the other boys who already had a few years of tee-ball and coach-pitch baseball under their belts.

Thursday's game against Zachary's team, Pineville Rehab, started out slowly. First, the tan-shirted boys put a few runs on the scoreboard, and the Punkins scratched out a couple of runs of their own. Jarod and Zachary both struck out, helping neither cause with their bats. And then the bottom half of the fourth inning occurred. Ironically, Jarod led off the inning by striking out a second time, which was quite unusual for him. Then, like a switch had been flipped somewhere, his teammates began to get hit after hit—seven straight, scoring four runs and loading the bases for the number-nine hitter in the lineup. He struck out on three pitches for the second out.

While Jarod stood on deck, taking a few practice swings, I told him, "Forget about all those things I told you before. Just go up there and smack the ball." As he walked to the plate, it must have passed through the minds of the other team's coaches, if they remembered, that Jarod had struck out twice before and that this already long inning would finally be over with this batter. Jarod stepped into the batter's box and did his normal dance as he settled in, seemingly unaware of the pressure of the situation—perhaps he was not aware.

I do not recall if it was the first pitch that he hit or the second, but when he hit it, there was no doubt it was his best hit of the season. It was a short line drive that skipped past the shortstop and into left-center field. Jarod charged off for first base as the crowd erupted in cheers—most of them yelling, "Run!" or "Go!" And that is what all the boys did, all the way around the diamond. Jarod had hit an inside-the-park grand-slam home run—his first home run and first extra-base hit.

As he ran back to the dugout, excited but hardly realizing what he had done, Jarod was hoisted into the air by his coach, and his teammates gave him high-fives all around. He sat on the bench, panting from the long run around the bases and grinning with the thrill of it all. It was the perfect way for him to end the season. It will keep him coming back.

However, the game was not over yet. Zachary's team came up in the top of the next inning, exploding for five runs—in which Zachary himself singled and scored—to come within one run of tying the score. For the parents of the Punkin's Awards players, it was agonizing to watch the lead shrink nearly to nothing, which made the eventual win all the more gratifying. That sort of game keeps the parents coming back too.

All of this is just a nice story, though, if no lesson can be learned from it. One pops out immediately: It is possible to over-coach a player. In my pre-game instructions to Jarod, I had told him several things that he needed to do to "correct" his swing mechanics: He was not stepping toward the pitcher, he needed to rotate his hips through the swing, he should be moving his weight from his "back" foot to his "front" foot, etc. I was forgetting that he already had a good swing, had developed his hand-eye coordination, and could make contact with the ball more often than not. "He is eight years old!" I scolded myself later. "Just let him have fun!"

We all have high expectations of others, especially parents of their children. But children, students—and disciples—have to be brought along at a pace that they can handle. First-graders are not ready for calculus quite yet, just as Jarod is not old enough to understand fully and to apply consistently the intricacies of swinging a baseball bat. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, such a skill is not that important. Right now, "swing hard" and "put the bat on the ball" are really all he needs to remember; his natural athleticism will fill in the gaps.

Obviously, this applies spiritually too. We can have all knowledge about a certain virtue or activity, but depending on our spiritual maturity, we may not be able to put it into practice except on a limited level. We may not be quite ready for the big leagues, as it were. We still need more practice. Thank God that He is not only aware of this principle, but brings us along in spiritual understanding and practice over an extended time according to our own aptitudes and resolve (II Peter 3:9, 15, 18). And every once in a while, we probably surprise and delight Him—and ourselves—by hitting a grand slam.

In the Heart of the Earth

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As hard as it is to believe, it has been twelve years since Church of the Great God published "After Three Days," a booklet I wrote explaining the timing of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am still asked regularly to defend my assertions and dogmatisms in the face of the overwhelming belief in the Good Friday–Easter Sunday of mainstream Christians. Frankly, many of those who challenge the booklet's argument react spasmodically rather than reasonably, having never considered that the Bible may present a scenario contrary to traditional preaching. Perhaps these people are subconsciously aware that if "After Three Days" is correct, a large chunk of mainstream Christian theology—Sunday-worship in particular—crumbles to dust.

Since the annual memorial of Christ's death has arrived once again, perhaps an addendum to the booklet's subject is in order. Obviously, as a booklet, "After Three Days" could not include an exhaustive study of every pertinent word and phrase, yet most of the rebuttals to it hinge on the meaning of such small elements in the Gospels' texts. Probably the most common argument holds that "three days and three nights" (Matthew 12:40) does not mean exactly that but "parts of" three days, allowing the one day and two nights between Friday sunset and Sunday at dawn to fulfill Jesus’ prophecy.

Another frequent protest centers on John 20:1 and the phrase, "Now on the first day of the week. . . ." Supporters of this argument claim that this time-marker points to when Jesus was resurrected, but the text itself refers only to Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb at that time. The stone must have been rolled away at some earlier time. Besides, the verse even says that she came to the tomb "while it was still dark," and Jesus was already gone! Yet, every burgh in Christendom features a sunrise service on Easter morning.

Perhaps the most difficult textual problem to explain is the disciples' assertion, as they walked with Jesus to Emmaus on that same first day of the week, that "today is the third day since these things happened" (Luke 24:21). To most, counting as we do, this would place the crucifixion on the previous Thursday, not Wednesday as the modern church of God has taught for about eighty years. However, this simple mathematical explanation is a bit superficial. Those who look at the counting of days from an inclusive point of view say that the disciples' phrasing points to the previous Friday, since the Jews would have counted the current day, Sunday, along with Saturday and Friday to arrive at their three days. This would seem to support the traditional Good Friday–Easter Sunday scenario.

Yet, Jesus said, "The Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). Everywhere else, the Gospels support a 72-hour burial from Wednesday at sunset to the weekly Sabbath at sunset. Can this verse in Luke 24 be a contradiction? There are two ways of resolving this apparent inconsistency. The first considers that the disciples are not referring just to the three days of Jesus' burial. Then what are they talking about? They actually say, "Today is the third day since these things happened." To assume that they refer only to the crucifixion is to ignore the context of the passage. In verse 18, Cleopas exclaims, "Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?" From the summary of what they told Him, we can conclude that the disciples recounted the whole string of events that occurred in what we now call Crucifixion Week—and those events did not end with Jesus' death and burial.

Matthew 27:62-66 informs us that on the day after Christ's crucifixion—Thursday, as we understand it—the Jews went to Pilate to ask that a guard be set on the tomb, and he told them to do it themselves. They may have done it immediately, but they may have waited until sunset, since the day was a High Day, a holy day Sabbath, the first day of Unleavened Bread. So, on either Thursday or early Friday, a guard was set, making it the last activity surrounding the "big news" that the disciples told the resurrected Jesus about. They could then say that it had been three days since the last of "these things" had occurred.

The second, and perhaps best way, to understand this comment, is to take it in its most natural sense. The immediately preceding thought is that the disciples "were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel." The sign that Jesus had given to them was of being "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40). The sense of the ensuing comment, however, is that their hopes were dashed because the three days and nights of the sign had already passed! The idiomatic phrase reads literally, "One is passing this day as the third," implying "the third day has passed." In essence, they were not saying that it was the third day of Jesus' sign but, unfortunately, that the third day was already up!

Finally, some try to say that the phrase "in the heart of the earth" in Matthew 12:40 does not mean buried in a grave or tomb. Those who support this theory say that heart implies "middle of" or "midst of," and earth should really be translated as "country" or "world." Thus, the argument runs, Jesus is actually saying that He would be three days and nights in Jerusalem, since it was the center of the nations according to Ezekiel 5:5: "This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her." Supporters do not say how Jesus' being in Jerusalem for this amount of time can act as a sign of His Messiahship.

However, this argument holds no water. First, the Greek is literally translated here, as it is from a Hebrew idiom found in Jonah 2:2-3, the place to which Jesus referred in giving His sign. In that place, "heart of the seas" parallels "into the deep," which Jonah in the previous verse calls "the belly of Sheol," the pit where the dead are laid or the grave. So, heart of the earth means "underground," just as heart of the seas means "underwater." "In the heart of the earth," then, was a Hebrew metaphor signifying being dead and buried.

Second, the similar sign Jesus gave in John 2:19, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up," is explained plainly in verse 21: "But He was speaking of the temple of His body." Though they use different metaphors, the two signs are the same: Being in the heart of the earth is the result of having the temple of His body destroyed. Ergo, Jesus was not talking of His travel plans in Jerusalem but of His death, burial, and resurrection.

Indeed, the Scripture cannot be broken, as much as men try to cram their traditional beliefs into it. Would that they read the Bible for what it says rather than what they want it to say!

Variety and Homogeneity

With this year's Feast of Tabernacles in Mesquite, Texas, we here in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area had to drive across more than a thousand miles of the Southeast to "go up to the Feast." My family made this trip over three easy days of driving down I-20, with motel stops in Birmingham, Alabama, and Monroe, Louisiana, along the way. We were able to spend a few hours of one afternoon in Vicksburg, Mississippi, taking an auto tour of the Civil War battlefield there and visiting the original Coca-Cola bottling plant.

The ten days we spent in the Dallas area centered on a few-mile strip of I-635 that crosses Mesquite and Garland. A few exits north of the hotel stood the Town East Mall and a bevy of restaurants and stores that beckoned us to unload some of our second tithe on them. This we dutifully did, spiking Mesquite's retail sales figures for October. The city fathers were probably sad to see us leave after the Last Great Day.

The way home also covered parts of three days of travel. We headed east from Mesquite in the late morning on Friday, determined to make it to Meridian, Mississippi, before the sun set. Despite the drenching downpours of Tropical Storm Matthew as we slogged across Louisiana and Mississippi, we pulled into our hotel with a half-hour to spare. The next day, we drove up to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for Sabbath services, where forty people attended, and afterward, we ate dinner just east of Birmingham. Deciding to press on, we made it to Atlanta, Georgia, and found a motel to stay in near the airport. Sunday's drive back to Charlotte was relatively easy and routine, and we arrived back home by mid-afternoon, tired but relieved.

This travelogue of our Feast trip is typical of what we have experienced for the last several years, whether our destination has been San Antonio, Texas; Jefferson City, Missouri; or Topeka, Kansas. The scenery varied a little as our routes have differed, and the local accents of Texas and Missouri confirmed we had arrived in different places. Yet, for all the variety we saw on the surface, each place might have been the same.

We saw this the most in the stores, motels, restaurants, and gas stations that lined our route. One could choose just about any city interchange along the way and find the same chains doing business. Need fuel? There are only a handful of gasoline dispensing companies, and each had its store close to the off ramp. Hungry? One need not drive far off the freeway to find a Cracker Barrel, Red Lobster, Outback Steakhouse, or O'Charley's—not to mention McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC. Need to stop and rest? There is bound to be a Comfort Inn, Days Inn, La Quinta, Red Roof Inn, Motel 6, Best Western, or Hampton Inn at the next exit. Left something at home? One can always replace it at Wal-Mart, Target, or K-mart—or one can check all three for the best price. It was pretty near impossible to find a local, non-chain, Mom-and-Pop store or inn anywhere.

This, of course, is a bit exaggerated, but after a few weeks of driving, this is the impression a traveler has. Wherever one goes across this huge land we call the United States of America, one can enjoy the same, comforting establishments he frequents at home. The hash brown casserole or the meatloaf at the Cracker Barrel tastes the same in Rock Hill, South Carolina, as it does in Columbia, Missouri. The Wal-Mart in Paducah, Kentucky, carries the same products as the one in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the one in south Charlotte. One can expect a similar room and services at every La Quinta anywhere in the nation.

We have learned that Americans yearn for variety and seek it out at every turn, but we are a schizophrenic people, desiring the comforts of homogeneity at the same time. We want variety, but we also want consistency within it. To this end, we have nearly eradicated every cultural and regional difference across the fruited plain. These provincial distinctions have been relegated to gaudy, overdone tourist traps where visitors receive stilted caricatures of a once-proud traditional lifestyle. With a few rare exceptions, the South looks like the Northwest looks like the Northeast looks like the Mid-West looks like the Southwest.

There is probably nothing wrong with this homogenization, especially if it promotes national unity, although that does not seem to be the case. It was probably inevitable that it would happen at some point. Nevertheless, it is sad to observe the passing of these old, nostalgic regional traditions into a bland sameness. So much for diversity.