Jack of Harts

Two thousand years ago, Jesus went to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. He traveled to the Temple where a market reigned in the middle of the temple, selling offerings to Jews who came from far and wide. Jesus called them thieves, grabbed a whip, and drove them from the temple. He called the priests that supported this corrupt and faithless. This they could not forgive. This dirty carpenter from nowhere had dared to come into their city and called them corrupt. Liars. Morally bankrupt. They could not allow that to stand. They wanted to crucify him. Literally. And then they had the Romans place guards at the tomb to keep his disciples from pulling any mischief with the body. They did not want an empty tomb for stories to be made of. They wanted the name of Jesus stricken from history and his followers forever shunned and ruined. They did not get what they wanted.

Two thousand years ago, a Jewish preacher named Jesus celebrated the Passover with the disciples he had taught for three years. They were his friends. His closest confidants. Brothers and sisters who had followed him all over Israel. He washed their feet, as a servant would for a master. He said that one of them would betray him. That even the fiercest of them would deny him in the following days. He told them to break bread and drink wine in remembrance of him and his covenant with them. Two thousand years later, that Communion is still observed all over the world. Every month, every week, someone is breaking bread (or some bread-like substance) and drinking wine (or juice or something akin to it) in remembrance of Jesus and the New Covenant he established with us.

This is a rather important week for the Western World. Thousands of years ago, before there even WAS a Western World to speak of, several families moved to Egypt to survive a drought. They lived there for centuries, had many children, and were enslaved to build great monuments to Egypt’s power. Until one day, Egypt decided there were too many of them and killed every male infant. One of them survived to be raised as a prince of Egypt, and when he grew up he demanded that the ruler let his people go. The ruler would not and God sent many plagues to break Egypt’s will. The last of them was the worst of them. An angel of death would come and kill the first-born male of every family, and only pass over them if they painted the blood of a lamb on their doorposts. Thousands of years later, this First Passover and the freedom it granted is still celebrated all over the world.