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[av_heading heading=’PEOPLE POWWOW | Holy Week introspection’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
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Thursday, April 13, 2017
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NO WONDER your hard-hitting broadcaster has spoken no evil this week. It’s Holy Week – the only week of the year when “Christian” thieves don’t steal, prostitutes stay at home, killers hold no guns and bullies turn sheepish. Mamalandong kita.
It’s as if it’s all right to sin the rest of the year, but not on Holy Week. That leads us into asking, “Would the world not be safer if it were the other way around?”
Church goers hush noisy children on Good Friday every year because “patay na si Hesus” (Jesus is already dead).
Alas, Jesus Christ’s death finds no consistency in the Gospel – the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Amazingly, the Christian churches have ignored the discrepancies by stressing only corroborative accounts.
Did Jesus die on a Friday and return to life on a Sunday? If so, that would be an interval of only two days!
Whereas, Jesus said, “I, the Messiah, am going to be betrayed and killed and three days later I will return to life.” (Mark 9:31)
If he died on a Friday, shouldn’t he have risen on a Monday? Conversely, he had to die on a Thursday if he had to rise on a Sunday!
It is not clear why the Jewish multitude shouted, “Crucify him!” Hadn’t they earlier welcomed him on his “triumphant entry” into Jerusalem?
According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, it was Jesus’ act of driving money changers and merchants out of the temple that infuriated the high priests.
John wrote a different and unique story. He interpreted the miracle of Jesus’ rising of his friend Lazarus from the dead (after four days in tomb) as the reason why chief priest Caiphas plotted Jesus’ death.
“For this man certainly does miracles,” said one of the priests. “If we let him alone, the whole nation will follow him. And then the Roman army will come and kill us and take over the Jewish government.” (John 11:47-48)
While the gospel of John says nothing about the two thieves who were crucified on either side of Jesus, Matthew and Mark complement each other: The two thieves cursed him for being unable to bring them down the cross if he were really the Son of God. (Matthew 28:38-44 and Mark 15:32)
But the Christian world today exaggerates Luke’s conflicting tale: While one of the robbers indeed mocked Jesus, the other supplicated, “Remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” (Luke 24:42)
There are no “seven last words” lumped in all four gospels, contrary to traditional re-enactments of the crucifixion. Matthew (28:14) and Mark (16:34) quote only one and the same: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Luke has three: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (23:34); “Today, you will be with me in Paradise” (23:43); and “Father, into you I commit my spirit” (23:46).
John has another three: “Woman, behold your son” (19:26); “I thirst” (19:28); and “It is finished.” (19:30)
Discrepancy mars the resurrection tales. In the book of Mark, three women – identified as Mary Magdalene, Salome and Mary the mother of James – visit Jesus’ tomb on Sunday morning, only to find it empty; the tomb stone cover has already been rolled away.
In the book of Matthew, the same women find it closed. Then the earth quakes while an angel rolls the stone away, revealing an already empty tomb.
The apostle Paul recalls that the resurrected Jesus lived 40 more days with “doubting Thomas” and the other apostles, after which “he rose into the sky and disappeared into a cloud, leaving them staring after him.” (Acts 1:9)
As to what happened within those 40 days, we can only puff, “Secret…” (hvego@yahoo.com/PN)
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