To make Comments write directly to Jim at jimt@quixotic.ca
9
Apr
2020
Today is Maundy Thursday.
Maundy? Probably not a word you run across often. “Maundy” apparently derives from Latin mandatum, meaning commandment.
Traditionally, today celebrates the last evening Jesus spent with his disciples. Where he took pita bread, or some equivalent, and tore it up, and told his disciples, “This bread is (like) my body (which will be) broken for your sakes.”
And he poured wine into their cups (today it would probably be Tim Hortons coffee), and said, more or less, “This is like blood. You need it to keep your strength up. Drink it, and remember me in tough times.”
Treat those as commands, and you have “Maundy”.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: Jesus, Pilate, Maundy Thursday, washbasins
12
2017
As Easter nears, I think about two men – one who died, and one who didn’t. Jesus died; Barabbas didn’t. Or maybe it’s the other way around, in the long term.
By a cruel irony, when governor Pontius Pilate offers to free Jesus as a goodwill gesture for the Jewish Passover, an angry crowd demands that he release, instead, a thief and murderer named “Barabbas.” Barabbas -- “the son of the father”.
And so the man who said “The Father and I are one” was executed on a trumped-up charge of claiming to be King of the Jews, while the man named “Son of the Father” was set free.
The coincidence is so keen, it almost demands further exploration.
Tags: resurrection, Jesus, Barabbas, Pilate, crucifixion