Contradictions in the Holy Week

By Herbert Vego

“MAMALANDONG anay kita,” warring politicians say on the air to explain why they are on ceasefire from “word war” on Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

That reminds me of that day in 1959 when an old woman scolded us small boys playing at the plaza on a Good Friday.

“Don’t you know that God is dead today?” she admonished.

My inquisitive mind wondered how God could die every year without losing control of the universe.

Since then, I have many times read the crucifixion story of Jesus Christ in the gospels of the New Testament – those of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – only to end up confused because they do not always mesh.

The first question that aches for an answer: Did Jesus Christ really die on a Friday and return to life on a Sunday? If so, that would be an interval of only two days.

If as universally commemorated the resurrection was on a Sunday, shouldn’t Jesus have died on a Thursday?

But Jesus himself predicted, “I, the Messiah, am going to be betrayed and killed and three days later I will return to life” (Mark 9:31).

It is not clear why the Jewish multitude demanded for the crucifixion of Jesus, considering that they had earlier glorified him during his “triumphant entry” into Jerusalem.

According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, it was Jesus’ act of driving money changers and merchants out of the Jewish temple that infuriated the high priests, who then laid the groundwork for his arrest.

John, however, wrote that Jesus’ miracle of raising his friend Lazarus from the dead was the reason why the chief priests had plotted his crucifixion.

“If we let him alone,” said one of the priests, “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 John said nothing about the two thieves who were crucified on either side of Jesus, Matthew and Mark had a similar version on the behavior of the two thieves:

“The two robbers dying with him cursed him” (Mark 15:32).

Luke disagreed, saying that while one of the robbers indeed mocked Jesus, the other begged him, “Remember me when you come into your Kingdom” (Luke 24:42).

Do you know that in not one of the four gospels are present all the “seven last words” heard in church re-enactments of the crucifixion? The books of Matthew (27:46) and Mark (15:34) quoted 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, I commit my spirit to you” (23:46).

John has another three: “Woman, behold your son” (19:26); “I thirst” (19:28); and “It is finished” (19:30).

There is also discrepancy in the resurrection tales as told by Mark and Matthew. Mark’s version says that three women – Mary Magdalene, Salome and Mary the mother of James — visited Jesus’ tomb on Sunday morning, only to find it open and empty.

In the book of Matthew, the same women found it closed. Then the earth quaked as an angel appeared to roll the stone away, revealing an already empty tomb.

In the book of Acts, Luke briefly recalled that the resurrected Jesus had spent 40 more days on earth with his apostles (minus the late Judas) before rising into the sky, “leaving them staring after him” (Acts 1:9).

“This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

Finally, that assurance binds all Christians from different sects together.