The animals you choose must be year-old males
without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.6 Take
care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members
of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.7 Then
they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the
doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same
night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with
bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do
not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the
head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do
not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must
burn it...
46 “It must be eaten inside the house; take none of
the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones. (Exodus 12, ESV)
It’s one of those curious details which like a lot of Old
Testament ceremony, would be easy to skim over - were it not for the fact that it
unexpectedly takes centre stage at the very climax of the Gospel – at the Cross
itself.
Now it was the day of Preparation, and the
next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want
the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to
have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. 32 The soldiers
therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with
Jesus, and then those of the other. 33 But
when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break
his legs… 36 These things
happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones
will be broken,” (John 19, ESV)
Escape Route
Now, of course, the Gospel writers (and the Apostle Paul)
want their readers to understand Jesus’ death in the light of the Passover. The
fact that the Crucifixion happened during the Passover feast was not a
coincidence – but was divinely ordained. Just as the original Passover sacrifice
signalled the opening up of an escape route from judgment & slavery – so the
sacrificial death of Jesus opens up the escape route from eternal judgement and
spiritual slavery. As Paul put it, ‘…Christ,
our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed’ (1 Cor 5:7).
So we can see how Jesus being left with his bones unbroken
resonates with the Passover – it’s a comparison that strengthens the sense of
connection between the two events. But is that all there is to it? Is this
detail and its greater manifestation no more than device to link Jesus and the
Passover – but without any deeper significance? A kind of, ‘Oh that’s a bit
like that, how interesting’, and then we move on.
Rabbinical thoughts
Surely not – but why then were the Passover bones not to be broken?
Rabbinical explanations include that it was to emphasis the urgency in leaving
Egypt – i.e. they were not to waste time extracting the marrow by breaking the
bones. Others suggest it was a statement about the freed Israelites new status
– they were not to suck out the marrow as poor people would do (i). But these explanations
flounder being based on only part of the story.
Call-back
During this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe one comedian
made an apparently ad lib joke that beautifully connected with a previous
section of his show. Indeed the joke only made sense and had impact because of
the earlier material (it’s what’s known by comics as a ‘call-back’). He then
(again seemingly ‘off the cuff’) quipped that the whole show had been ‘reversed
engineered’ in order to make the joke work.
In the same way the strange Biblical injunction about the
bones of Passover lambs can only be properly understood retrospectively. Not of
course, that there’s anything funny about it, but the original material only
makes sense in the light of subsequent events. The question therefore is not, 'Why not break the Passover lamb’s bones?’ but, ‘What point is being made by
ensuring that Jesus’ bones remained intact?’
Surprisingly dead
Well the reason that crucified people had their bones broken
was to speed up their death. The effect of breaking the legs, as the guards
were instructed to do, was to collapse the body and cause suffocation. However,
in the case of Jesus – such measures were unnecessary – He was already dead. Indeed
surprisingly so, the expectation being, that like the thieves crucified on either
side, He would still be alive. For a man in the prime of life His relatively
quick death was something of a shock – so much so, that a spear was thrust into
his side just to make absolutely sure.
The point of this unusual turn of events, was not that Jesus was weak but that no-one
would take his life from Him. He decided when to give it up and did so at the exact time of His
choosing – ‘Jesus said, ‘It is finished’. With that he bowed his head and gave up
his spirit’ (John 19:30). The moment of Jesus’ death came only when He had
completed the work of sin-bearing and made salvation possible. No-one would
take his life before that moment and there was no need to prolong it beyond that
point.
Who's in charge?
At the start of Matthew 26 we are presented with two
statements of intent regarding the death of Jesus. In v2 Jesus states that He
will be crucified during the Passover. In v5 the chief priests and elders state
that they will not kill him during the Passover. Well guess who
was in charge!
Though not understood at the time, those unbroken Passover bones in Egypt were
pointing not only to a Saviour who would give His life for sinners - but also to a sovereign
King who was in total control even as He gave it up.
i. https://thetorah.com/searching-for-the-meaning-of-the-passover-sacrifice/
