Old Testament Easter:

I’ve been spending the last week chewing on the Pentateuch.  Truth be told, I hadn’t spent much time in the OT.  I knew the stories I needed, but there are probably whole books that I had only looked at in passing.  Genesis 1, I knew that though.  I thought I did.  Actually, I did know it, pretty well.  This week has shown me that the depth of the Bible is nearly infinite, at least it feels that way.

Galactus hungers!

For instance, Genesis 1, “In the beginning . . .”  Everybody knows Genesis 1.  Athiests, Muslims, Literalists and even Progressive Hippies know Genesis 1.  “In the beginning. . .”, and with those words a million arguments are begun.  Over the last week my thoughts have moved from defense of a stance on Genesis’ creation narrative (perhaps for another post) to how Jesus would want us to understand Gen. 1 for the greater purpose of the Missio Dei.

First, I think that God wants us to know He is powerful.  Powerful enough to have created everything that has existed (nothing is new, conservation of energy and all that).  He is also creative enough to craft things into the fantastic world around us.  Creativity and Power, absolute in both regards, that is who God is and He wants that understood from the get-go.  I think that no matter how you interpret Genesis you can agree that these attributes of God are intended to be understood, along with being personal.

I kept getting a nagging feeling that there was some kind of tie-in to the New Testament for us Gentile believers in the year 2012.  As I was arguing my stance online, which breaks my "never argue on the internet” rule, I went to figure out the original language.  Holy crap, I’ve got to learn this stuff!  I bet if I knew Hebrew I would read the OT in Hebrew constantly.  It’s like having a decoder ring.

I brew, you brew, we all brew for HEBREW!

First, a brief trip through the NT.  John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God.”  Clearly, John is calling back to Genesis 1 to do some very Greek philosophical stuff that other people can explain better.  Essentially, “Word” translates logos which means word (mind blown).  It also carried a heavier meaning like, reason and reason was a big freaking deal to Greeks.  It was kind of the unseen force that consisted or and created the ultimate reality.  Reason was real, reality was fake, and Greek food uses too many olives (one of these claims is still unaddressed by modern Greek culture).

John is trying to make a pretty awesome apologetic connection for his audience to show that what they had assumed was “reason” was actually Jesus.  He goes on to talk for a bunch of chapters in support of that thesis.  I kind of always understood that about the opening of John, but I think that might be an over simplification.  It seems possible to me that his call back to Genesis was less about fashioning an argument as much as it was reactionary to a new understanding of the text in Genesis.  Let me explain why.  This has some Easter stuff in it too, so, double your pleasure.

Jesus is born, ministers, dies and is resurrected.  Gospels 101, you are welcome.  The focus (this is the Easter part) is on the resurrection.  Personally, and I think for most people, the resurrection is the biggest deal in Christianity.  Everything hinges on Jesus’ resurrection.  Did you know that Jesus’ resurrection was not initially referred to as “Easter”?  Nope, it wasn’t, in fact, the day He came back was something called the “Festival of First Fruits”.  The Passover was a feast with heaps of symbolic meaning and so is First Fruits. (I admit that I don’t have a great knowledge base for Hebrew holy days, yet.  Forgive me if I miss something.)

Paul calls Jesus “The first of a great harvest of all who have died.” (1 Corinthians 15:20).  Another version of the verse has Jesus referenced as the “First Fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”  For emphasis Paul calls Jesus “First Fruits...” again a few verses later.  I thought at was cool.  Perfect timing to add depth to the narrative, God amazes me with His redundancy.  I’m also amazed at how much I miss.

Why does this man have whipped cream and a
cherry on his head?  Maybe it’s an Easter . . .Sunday?
PUN!

So, Easter isn’t just Easter, it’s also Feast of First Fruits and Jesus is the First Fruits of the resurrection.  Jesus is also the Word or logos, the ultimate reality, truth, and reason.  Let me start tying this back into the OT with Jesus’ words, “...if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me.”  It is widely believed that if Moses didn’t write word for word the first five books of the OT then his fingerprints are all over the final product.  Which means that Genesis, written by Moses, speaks about Jesus.

Re’shiyth.  That’s the Hebrew I was talking about earlier.  That’s the word used for “In the beginning.”  Surprisingly it means, “Beginning”.  But, that’s not all folks!  Re’shiyth (ray-sheeth) has more than one meaning.  About 14 or 15 times in the OT it is used as “First Fruits”.  That is so cool to me.

I think at some point John made the connection, “Wait . . . first fruits. . . Jesus was the . . .! ! !” and then he wrote a gospel.  I think that if you look at Genesis 1:1 and view it with this new information it is impossible to not see that God was seeding the story with language that would point to Jesus.  From the moment our holy text begins it is pointing to Jesus.

If the verses could be harmonized it might look a lot like John 1.  It might even look like, “In, for, and through Jesus Christ, the first fruits of the resurrection, God created the heavens and the Earth.”  I just can’t argue over interpretations when I understand the first words of the Bible this way.  I can, it just feels like the focus is wrong.  Jesus, in the Genesis account, from the foundation of the universe is the foundational purpose of all creation.

So, if I don’t see you before, have a very merry Easter.  I hope that your understanding of God’s Word is increased and you see how God has been showing you Jesus from the beginning.