The Passover Mystery
How the Cross Creates a New Human
- Theology
- Publisher: Resource Publications (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2022
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Publisher's Description
The cross remains the most familiar symbol of Christianity and the church, so common it is easy to forget it recalls one of the most vicious forms of execution devised. Perhaps an electric chair at the peak of our steeples would say to us what the cross said to the first believers. Why did Christ have to suffer in such a brutal death? Did Jesus die on a cross because God is angry and violent, or because we are angry and violent? How does the cross create the possibility of a new kind of humanity ready for a new kind of world? What does the cross have to say about racial, economic, gender, and other human divisions? How does the cross offer forgiveness and end our shame, thereby freeing us from the wounds life has inflicted on us? What lessons does the cross teach about sharing life in community with others? Very early in Christian history the idea of "The Pascal Mystery" entered the liturgy and thought of the church. Incorporating the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ into one broad act by which we are reconciled with God, the Passover (Pascha) Mystery identifies the execution of Jesus with the Passover Lamb rather than the lamb sacrificed as a sin offering on the Day of Atonement. The Passover Lamb represents the obedience to God which nourishes and sustains God's people on their journey to freedom and wholeness.
Endorsements (5)
“With the precision of a learned theologian and the heart of a wise, guiding pastor, Gene Tempelmeyer’s The Passover Mystery helps us recover a sense of awe, reverence, understanding, and application of this mystery to our journey as followers of Christ. As I slowly and carefully read his sage words, I came away with a deep sense of all four of those dimensions, and I am grateful for having done so.”
“Pithy and insightful—‘The cross is good news even before the resurrection’—don’t even consider starting it without a highlighter.”
“The Passover mystery reads as part memoir, part theological treatise, drawing on Tempelmeyer’s personal and decades-long pastoral experience to reframe the meaning and impact of the cross of Jesus in profoundly hopeful and helpful ways for our lives and society today.”
“For many Christians, the cross has been reduced to being a ‘fix’ for sin, resulting in a faith that wearily strives for perfection, while internally, their experience is heavy, shame filled, and dry. Tempelmeyer’s recovery of the ancient Christian understanding of Jesus as the Passover Lamb is full of hope, transforming our faith from drudgery to adventure. Rather than an exit strategy from a failing earth, God invites us into his work of making a whole new world.”
“Weaving together a rich discussion of historical context and biblical exegesis, Tempelmeyer reconnects the Passover and the cross, God’s promise to Abraham and Pentecost. The result is an explosive mix which challenges us to rethink our understanding of God’s work on the cross. Delivered with a vulnerable and gentle pastoral heart, Tempelmeyer opens up the possibility of a fresh new engagement of the gospel with a disillusioned culture.”
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