Jesus Stitched Together The Prophecies Of Salvation

Maundy Thursday of Holy Week Commentary on Matins readings 2026

Jesus certainly had seen crucifixions. And, yes, He had gone up to Jerusalem more than once for the required feasts. He knew what happened when, as a response to the humanity-wide understanding of the evil of sin and our need for forgiveness, the High Priest had entered the Holiest and selected the scapegoat and said the sacred Name that others would never utter. He also knew, perhaps by heart, the prophecy of Isaiah regarding the suffering servant and His story, both tragic and triumphant. But putting all those things together was His unique calling. Jesus would Himself be the servant of YHWH who would suffer, take on Himself all of humanity’s sins by His obedience to the Father, and on the cross by His death merit forgiveness for all those billions and trillions of human rebellions.

As the letter to the Hebrews tells us, Jesus was the great high priest who by His ascension to the Father accomplished it all and made a way for all the faithful to follow Him into the kingdom of God. He was and is the High Priest who is able to sympathize with our weakness, the one who was tempted in every way as us but never succumbed to sin. Jesus learned obedience, the author tells us, from what He suffered. This pain and anguish was the means by which He reached His end. It perfected Him so He could become the source of eternal salvation for us and all those who obey Him as He obeyed the Father. And, yes, it will involve our own suffering and death.

Our second reading is part of an Easter homily by Bishop Melito, who served in Anatolia during the second century. Yes, it’s 1900 years old, perhaps one or two generations after the death of apostle John.

We have all heard the story of Jesus, Son of God and son of Mary, born a man capable of suffering so He could take the pain of fallen man upon Himself. On this day when we commemorate the Passover of the real Lamb of God, we hear that like the lamb of Moses He ransomed us from slavery—but that’s spiritual slavery. We heard that He cast the devil into mourning, just as Moses cast Pharaoh and his elite into mourning. The only point on which we might hesitate is Melito’s statement that Jesus was “dragged off” to be slaughtered. Jesus freely chose to obey the Father, even though He prayed in the garden that the cup of suffering might be taken away. He knew the Father’s will and freely obeyed, letting Himself be led off by the Temple guards to a “kangaroo” court, to being hung on the tree, and buried in the earth. Yet as we’ll see in three days, that was not the last word.

He is the Paschal Lamb of the Book of Revelations, and no bone was broken, no body decayed. His is the pattern of our own passing and Resurrection, by the power of God, to whom we give all honor and glory into the endless ages, Amen.