jmcclane:
I am looking for deeper insight into this mystery in the passion of our lord. I have been meditating on the sorrowful mysteries and their Old Testament parallels. I see how the passion is, for lack of a better term, a reenactment or a true fulfillment of the Garden of Eden.
I agree that there’s a tremendous parallel. But, I see it as this. Adam is put into a deep sleep. Strong’s concordance says that the word for sleep has something to do with death, as if the sleep were almost like death. It’s very unique; I don’t think that word is used anyplace else in scripture.
There you go. Jesus underwent crucifixion and a sleep that 1) was death, and 2) was like sleep, in that He arose from the dead, eventually.
What came from Adam’s side was a rib, from which Eve was formed. The blood and water from the side of Christ were the basis for the coming forth of the Church.
Adam’s sleep was on the sixth day, I guess. A Friday as we would reckon it. I’m not totally certain, but I think Jesus was crucified on a Friday. A whole lot of people would take exception to that.
So, I don’t see the passion as a parallel to the garden of Eden, as such, but I see it as completing the Creation, as much as you would consider that Jesus’ death was the creation of the Church.
I’m contaminating your thoughts with my own. Is there something else you see here (and I’m sure there’s lots more)?
I am now on the scourging at the pillar and I see where Jesus was stripped of his clothes, i.e. naked, and the scourged and clothed with a purple cloak. I see this as an illusion to Gen: 3 where Adam and Eve ate of the fruit and their eyes were opened and they realized they were naked.
We’re all pretty squeamish, talking about naked. I had a lot of trouble dealing with that aspect of Genesis when I was a kid. I think the point may be, that Jesus was naked, that is, sinless, as pointing back to the original state of Adam and Eve. He had nothing to be ashamed of, as A&E came to be. He was innocent, yet He took our sins and guilt to the cross.
Now I know that the scourging in the Gospels do not list any Old Testament references however I have read the Palestinian Targum and in there it references, on Gen 3 where Adam and Eve realize they were naked, that they were stripped of the purple robe which they were created. The parallels are truly uncanny and they transport my mind back to Genesis and open my eyes to what God is trying to tell us. Can you offer any deeper insights and or sources that will assist me to study this further?
I made these observations after studying that part of Genesis for some time. I haven’t come across any similar explanation of it.
You may note that Adam fell into that deep sleep at a time that was probably the middle of the first day of his life. Things haven’t changed much, as most men today could probably fall asleep in the middle of the day, too. (that’s my attempt at humor; end of humor).
Genesis says that God put Adam into that sleep. Arguably, it was God that put Jesus into the ‘sleep’ of death on the cross.
Note, too, that Adam does not cry out to God for a mate, but God sees that it is not good for man to be alone. So, Adam couldn’t make it even one day without a woman. How true that is for most of us.
But, it also symbolize how much Chist loves the Church, and cannot do without it. The two become one, and let no man put it asunder.
God leads Eve to Adam, just as God leads mankind to Jesus Christ.
Adam’s sleep episode occurs *before *the sin of the fall of mankind.
Interesting, isn’t it, that this picture of Jesus’ death is there in Genesis before A&E sin. Book of Hebrews (I think, or maybe one of the Corinthian letters) compares Adam and Jesus.
These observations or “parallels” are what you might call “allegorical” because you don’t have a proof text for them, in scripture itself.
It certainly draws you into the whole question of why was Eve created in that fashion, the whole deep sleep of Adam ‘thing’? That picture is not an accident, I think, and not a coincidence. There’s no other deep sleep like this in scripture. It is a unique and mysterious event. And, the amateur Bible student that I am, the mysteries always point to Jesus our Saviour.
