The Passion Week which Christians around the world is celebrating recently is given many titles like “Great Week,” “Passover Week,” “Passion Week,” “Holy Week”. It follows the celebration of Palm Sunday: the seventh Sunday of Great Lent. “Passion Week” is the holiest and most spiritual week of the year, in which spiritual practices increase; fasting, readings from the Holy Bible about God’s relationship with humanity, and prayers that is related to its events, “Pascha Prayers” that are characterized by deep liturgical melodies filled with a holy sorrow and awe befitting His great majesty.
“Pascha” is an Aramaic word that means “passing over” and its Hebrew equivalent is “Pesach,” which refers to the memory of the children of Israel’s exodus from “Egypt” and their crossing of the Red Sea, led by the one who spoke with God, “Moses the Prophet.” The story begins when the children of Israel went down to “Egypt” with their father “Jacob,” whose name was changed to “Israel” by God ,“So He said to him, ‘What is your name?’
And He said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel'”
When “Joseph” became governor over all the land of “Egypt,” he sent and called for his father “Jacob” and all his kindred to “Egypt,” and God commanded “Jacob” to go there: “Then God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, “Jacob, Jacob!”
And he said, “Here I am.” I am God, the God of your father; do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again; and Joseph will put his hand on your eyes.” The Scripture mentions that after the death of Joseph, a new king arose over the land of Egypt. He oppressed the children of Israel with bitter servitude. So God commanded MosesHis prophet to perform the “Passover”: that every household of the children of Israel should take a sound lamb, a male in its first year, from the sheep or the goats, and keep it from the tenth day until the fourteenth day. Then they should slaughter it in the evening, and take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then God said, “For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you” .Thus, salvation was through blood, as for the Passover, it symbolizes “the Lord Christ,” and therefore the Scripture says, For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us”. The “Church of Jerusalem” was the first to begin celebrating the incidents of the Passion Week and then the celebration spread to all the churches of the ecumenical world. As for Egypt, the Passion Week’s fasting was known there in the third century AD.
During the Passion Week, we follow the footsteps and teachings of the Lord Christ, as He spent it in Jerusalemthat was preparing to celebrate the Feast of Passover. Two important incidents precede the Passion Week: the raising of Lazarus by the command of the Lord Christ’s mouth, after he had been decaying in his tomb for four days, and Jerusalem’s receiving of the Lord Jesus as He entered it, surrounded by His disciples, in a large crowd carrying palm and tree branches.
Among the teachings of the Lord Christ during the Passion Week is His discourse on the redemption granted to all humanity, saying: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.…Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself” and His conversation with His disciples about His Passion, Death, and Resurrection: “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again”
The Lord Christ set Himself an example of the importance of humility and serving others when He washed His disciples’ feet on “Maundy Thursday,” explaining that they should follow Him in their service to others, and said: “You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am.If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. “; and this was a natural extension of His great commandment of “love” poured out in acts of mercy, service, and sacrifice: “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” Likewise, the Lord Christ spoke of the tribulation that Christians would go through: “These things I have spoken to you that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.”, but He promised to grant peace: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” And on “Good Friday,” the Lord Christ offered the greatest example of love when He forgave those who crucified Him: “Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.””
The journey of the Passion Week is a journey of love that allows humanity to pass to the dawn of Resurrection….and stories of Beautiful Egypt are endless…
G. Bishop Ermia
General Bishop
President of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center
العربية
