This Easter, let’s make sure we don’t leave out the “glory” part when we tell the story of Jesus’ suffering. No doubt, the Cross was glorious in and of itself in displaying Jesus’ perfect obedience, God’s love for humanity, and the God-man’s rendering of substitutionary atonement for sinners. Jesus’ earthly work is indeed “finished” (John 19:30), but his glorious work of ruling, reigning, and interceding continues to this day.

1. Don’t say Jesus died when he was 33 years old.

The common assertion seems reasonable that if Jesus “began his ministry” when he “was about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:23) and engaged in a three-year ministry (John mentions three Passovers, and there might have been a fourth one), then he was 33 years old at the time of his death. However, virtually no scholar believes Jesus was actually 33 when he died. Jesus was born before Herod the Great issued the decree to execute “all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under” (Matt. 2:16, ESV) and before Herod died in the spring of 4 B.C. If Jesus was born in the fall of 5 or 6 B.C., and if we remember that we don’t count the “0” between B.C. and A.D., then Jesus would have been 37 or 38 years old when he died in the spring of A.D. 33 (as we believe is most likely)….

2. Don’t explain the apparent absence of a lamb at the Last Supper by only saying Jesus is the ultimate Passover Lamb.

While it is gloriously true that Jesus is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), this does not mean there was no physical paschal lamb at the Lord’s Supper. In fact, there almost certainly was: “Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb [pascha] had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, ‘Go and prepare the Passover [pascha] for us, that we may eat it [i.e., the pascha]'” (Luke 22:7–8; cf. Mark 14:12). Even if it isn’t specifically mentioned in the Gospel accounts, eating the paschal lamb was an important part of every Jewish Passover (Ex. 12:3). This is why the disciples ate the meal together as a group, at night, within the city gates, where it would have been eaten with red wine and consumed before the breaking of bread and singing of a hymn. While there’s disagreement about the nature of the Last Supper, we think it’s clear that Jesus celebrated Passover with the Twelve on the night before the crucifixion—with Jesus making it clear that he saw himself in the tradition of God’s mighty deliverance of his people Israel from bondage in Egypt by the blood of a sacrificial lamb.

3. Don’t say the same crowds worshiped Jesus on Palm Sunday and then cried out for his crucifixion on Good Friday. This kind of statement makes for a powerful sermon point to illustrate the fickleness of the human heart when it comes to Jesus the Messiah. But a couple of qualifications need to be added.

4. Don’t bypass the role of the women as witnesses of the resurrected Christ…. This background matters because it points to two crucial truths.

5. Don’t focus on the suffering of Jesus to the extent that you neglect the glory of the Cross in and through the Resurrection…. there is another aspect to the Easter story. It is best encapsulated in John’s statement that Jesus, when he “knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world … loved them to the end” (13:1, ESV).

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