Memorial, Thursday, April 2, 2015
“This do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19).
Our Lord inaugurated the Memorial in the upper room with his apostles on Thursday, April 2, 33 AD (by the Roman Julian calendar).1 The coming Memorial is unusual in that the Nisan 14 observance will also begin after Sunset on Thursday, April 2. This brings together the Nisan 14 remembrance with the actual correct solar calendar date as well as the day of the week in 33 AD.
This linkage did not occur during the entire 20th century. It is the only time this linkage takes place in the 200 years between the years of 1870 and 2069 (the actual year when the last linkage occurred or the year it shall next time occur was not researched for this note). A comprehensive review of the historic Memorial dates and the method employed for setting the Memorials appears in earlier issues of “Beauties of the Truth,” February 2009.2
Hence, this year a Thursday evening memorial occurs on both the same day of the week and the same calendar date as it did in Jesus’ day, and our Friday would match the Friday of his crucifixion. On the day of Jesus’ death the moon was in eclipse in the east as the sun was setting in the west, at 5:41 pm. Less than half of the umbral shadow remained, but it was conspicuous on the upper portion of the moon. The remainder was in the penumbral shadow, clearing from 6:25 pm to 7:41 pm (Friday, April 3, 33 AD).
On Friday, April 3, 2015, as of sunset at 6:23 pm, the moon will have previously risen in the eastern sky at 5:34 pm, and no eclipse will occur that evening. However, the following day, Saturday, April 4, a lunar eclipse will begin at 12:02 pm (these are all Jerusalem times). It will continue in some form until it is complete at 5:56 pm. During the height of that eclipse it will be total, and the almost six hours of this eclipse makes it a very long eclipse.
Lunar Eclipse illustration
However, that eclipse will not be visible at Jerusalem. Moonrise on Saturday evening Jerusalem time April 4, 2015, will be at 6:28 pm, 32 minutes after the close of the eclipse. So compared to Jesus’ day, the eclipse would be one day later, and not visible at Jerusalem. (This information is from the program Sky View Café, which is available at skyviewcafe.com for those who wish to download and explore this.) The eclipse should be visible in Western North America, Australia, and Korea.3
This do in remembrance of me.
(1) Ruggles, Clive, “The Moon and the Crucifixion,” Nature, Volume 345, 21 June 1990, page 669. This article sets forth the very strong case for April 2-3, 33 AD and the author observes, “Problems arise in translating these constraints in a Julian date, largely because of the empirical nature of the Jewish calendar.”
(2) Charles Redeker, “Memorial Observances,” Beauties of the Truth, February 2009. James B. Parkinson, “Memorial Dates,” Beauties of the Truth, February 2009. James B. Parkinson, “Lunar and Solar Calendar,” Beauties of the Truth, February 2009.
(3) A good map of visibility can be found at: www.eclipsewise.com/oh/oh-figures/ec2015-Fig02.pdf
09:01:25 UT — Penumbral Eclipse Begins
10:15:46 UT — Partial Eclipse Begins
11:58:01 UT — Total Eclipse Begins
12:00:16 UT — Greatest Eclipse
12:02:32 UT — Total Eclipse Ends
13:44:48 UT — Partial Eclipse Ends
14:59:03 UT — Penumbral Eclipse Ends
These “Universal Times (UT)” are for Greenwich. For Jerusalem local time add 2 hours, 20.8 minutes. But for Standard Time add 3.0 hours, as the SkyView website has done. This table appears to be the Espenak computations (the standard) — it differs by a few minutes from Sky View.