Jesus Sent to Pilate

Here, John causes some problems. (Really, it’s not John’s fault. The fault lies with our ignorance of the idioms of that day.) Nonetheless, John says that the religious leaders are concerned that they remain ceremonially clean in order to “eat the Passover.” Because of this and other verses, some have concluded that Jesus and his men ate their Passover earlier than the national holiday proscribed. John, however, has already given the story of Jesus eating the Passover, which would have been a faulty literary technique, to say the least. What then, is the concern of the priests?

The answer is that John's reference to the Passover was to the entire season. By this time, Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were seen as a unit, much as December is "Christmas" in current culture. What the priests would not be able to eat were the additional sacrifices to be presented during the balance of the day. Though a paraphrase, it might be better to read it thus: “…to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace because they wanted to be able to (continue to) eat the Passover (sacrifices.)

In today’s Passover Seder, these additional gifts and sacrifices are represented by the egg, displayed with the ceremonial elements.