Holy Week 1865: Lee Surrendered on Palm Sunday and Lincoln Shot on Good Friday
(I delivered this to Church By The Sea in Bal Harbor Palm Sunday morning.)
Today is
Palm Sunday: the beginning of
Holy Week and the commemoration of Jesus son of Joseph triumphantly entering Jerusalem on a donkey while the Judeans praised him as their king by waving palm fronds. This provocative act challenging the Romans’ and Roman Emperor’s rule of the Israelites began a chain-of-events on Sunday April 2, 30 AD that culminated on
Good Friday with the lashing and
Crucifixion of the Messiah of the Jews, and his reappearance at the tomb at sunrise on
Easter Sunday. As we Americans commemorate the 150th Anniversary of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox, few are aware that it occurred on Palm Sunday and that five days later, President Abraham Lincoln was shot on Good Friday but didn’t die that day. ‘Coincidence’?
coincidence: a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection (by chance). -
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The
American Civil War really began with the election of the anti-slavery Lincoln in 1860. The Southern slave owners rallied the people to break away from the Union. Four years after the surrender at Ft. Sumter and 630,000 dead on both sides, Rebel General Lee was finally forced to abandon his positions at Petersburg after a long siege. This produced the surrender of Richmond and Lee’s surrender.
Lincoln was known affectionately in the North as ‘Father Abraham’ linkin’ him to the patriarch of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims. There was even a famous 1862 Stephen Foster song,
We Are Coming Father Abraham 300,000 Strong. Much as been written about Lincoln; matter-of-fact, he is second only to Jesus with the number of books written on him. (Albert Einstein is third but moving up.) Authors try to depict Lincoln as very religious to non-religious depending on their agenda. But all agree that he had the Bible read to him alot as a child by his mother and that it was one of only five books he had for awhile as a boy in Indiana. Lincoln had the Bible practically memorized and would quote from it often without announcing he was doing so, i.e.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” (
Matthew 12:25)
“4 score and 7 years ago, our fathers…” beginning his
Gettysburg Address was a reference to 7/4/1776 and
Genasis 16:16 where Abram/Abraham was 4 score and 6 years old when the slave woman Hagar gave birth to his first-born son Ishmael. (“Is he male?”) And is
Gen 16:16 and Lincoln being the 16th president and resident at
1600 Pennsylvania Ave a coincidence or proof of GOD and destiny?!
On Tuesday April 11, Lincoln gave a speech from the 2nd Floor
White House window that was very business-like and forward-thinking (like the
Emancipation Proclamation). It was coincidentally the 2nd night of
Passover for Jews as well as Holy Week for Christians. April 14, 1865 was Good Friday and the 5th night of Passover. Lincoln and his wife Mary had announced they were going to the theater that night. And even though Gen. Grant and his wife couldn't join them (and several others declined their invitation), finally Major Rathbone and his wife accompanied them to John
Ford's Theater which had originally been a (John the) Baptist church. They got there in the 2nd Act and coincidentally, it was now the Jewish
Sabbath - just like the alignment on the original Good Friday April 7, 30 AD / 7.4.783 AUC / 14-15 Nisan 3790 HC.
John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the Presidential Booth (President’s Box). Then in his wrath using a large knife, slashed Maj. Rathbone in his arm to the bone. Lincoln didn’t die on Good Friday. He was carried across the street to the Petersen House where wife Mary wept uncontrollably through the night. The ‘Great Emancipator’ died the following morning and Andrew Johnson was sworn-in as the 17th president. (He would serve 4 years.) The next day was Easter Sunday and the country – mostly Northerners – was in mourning. Pastors and priests compared Jesus and Lincoln in their Easter Sunday sermons.
On Monday April 17, surrender terms began between Rebel Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and Union Gen. Sherman. April 17, 6 BC / 17.4.748 AUC / 3755 HC was the actual birthday of Jesus. President Andrew Johnson originally set aside May 25 – the 40th day (Mary Lincoln spent those 40 days in the White House) - “for special humiliation and prayer in consequence of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln”. But that was coincidentally
Ascension Day, so Johnson changed it to June 1st which coincidentally was the 2nd Day of
Shavuot: the Jewish
Feast of Weeks commemorating the giving of the Law on Mt.Sinai to Moses.
Alot of biblical names in Holy Week 1865: Abraham, Mary, John, John’s son, Peter, Andrew, Joseph. Was this all a HUGE coincidence or was it a HUGE sign from GOD?
There Are No Coincidences – there is synchronism, nonlocal cause-and-effect, design and alignment.
3/29/15 08:30 t 3/30/15 12:47 t 3/31/15 09:45
Synchronism: 3/30/15 12:47 Two men shot (one killed) after storming gate at Ft. Meade – CNN. 3/31/15 07:01 “Manhunt for escaped ‘armed and dangerous’ suspect in Northern Virginia near Washington DC.” – ABC, GMA
You live in Alberta? I AM a liberal democrat like Jesus son of Joseph was.
