PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST

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front

Cachet: The cachet on this cover shows an ornate gold cross set with rows of deep red cabochon gems, its scrolled edges and elaborate detailing giving it the look of a piece of ecclesiastical treasure rather than a simple symbol. The Greek letters Alpha and Omega flank the cross on either side in bold gold type, referencing the beginning and the end. A small leopard silhouette sits in the lower left corner beside the series marking "(4) 1.29", identifying this as the fourth cover in an ongoing Easter series. Four stamps fill the top right corner in a block, each illustrated by Johan van Niekerk and depicting a scene from the days following Christ's entry into Jerusalem, referenced directly to their Gospel verses. Two Bethanie postmarks, each built around the same ornate cross design, cancel the stamps.

Info card

THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST Fourth set of the series The four stamps in the fourth set of the Easter Stamp Series on the Passion of Jesus Christ depicts the events following directly on the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. 10c stamp Mark 11:11 Mark relates that Jesus went to the temple immediately after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In the spacious court of the gentiles He came upon large-scale buying and selling. Since only animals and birds without blemish could be offered, and the temple tax could only be paid in certain prescribed coins, a profitable trade had developed from which some religious leaders acquired large personal gains. 20c stamp Mark 11:15 This stamp portrays the scene were Jesus prophetically drove the traders from the temple and overturned the tables of the money-changers. Jesus did this because the temple of the Lord was meant to be a place of worship, not a trading store where people could exercise selfish profiteering under the pretext of piety. 25c stamp Matthew 21:19 Jesus and his disciples spent the night in Bethany. On their return to Jerusalem, the next morning, Jesus noticed a fig tree in leaf at the roadside. Being hungry, He went to see if He could find any figs on it. 40c stamp Matthew 21:19 Jesus found nothing but leaves on the tree. Matthew reports that Jesus then condemned the tree and that it withered away at once. Jesus used the fig tree as a prophetic sign of God's coming judgement of Israel, because Israel had failed to yield the spiritual fruit God expected from his covenant people. This stamp depicts Jesus' act of judgement and the astonishment of the disciples at the withering of the tree. (Text compiled with the kind co-operation of Prof. A. B. du Toit.)

Additional information

This cover is postmarked on 23 March 1984 in Bethanie. It carries the fourth set in Bophuthatswana's Easter stamp series on the Passion of Christ, illustrated by Johan van Niekerk and drawn from the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. The final two stamps in the set depict the withering of the fig tree, an episode Christ used as a prophetic sign of judgement after the tree, though full of leaves, bore no fruit for him to eat.

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