Passover - The Text Messages

August 21, 2022August 22, 2022

Breaking the Bread of Life

The part of our worship of the Lord Jesus Christ which we know as the communion service usually involves a calling to mind of the suffering of Jesus. It was during the Jewish feast of Passover when Jesus sat with His closest disciples and said:

“With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 22:14-15)

It is fitting to call to mind all that Jesus endured for our sakes in order to usher into our lives the grace and forgiveness of God but when Jesus says to all present “do this in remembrance of me” (v. 19b), I think that He was pointing at the result of His sufferings as well as the price He paid to aquire the result. Look at the entire verse:

“And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” Luke 22:19

Often in our remembrances we quote the Apostle Paul from (1Cor. 11:24):

“…and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

But Jesus’ body was NOT broken in the physical sense. It was typical in crucifixion to break the legs of the crucified to increase the stress on their lungs and ultimately suffocate them. But the Apostle John tells us:

“Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, “Not one of His bones shall be broken.” (John 19:32 -33,36)

What then IS being emphasized by Jesus upon the breaking of the bread? To get to it we must first call to mind a reference that Jesus made of Himself in (John 6:48-51):

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

Jesus is the Bread of Life! At the Passover, Jesus broke ONE loaf of unleavened bread and distributed it piece by piece to those present, symbolizing not His suffering (though His suffering bought the privilege) but a unity. He gives to every one who believes in Him a piece of Himself making every believer a part of His body. What then IS He calling us to remember if not this unity which he brings to believers from every race and tribe, tongue and gender on the basis of His shared body and shed blood!?! What Paul was calling us to in 1 Cor.11 was to remember our connection to each other and to God through the body and blood of Jesus; a fact which is made more evident in his ongoing treatment of the subject in (1 Cor 11:17-34).

While a focus on Christ’s suffering is very important, could it be that the fact that darkness covered the earth for three hours of His suffering on the cross (see Luke 23:44-46) indicate that the Lord’s intention for the Lord’s Supper was to draw our attention to what His suffering produced; namely, a unified, justified, sanctified and one day glorified body of believers having one mission – to make disciples; abiding in one Spirit and living for one purpose and that being to glorify Him? I think so.

I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here, but I do think that we ought to think more carefully on the fellowship of the saints during the Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s intention for this most important act of worship in His church.

April 16, 2022April 16, 2022

The Day In-between

In Israel, it was a day like no other – the celebration of Passover had begun.

The remembrance of God’s mighty deliverance of their ancestors from bondage in Egypt involved a perfect lamb (one per household), unleavened bread, bitter herbs and covering blood. Each element is significant as God instructed Moses in (Exodus 12) and the people of God, who upon the first Passover did as He had instructed concerning the blood of the lamb, were passed over by the death angel who was to execute judgment on the first born of Egypt.

As they observed the solemn occasion, the Lamb which God had prepared for them, already killed, His blood already shed for their deliverance had been placed in a newly hewn grave near the place where He had been crucified. (John 19:38-42) Meanwhile, the celebration continued; but I wonder what those days were like for those who had followed their friend Jesus for a little over 3 years.

In considering the question, I thought about my greatest human loss to this date – the death and burial of my mother. I remember watching (as it were) the world passing by outside the windows of the chapel where we were remembering her life asking myself, “Don’t you know what is happening here? My mom is gone and you’re all carrying on as if it doesn’t matter!” My world had stopped turning. Grief skewed my mind from seeing anything but my loss. I am sure that it was a similar grief which consumed Jesus’ closest followers the day after He had been brutally killed.

The day in-between is only known to we who have the benefit of hindsight – we know how it turned out but His followers, though they had believed in Him, were not so sure that He would rise on the third day as He had promised (Matt. 17:22-23, Mark 10: 33-34, Luke 18:31-33). For them it was their first full day without Him and their grief was profound. You and I have never longed for Him as they who had seen and experienced Him face to face were longing for Him on the day in-between.

April 6, 2020April 4, 2020

Considering Things Which Made Peace with God Possible (part 2)

As Jesus rode into Jerusalem, tears streaming down His cheek He considered both the first Passover as well as the reason He was there that day. I believe that He remembered “the things that made for the peoples peace” when they were in bondage in Egypt – two things then made for their peace:

…God’s hand and sanctified blood

“Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying…” (Exodus 12:1)

“‘… I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12:12–13)

As Jesus rode in to the city of Jerusalem, the place where God said he would place His name (2 Kings 21:4), and the place, which after having been renewed one day in a distant future, God will dwell with men face to face (Rev.21:2); He wept because He saw that just as the people had seemed to have forgotten what God had done to deliver them on the actual day of Passover they also did not recognize the things which God was doing in the moment of Christ’s “triumphal entrance” into the city to make peace with God possible for them.

You see, just as in the first Passover, two things were about to work together again for the peace of God’s chosen people:

…God’s hand and sanctified blood.

When we talk about God’s hand we should understand that we’re speaking of God’s strength – He delivered Israel from Egypt by His strong and mighty arm:

“Therefore say to the children of Israel: ‘I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.” (Exodus 6:6)

He brought the plagues upon Egypt and later in His continuing act of deliverance toward His people He would part the waters of the sea and enable the people to cross the sea bottom as if on dry land.

So, let me ask you something…was there power in the blood of the Passover lamb?

“No.” No there was no power in the blood of the Passover lamb; it’s blood, painted on the lintel and posts of the door (Ex. 12:22) was symbolic of the obedience of those who put it there according to God’s command. There was no power to save in that blood but when God saw the blood, recognizing and honoring both the peoples obedience and His own promise, He spared them from the destroyer (see Exodus 12:23) covering their door Himself. The lamb’s blood was sanctified by God but the power to save was His alone…

…in Jesus Christ both God’s hand and sanctified blood are present.

Jesus is the power of God – today He not only sits at God’s right hand but is in fact God’s right hand man – He is the strength of God and unlike the blood of the Passover lamb Jesus’ blood has power – power to do more than cover one’s sins it cleanses us from sin (1 John 1:7) and removes sins penalty (Ephesians 1:7), power to give one a right standing before God, power to deliver one from death…Jesus’ blood has power. Here’s the thing, the Bible states that “… according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.” (Hebrews 9:22). In order for the power of Jesus’ blood to be effective in our lives to grant us forgiveness and bring us to peace it had to be shed.

Jesus wept not only because He was about to give His life for the peace and deliverance of his people and they neither knew it nor cared; He also wept because He knew the price that all who reject Him will pay.

It was by God’s hand and sanctified blood that His grace and forgiveness is ours today. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God…” (Ephesians 2:8), praise Him for “His indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15)

April 5, 2020April 4, 2020

Considering Things Which Made Peace with God Possible (part 1)

“Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” (Luke 19:41–42)

Amid the shouts of glad hosanna’s and the celebrations of those who had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to keep the Passover there rode into the city a Man on the foal of a donkey. The Man wore no crown and carried no scepter; He did not wave at the crowd as one might do in a parade; even so the people laid palm branches and robes (John 12:13; Luke 19:36) in the path of the animal upon which He rode to honor Him…

…this man was Jesus.

As he rode, the Bible tells us that the whole multitude of them who were following Him shouted “hosanna to the Son of David” and “blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” The things they were saying and the praise they were lifting up were due to the things which they had seen this man do, for in their sight He had most recently raised the dead man Lazarus back to life with a word (John 11:43). In the weeks and months which had led up to that moment, they had seen Him heal the sick and cast out demons; they saw Him feed huge multitudes of people – thousands of men, women and children – with supplies that appeared to be not nearly enough at first. They heard Him teach, they saw Him live, they believed that He was the Son of God and they believed that He was to be their conquering king; the One who would set them free from the captivity of Rome; thus they celebrated the Man on the donkey making a Passover pilgrimage into a parade.

But the Man on the donkey did not celebrate; He did not ride with His hands clenched together over His head as if to say “look, I’m the champion, the winner, the King!” As Jesus rode into Jerusalem at the beginning of the celebration of the most important holy day in Israel – the Passover; He remembered the things which had made for the peoples peace as they struggled under the heavy hand of bondage in Egypt…He was there.

I wonder….did they remember?

Truly they couldn’t possibly have remembered, they were not there; and as is so often the case, with every subsequent generation more and more was lost of the significance of that Holy day until it became nothing more than a day of coming together and partying. Sure the rules of keeping the Passover were observed, no work on that day, the ritual slaying of a year old lamb and the consumption of that meat with bitter herbs and unleavened bread; there was the religious ritual but it was, I expect, not the holy convocation that God intended for it to be since the only one weeping that day was the Man on the donkey colt…

…the man Jesus Christ.

On that occasion, Jesus was coming to establish a different kind of Passover, one for which He was the sacrificial Lamb whose blood was to be shed for the forgiveness of sins not just of the Israelites, though it seems clear that if they had believed in Him at that moment none of us would ever have tasted of His grace (see Romans 11:25), but for you and I as well.

As we come to the week of His passion – the week when He suffered humiliation and death for our sake it would be good to reflect during the next several days over the purpose of His coming and the price He paid for our salvation and worship Him for His sacrifice.

Join me tomorrow for further reflection…