For 1500 years the nation of Israel had been celebrating the Passover. It re-presented their origins and united them as God’s Chosen People. It established and strengthened their national identity. But then one evening almost 2000 years ago a new kind of Passover was celebrated, a new meal to unite the New Israel, replacing and fulfilling and transforming the Jewish Passover.
Luke 22 19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
People have been asking me, how come it appears that Jesus celebrated the Passover on one day, and yet it was the following day that He was crucified at just the same time as the Passover Lambs were being sacrificed? Did different Sects of the Jews celebrate the Passover on different days? I am not so sure about that. I think that the Last Supper was probably not a Passover meal but instead Jesus was celebrating a chabbura, a fellowship meal with His disciples. I don’t believe it matters. In 1 Corinthians 5:7 Paul tells us this.
For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
The death of Jesus Christ on the Cross was the turning point in history. The Last Supper was in fact the First Supper under the New Covenant. It was the Lord’s Supper set apart by Jesus Himself to celebrate Jesus our Passover Lamb. For Israelites the Passover reminded them of three great blessings of The Exodus, and so the Lord’s Supper reminds Christians of three great blessings of our salvation.
ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY
Exodus 12 17 “Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 16 Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover of the LORD your God, because in the month of Abib he brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 Sacrifice as the Passover to the LORD your God an animal from your flock or herd at the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his Name. 3 Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste—so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt.
The Feast of Passover reminded the Jews of their miraculous escape from Egypt. So the Lord’s Supper reminds Christians of our escape from the slavery of sin. The Bible tells us that by nature human beings are trapped in original sin, slaves to their fallen human nature, slaves to the pressures of a fallen world and slaves to the temptations of the devil. We as Christians were also once slaves to sin, trapped in evil, cut off from God and condemned to die. But through Christ our Passover Lamb, God has set us free!
Romans 6 16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. … 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The more we are aware of the slavery from sin which Christ has rescued us from, the more grateful we will be to Christ our Passover Lamb.
ESCAPE FROM DEATH
Exodus 12 12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. 23 When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
Passover does literally mean pass over – the angel of death did pass over the homes of the Israelites. The Passover lamb sacrificed did die in the place of the Israelites. Its blood did save people from death.
And Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed to save us from death. Christ took our place in the death we deserved. “This is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for the many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matt 26:28)
Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned He stood.
Sealed my pardon with His blood. Hallelujah – what a Saviour!
Without Christ, our sin condemns each one of us to death and hell. But in Christ God has spared us from his terrifying judgment. We can so easily take our lives for granted. I don’t think a prisoner reprieved from the death penalty would treat his life so lightly. The more we are aware of the death which we deserved, until Christ rescued us from it, the more grateful we will be to Christ our Passover Lamb.
ESCAPE TO A NEW LIFE
24 “Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’ ”
The Passover Feast is a celebration of the Promised Land which God gave to His chosen people and all the blessings of that new life. And so the Lord’s Supper is a celebration of our New Life in Christ.
Romans 6 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Romans 5 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
For Christians, God indeed makes it possible for us to “reign in life” Jesus said “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) The more we are living out this more abundant “life in all its fullness” the more grateful we will be to Jesus Christ our Passover Lamb who was sacrificed to bring us from death to life.
Escape from slavery. Escape from death. Escape to a new life. Jesus our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed for us!
Exodus 12 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire—head, legs and inner parts. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’s Passover.
12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD—a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat—that is all you may do.
17 “Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”
21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. 23 When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
24 “Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’ ” Then the people bowed down and worshiped. 28 The Israelites did just what the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron.
29 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.
