Christ's Passover

Sermon given at an Shared 'Agape' Meal on Maundy Thursday 2008

Sharing a meal together this evening acts as a powerful reminder of the last supper that Jesus shared with his disciples on the night that he was betrayed.

The final meal that Jesus shared with his disciples before his arrest was a Passover Meal. Although this is not made explicitly clear in John’s Gospel, is apparent from reading the Synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Apostle Matthew writes “On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?” He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.’” (Matthew 26:17) Luke records “Jesus sent Peter and John saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.” (Luke 21:8)

The Passover meal commemorates the dramatic liberation of the Isarelite’s from slavery in Egypt, as recorded in the book of Exodus. The Israelite’s had been slaves in Egypt for 210 years, when God called Moses to lead the people of Israel out of slavery into the promised land. The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey… So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." Exodus 3:7-10

Pharaoh initially refused to let the Israelite’s go, so God sent plagues on the Egyptians to prove his power. In each of the plagues it was only the Egyptians who were affected. The tenth and final plague was the killing of all first born sons in Egypt.

So that the tenth and final plague which was being sent on the Egyptians would not touch the Israelite’s, each Jewish household was told to take an unblemished, male lamb, slaughter it, and brush the blood from the lamb on the door frames. God instructed Moses that “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.” What saved the Jews was the blood of the lamb that had been slaughtered.

Every Passover, Jewish families celebrate a special meal to recall how God delivered his people. This Seder meal, as it is known, consists of prescribed foods, each of which symbolizes some aspect of the ordeal undergone by the Jews during their enslavement in Egypt. It is this meal that Jesus shared with his disciples at the last supper.

• The Passover Lamb which was slaughtered on the Feast of Unleavened Bread which was the day before the Passover. This was extremely significant to commemorate God’s salvation from death by the lamb’s blood smeared on their doorposts. The lamb was the Hebrews last meal they ate before leaving Egypt.
• Unleavened bread was eaten to remind them of the haste with which their ancestors left Egypt.
• They had salt water to remind them of the many tears shed during the years of slavery in Egypt and also to remind them of the Red Sea which their ancestors miraculously cross over.
• They ate bitter herbs to remind them of the bitterness of slavery and the hyssop used to sprinkle the blood of the lamb on the door posts.
• A sweet mixture of apples, dates, pomegranate, nuts with cinnamon sticks which reminded them of the clay and straw their ancestors used to make bricks while in slavery.
• four cups of wine during the course of the meal to remind them of the four promises of God’s deliverance, and to symbolise liberty and joy.

At the Passover, Jesus would have celebrated with His disciples the deliverance and the salvation of God, they would have praised God and sang hymns together, but this meal was also to take on a new and even greater meaning.

Paul records what happened in his 1st letter to the Corinthians. The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

On the night when the Jews remembered how God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, we remember how Jesus through his death on the cross rescued us from the slavery of sin and death.
On the night when the Jews recalled how they were saved by the blood of lambs daubed on the door frames, so we remember how through the blood of The Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, we too have been saved. In John 1:29 we read, Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” When Jesus died upon the cross for our sins, he became our Passover Lamb, the one whose death saves us all. The apostle Paul writes, “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” (1 Corinthians 5:7) As followers of Jesus Christ, we have been washed clean by the blood of the lamb. It is the blood shed by Christ that saves us from sin and death.

At the Last Supper Jesus gave us two symbols to remind us of his great sacrifice, bread and wine. Bread to remind us of his body broken for us on the cross, and wine to remind us of the blood he shed for us. John 3:14-17 says, “. . . Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up [on the cross], that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

In the Last Supper of Jesus, Jesus brought the focus of the Passover to Himself, to recall his great sacrifice. Jesus became the great sacrifice, the spotless unblemished Lamb of God, to take away our sin, and by doing so enables us to have a new relationship with God. We remember this every time we share together the Lord’s Supper.

So as we break bread and wine together this evening, we remember our Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ, who was died on the cross for our sake. "Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen" (Hebrews 13:20 & 21).