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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
On the first day of the Festival 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.’” So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.
When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, He said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray Me.”
They were very sad and began to say to Him one after the other, “Surely you don’t mean me, Lord?”
Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with Me will betray Me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about Him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”
Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, “Surely you don’t mean me, Rabbi?”
Jesus answered, “You have said so.”
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to His disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is My body.”
Then He took a cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.
Matthew 26:17-30, 1 Corinthians 5:6-7
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
It was Thursday of Holy Week, the last week of Jesus’ human ministry life on earth. This day was particularly significant because it was the day the Passover was being observed in Jerusalem, a day when the city’s population would increase to four or five times its normal size as people would come in from the surrounding communities outside the city for the festival.
To find the advent of the Passover observance, you would need to go back in time to the Israelite captivity and enslavement in Egypt. You’ll recall how God appointed Moses as the leader who would guide the Hebrew people from Egypt when the time came, a time God created by imposing a series of ten curses on Egypt and its ruler, Pharaoh. Each of these curses was worse than the one before and in each instance up to the tenth and final curse, Pharaoh stubbornly refused to release the Israelites.
And so God sent an angel of death to kill all the first born of Egypt but not before ensuring His people would be protected. He instructed each Israelite family to obtain a year-old, male lamb free of defects and slaughter the animal at twilight. They were then to take the blood of the lamb and spread it “on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs”. When the angel of death swept through Egypt, he would pass over all of the places that showed the blood of the lamb...and so it was. At midnight, all of Egypt was struck and the scriptures tell us that there wasn’t a house in the nation that was struck where someone wasn’t left dead (Exodus 12). Only the Israelites were spared because the blood of the lamb brought them pardon and salvation.
From that point on, God commanded His people to formally observe the Passover, making His words a lasting ordinance (Exodus 12), and this is why Jesus, His disciples, and all the other Israelites in Jerusalem on the Thursday of Holy Week were gathering in obedience to the Lord’s demand.
Our scriptures tell us that Jesus was with the twelve when He dropped a bombshell that had to pierce Judas’ heart. For we read where Jesus confesses that He is aware one of His inner circle of followers would betray him. One by one, each of the disciples openly show confusion, afraid it would be one of them. Even Judas, fully knowing it was him, tries to play it cool but he couldn’t run from what he had already done, sold His Master out to the Sanhedrin for a mere thirty silver coins. Jesus makes sure that all the disciples present knew that Judas was the betrayer, the one who would be better off had he not been born.
Immediately after unveiling Judas and his deceit, Jesus turns to two elements of the Passover meal to illustrate how they were to be associated with Him for the duration of mankind’s existence on earth. Every Passover from their forward, His disciples were to do what He did so to remember Him and what He did to bring salvation to all people.
First, Jesus took the bread and after giving thanks, He breaks it, symbolic of how His body would be broken while bearing the sin of all. Whoever would eat of the bread every Passover beyond that night was to bring to mind the abuse and suffering the body of Jesus took before it finally stopped functioning on Calvary’s cross.
Then, Jesus took the cup and gave thanks again before proclaiming the wine within was His blood which symbolized the “covenant...poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”. The “covenant” Jesus refers to here is the new covenant God was making with His people through His Son, a covenant where anyone could gain eternal life whether Jew or Gentile. All one had to do was believe in Jesus, who was later called the “Passover Lamb” in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 5:6-7) because it was His blood that covered the Christian believer so that death would pass over them before they were ushered into eternal life.
Today, holy communion is observed in Christian churches, some more frequently than others but typically happening monthly at a minimum. During the sacrament, Christian believers still stop to remember the Lord Jesus and that last Passover meal, eating the bread and drinking from the cup to remember Him and the new covenant that brings salvation to the Jesus believer.
It all traces back to that Thursday of Holy Week which became the final Passover meal for the blessed Passover Lamb, Jesus. He would breathe His final breath on the cross in less than 24 hours, an event we will look at in tomorrow’s message.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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