I've been pondering Passover these past few days and though a bit lengthier than usual, I wanted to share some of the history and background taken in part, from a book Take a Closer Look by Jonathan Rogers. Better yet, I encourage you to read the story directly from Exodus 12. Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 are also especially insightful in light of the Passover story.
Passover memorializes the night in Egypt when God’s angel brought death to all the firstborn Egyptian males, but left the firstborn Hebrew males untouched. In obedience and faith,the Hebrews smeared the blood of lambs on their door posts and the angel of death passed over them. They were delivered quite literally by the blood of the lamb.
Every year on the anniversary of this event, the Jews celebrate the Passover again. They eat lamb to remember the lamb/blood that saved them. They eat bitter herbs to remember their bitter and difficult times of slavery in Egypt, and they eat flat bread made without yeast to remember the hurry of that first Passover night when they didn’t even have time to let their bread rise before leaving on their journey to the promised land. The meal reminds them each year of how God freed them in the past and how He would free them again in the future.
It is not hard to see why Passover is so important to the Jews. And it shouldn’t be surprising to see that so many important events in Jesus’ life and ministry occurred at Passover.
Jesus’ last Passover is perhaps the most important Passover of all. He celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples the evening before he was crucified. He let his disciples know that the end of his life was near. He said “I will never eat of this Passover again until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.” The disciples had no way of knowing that Jesus’ words would be fulfilled in less than 24 hours, and that Jesus would die just as he said.
All of those slaughtered lambs of Passovers gone by and of the whole sacrificial system, were only a foreshadowing of the final once and for all sacrifice that would be taking place on the hill of Calvary (Golgotha). This blood sacrifice would be different. On that last Passover the sacrifice would actually meet all of God’s requirements, because the lamb without blemish for the final sacrifice was the sinless God-Man Jesus. This once and for all blood sacrifice would put an end forever to the need for a blood sacrifice for the sins of the world. After 14 hundred or so Passovers, that old covenant came to an end when Jesus' death accomplished what he had come to earth to do, and He did it once and for all. That is why Jesus said “It is finished.”
Jesus ended the sacrificial part of Passover, but not the Passover celebration, instead He replaced the sacrifice by instituting a new covenant. He instituted the Lords’ Supper using the bread and the cup to symbolize his death. (The broken bread representing His body, and the wine representing the shed blood on our behalf) He told us that whenever we eat the bread and drink the wine, that we remember His sacrificial death on our behalf.
Jesus did not look forward to His death. He knew the agony He was going to face. He knew that He would take on himself all of the sins of the world and that for a time, these sins would separate Him from His close connection to the Father. He still desired to finish the work He had come to do, because He knew that His dying was the only remedy and solution for our sins.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
1 Corinthians 5:7
Can you see now how Jesus is our Passover? It was the shed blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus that we believe in, that frees us from sin and death- just as the blood applied to the door post in Moses day saved their lives and freed them from bondage. Because Christ is MY Passover,and because I have applied by faith belief in His Son who died a bloody death in my place, I too have been spared and have "gone free". And for that incredible gift that cost me nothing and cost Jesus everything, I am and will forever be grateful.
For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him would be saved. John 3:17
Until Next Time,
Peggy
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