The Passover
Download MP3The scripture reading is from Luke 22 tonight. Now the feast of unleavened bread drew near, which is called the Passover. And the chief priest and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death, for they feared the people. Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was the number of the 12. He went away and conferred with the chief priest and officers how he might betray him to them.
Speaker 1:And they were glad, and he agreed to give him money. So he consented and sought an opportunity to to betray him to them in the absence of a crowd. Then came the day of unleavened bread, on which the passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it. They said to him, where will you have us prepare it?
Speaker 1:He said to them, behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters, and tell the master of the house, the teacher says to you, where is the guest room? Where I may eat the passover with my disciples. And he will show you a large upper room furnished. Prepare it there.
Speaker 1:And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the passover. And when the hour came, he reclined at table and the apostles with him. And he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of god. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, take this and divide it among yourselves.
Speaker 1:For I tell you that from now on, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of god comes. And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And likewise, the cup after they had eaten, saying, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table.
Speaker 1:For the son of man goes at it as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed. And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this. The word of the lord.
Joel Brooks:Thanks be to god. Pray with me. Lord, we ask that you would honor the reading of your word, that you would use it to pierce our hearts, to expose sin, to heal us. Now Lord, we pray that you would speak to us words of life. We do not believe that you are a distant God, but you are a God who wants to have relationship with us, even at great personal cost.
Joel Brooks:The death of Your son. You have purchased us. Now, through Your Spirit, we can be called children of God. May your children listen tonight. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Joel Brooks:But, lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. I realized that it might be a little confusing as to where we are in Luke right now. Last week, I jumped ahead to the end of Luke and looked at the Ascension because it was Ascension Sunday, and you just have to do that on Ascension Sunday.
Joel Brooks:And now we're going back to where we left off, and we're starting, picking up in Luke 22, where we're gonna look at the betrayal of Jesus, and his last meal. Also to let you know that in the coming weeks, we're gonna be having our theological coffee houses during the summer, and one of those is going to deal with the Lord's supper and baptism. Actually, that's gonna be our first one, and it's just gonna be in 2 or 3 weeks. We're gonna do them at urban standard this year on Friday nights. And, and so we're gonna have a time ahead for a more exhaustive teaching on the lord's supper in which I'll in baptism, which I'll probably teach for an hour, and you can ask questions for an hour, then you could just hang out.
Joel Brooks:But tonight, we're gonna look mostly at Luke and 22 here and this last supper of Jesus. Now I don't know about you, but in my life, I have met many people named Peter, John, Andrew, Matthew, Bartholomew, pretty much all the names of the apostles, but I have never met anybody named Judas, Just like I've never met anybody named Jezebel. There's there's certain names that are spoiled in the Bible that have this forever stain to it. I mean, seriously, if you ever met somebody and their name was Judas, you would keep an eye on them. You you would just always view them with with suspicious eyes.
Joel Brooks:Yet, Judas here was one of Jesus's closest friends. He was one of that inner circle. He was one of the the 12. And we know from Mark's account of this last supper that Judas actually had one of the seats of honor. He was sitting next to Jesus during this time, reclining next to Him.
Joel Brooks:During during a Passover meal, you wouldn't sit down on a seat, but you would actually sit and you would recline. And so you would be very close to the person that you were literally reclining against. And we know that John is the one who was leaning against the breast of Jesus. So he was on one side. That means Jesus was leaning on the breast of Judas during this last meal.
Joel Brooks:So close that he can dip his bread in the same cup. It's a very intimate way of eating here, and and and this shows how much Jesus loved Judas. But we all know that during this meal, Judas's heart has already been set on betraying Jesus. It actually says that Satan entered, not just a demon, it says Satan entered Judas. And he's looking for an opportune time to betray Him.
Joel Brooks:And it's important for us to look at this and and think that, although this is what I would consider the worst sin ever, the betrayal of Jesus. This is absolutely in God's control. He's orchestrating everything at this point. He knows what's in Judas' heart. But he is orchestrating it, and he's gonna use it for his glorious purpose.
Joel Brooks:And this needs to be said because I think we could go through life, and there's times we could be overwhelmed when, when something difficult comes our way or something evil happens to us. And we we think, okay, god. We know you created the heavens and the universe, but somehow, this isn't in your control. But if even the most evil act in history is absolutely in the control of Jesus, we know that we can trust him with no matter what happens to us. And we're gonna look more closely at this betrayal in a couple of weeks.
Joel Brooks:For now, all we need to know is that this betrayal was in Judas's heart and that Jesus is aware of it. And this is likely the reason you have all this cloak and dagger stuff that happens right afterwards. I don't know about you, but I love spy movies. This kind of reminds me a little bit of a spy movie here. Jesus, he gets 2 of his disciples, and he says, I want you to go this way.
Joel Brooks:You're gonna find a man. A man's gonna be carrying a pitcher. Go to that follow that man into whatever house he goes into. When you enter into the house, go to the master of the house and say, the teacher has need of a room. And he's gonna lead you upstairs into a room that's already furnished.
Joel Brooks:Go there and make preparations. I mean, that's very cloak and dagger. And what's happening here is Jesus is keeping the location of where he's gonna have this last meal very quiet. Not even all the disciples know. It's just gonna be Peter and John because he doesn't wanna give Judas that opportune moment to betray him yet.
Joel Brooks:You know, this would have been the first time Jesus got away from the crowds. This would have been the perfect opportunity to betray Him, but Jesus says, not yet. I have one last thing to do. It's extremely important that I do this. So we're gonna work on my timetable.
Joel Brooks:This meal is very important to Jesus. Look at verse 15. It says, and He said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Literally, he says, with desire, I have desired to eat this Passover. This is something he's been looking forward to for a long time.
Joel Brooks:This will be his final meal with his closest friends before he suffers. Now, up to this point in Jesus's life, He has not really explained the meaning of his suffering. He he's, you know, obviously, he's said multiple times, hey, I'm gonna die. On the 3rd day, I'm gonna rise again. But he hasn't explained what that would mean.
Joel Brooks:The closest we get is he says, I'm gonna die, and it's gonna somehow be a ransom for many. But here, He saves His very last night before He is to suffer, in this very intimate setting, at this one meal, He says, this is the time. This is a time where I'm gonna explain the meaning of my death. And I could do it best in the context of this Passover meal. Jesus is gonna take this Passover meal, and He's gonna transform it into a different meal that we know as the Lord's supper.
Joel Brooks:A meal that we have celebrated now for almost 2 1000 years, which is remarkable. You you think about it. I mean, empires come and gone, nations come and go, yet Christians for 2000 years have consistently been gathering together, breaking bread, and drinking wine. They've been partaking of this one meal. And we're we will do so until the Lord returns.
Joel Brooks:And now, to understand this meal, we've got to take a step back into Exodus, and we've got to look at what exactly is the Passover. So if you want to flip back in your Bibles, the second book of the Bible, Exodus chapter 12. Going with the Exodus chapter 12, I want to take a look at the Passover. Now on the Passover, this is, this is the eve before God would deliver the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. And they would begin their trek going to the promised land.
Joel Brooks:And this is the last night. And on this last night, they were and they were to kill this lamb, and they were to eat this lamb, and they were to put the blood of this lamb on the outside of their door. And they were also to eat some unleavened bread. And later that night, God was gonna send the destroyer, and we don't really know who this destroyer is, but he's gonna send this destroyer to Egypt. And he was gonna kill the firstborn of every family, Hebrew or Egyptian.
Joel Brooks:He didn't discriminate. The only thing he he would because all were guilty. Only if you had blood outside your door would you be spared. But if you were a Hebrew and you didn't put it outside your door, you would not be spared. And so every household in all of Egypt would either have that night a dead lamb or a dead son.
Joel Brooks:Every household. Now let's look at 6 particulars about this meal. Just wanna go through 6 quick things that will hopefully give us some insight into this Last Supper of Jesus. First comes in verse 5 of chapter 12. Says, Your lamb shall be without blemish, without blemish.
Joel Brooks:This sacrifice had to be perfect, absolutely perfect. Second, all the people who did not participate in this meal would not be spared from the destroyer, and then it was what we just mentioned. All are guilty. Look at verse 12 and 13. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments.
Joel Brooks:I am the Lord. 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 no plague will befall you, to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. God does not say, when when I get to your house, and I see all the good works you have done, and how you've worked really hard, I'm gonna pass over you. Or or when I go and I see your your spiritual heritage, how you grew up in church, you know, you've been a member your whole life. I'm gonna pass over you.
Joel Brooks:He says, no. You're all guilty. One thing is gonna keep me from killing you, and that's if I see blood on your door. The blood of the lamb. 3rd thing about this meal is that the lamb was to be eaten whole.
Joel Brooks:Look at verse 9. Says, do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. Now a few nights ago, we're having dinner, and Natalie says to her mama, mama, is this dead chicken we're eating? Lauren goes, well, do you want live chicken? And she goes, no.
Joel Brooks:But she had to ask if it was chicken because it was a casserole. You know, I mean, it's just a casserole. Who knows what's in a casserole? And it didn't have, you know, the the feathers. It didn't have the feet, didn't have the head.
Joel Brooks:It didn't look anything like a chicken, and so she had to ask that. But you do not get that in this meal at all. When you sacrifice a lamb, you know it's a lamb. You're not gonna make it into a stew. You're not gonna make it into a casserole.
Joel Brooks:You're not gonna do anything. There will be a lamb with its head, its eyes, its legs, its tail right there on the table in front of you. You you could not eat this without thinking, sacrifice. Something had to die, so that I might live. It was an uncomfortable reminder of that.
Joel Brooks:4th, this was a community meal. Look at verse 34. Said, tell all the congregation of Israel that on 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbors shall take according to the number of persons, according to what each can eat. You shall make your your count for the lamb.
Joel Brooks:1 was not to eat this meal by themselves. They didn't go into their their home and just get by themselves and have a Passover meal. You had to have it in community. 5th, this meal was not for everyone. Look at verse 43, and and these verses have been misunderstood in the past.
Joel Brooks:Says, And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, this is the statute of the Passover. No foreigner shall eat of it, but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised him. No foreigner or hired servant may eat of it. It shall be eaten in 1 house. You shall not take any of the flesh outside of the house, and you shall not break any of its bones.
Joel Brooks:All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. If a stranger shall surgeon sojourn with you and keep and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it. He shall be as a native of the land, but no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. And what's happening here, god's putting restrictions on this meal to keep those who do not share the faith from partaking in it.
Joel Brooks:And what he's saying is, it's not enough that you just happen to all be under the same house. Under the same roof does not qualify you for this meal. And so, if you have a hired slave, which means probably some person who is who is not a Hebrew, say, well, they can partake of the meal if they're circumcised, meaning, if they decide to become part of the covenant family of God, if they believe His promises, they can partake of this meal. But not everybody can partake. Just those of the covenant family.
Joel Brooks:6th, this meal was a memorial meal. Go back to verse 14. Says, this day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout generations, as a statute forever. You shall keep it as a feast. God knew that as great as the Exodus was going to be, as great as the Passover was going to be, people would forget.
Joel Brooks:He knew it's in our nature. It's what we do. We forget. And so he wanted a meal every year as a way for us to remember that, so we would not forget that great deliverance. And God, he sees this this one meal, this one celebration as so essential, he says that if you don't keep it every year, and even if you stray from it the slightest degree, later he says, perhaps if you were to eat unleavened bread or eat leavened bread instead of unleavened bread, may you be cut off from Israel.
Joel Brooks:If you don't keep it or if you stray it from it in the slightest little command, you are cut off from my people. Because he sees this as crucial in keeping and remembering who he is. And so, it's of utmost importance to the Israelites. And so, they kept this meal for over a 1000 years. And here, Jesus, he gets in this upper room with his disciples, and for the first time, He actually explains, this is the true meaning of what you have kept.
Joel Brooks:This meal you have kept for over a 1000 years. Here it is. And you know, God could have delivered the Israelites any way He wanted. I mean, God could have he could have just said, alright, pharaoh, you're dead, you know, and boom, end. Or or pharaoh, you're gonna have a change of heart, and he just wakes up and says, all of you could go free.
Joel Brooks:And and the Exodus would be about the length of a fortune cookie. I mean, it it would just be so small. But instead, he draws us out. Plague after plague after plague. And then he highlights it here, and he's doing this for a sign.
Joel Brooks:Look at verse 13. Said the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over. Most people misread this, and they think the blood is a sign for God. But he says, no.
Joel Brooks:No. This blood is a sign for you. The blood that you will put on the door is a pointer to something or to someone. The the entire story of this Passover and the destroyer coming is pretty extraordinary. And we looked at this a year ago when we went through Exodus, but I mean, picture.
Joel Brooks:You have this destroyer coming, and he's going through the greatest, you know, kingdom there. Nobody can stop him. Just go right through walls. Kill all the firstborn without any hindrance. Except, and God says, unless you put lamb's blood.
Joel Brooks:I mean, he could he could have said anything. He said, you know, hang a wreath outside the door or tie a yellow ribbon or or do something, but he uses blood because it's a sign. In my neighborhood, some of you live in my neighborhood. We have a lot of break ins. We we had a lot more a few years ago.
Joel Brooks:It's getting better, but even last year, our house was broken into. Lauren walked in on the robber, and I I'm certain that if we, you know, put lamb's blood on the outside of the door, it would not have kept the robber away. Locked windows, Lauren, would have. But but but lamb's blood, lamb's blood would not. It doesn't even keep a common thief away.
Joel Brooks:And here, it's keeping the destroyer who could go through this this greatest empire and kill at will. It's a sign. It's a sign pointing to the true lamb of god who would come a 1000 years later. It's a sign pointing to the one that John would point to and say, this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, The one who's gonna lead a greater exodus, who's not gonna just deliver you out of slavery. He's gonna deliver you out of sin and death itself.
Joel Brooks:Now, let's read through Luke's account of this meal. Let's read again in verse 14. So when the hour came, Jesus reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
Joel Brooks:And he took a cup. When he had given thanks, he said, take this and divide it among yourselves, for I tell you that I will that from now on, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, this is my body which is given for you, and do this in remembrance of me. And likewise, the cup, after they had eaten, saying, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But behold, the hand of him who betrays Me is with Me on the table.
Joel Brooks:For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed. What you're seeing here is like all Passover meals, the head of the table gets up and explains the meal. It's how you remember. And so the head of the table would always explain the meal. And so that's Jesus's role here.
Joel Brooks:He's explaining the meal. And I just can't imagine the feelings that he has as he's looking at these things. And it's like, each one of these elements, he's saying, this is this is about me. It's about me, and it's being fulfilled. And then he he he takes the bread, which would have been the bread of affliction.
Joel Brooks:That's what this was called, this unleavened bread. It was the bread of affliction, and it represented all the hard toil and slavery and labor and bitterness that Israel had to endure. And he takes that bread of affliction, he says, this is my body. Mean meaning that all of that affliction that has happened there is going to be embodied in me. My body's gonna be broken for you.
Joel Brooks:And then he takes a cup and he says, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. This would have been one of the cups. There were 3 or 4 cups during a Passover meal at this time. It varied. The 3rd cup here, if you had 4 cups, was, the cup of redemption, in which you would drink of this cup and you would remember the actual Passover when god redeemed his people.
Joel Brooks:And it's at this cup that Jesus holds up and he says, this cup here is my blood. It's the new covenant in my blood. And the only place we have the words new covenant in the old testament is in Jeremiah 31. Says this, behold, days are coming, declares the lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. So not that Passover covenant.
Joel Brooks:My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the lord. I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts. I will be their god, and they shall be my people.
Joel Brooks:And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me. From the least of them to the greatest, declares the lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. And so this is a different covenant. It is a better covenant than they had before. It's better because it's not the blood of a lamb.
Joel Brooks:This is the blood of a perfect sacrifice. The perfect human god sacrifice in Jesus. And now, Jesus, through this sacrifice, he initiates this new covenant that actually deals with the real issue, our hearts. And he gives us a new heart. And he makes us children of god.
Joel Brooks:Now just like this Passover meal, Jesus, he he he then commands us to partake of this new meal. We don't partake in a Passover meal. Jesus takes what was a Passover meal and he turns it into something new that we call the Lord's supper that we have celebrated for 2000 years. And listen to the apostle Paul explain this in 1st Corinthians 11. He says, for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that Jesus, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread.
Joel Brooks: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 also, he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Joel Brooks:And so just as the Israelites needed a meal to remember their deliverance, Jesus says, y'all need a meal to remember your deliverance. You need this new meal. You need to constantly remind yourselves of the gospel. Remembering is of utmost important because what what happens when we're about to take of this, this is what happens if we if we partake of this rightly, in which we remember Jesus. We remember him.
Joel Brooks:And when we remember him, we begin to see him clearly. And worship him, he comes and he communes with us. So this is communion and it begins with remembrance. Without this meal, we would cease to be a worshiping community over time. Because we have this meal often.
Joel Brooks:We actually have it twice a month here at our church. We have it once in this corporate context, and we have it once in our home groups to remind us of the gospel, which is the heart of who we are. Jesus could have chosen any type of memorial for us, but Jesus chose a meal. He chose bread and He chose wine. He chose things that nourish us and things that give us joy.
Joel Brooks:That would be our memorial. We're not gonna do an event. He doesn't say, have a parade once a year. You know, he doesn't say that. He says, have a meal.
Joel Brooks:A meal. Something bread. You you cannot live without food. You have to have food to live. Think of that when you have this meal.
Joel Brooks:Nourish. Nourishment. I give you nourishment. I give you joy. When we come together to take this meal, we we remember not only the new covenant, this better way to God, but we remember the new covenant community.
Joel Brooks:We remember that Christ gave His body to create a body. We remember that. And so, when we partake of this meal, besides just remembering Jesus, we're actually renewing our commitment and our covenant with one another as part of the covenant family of God. We renew that. And so we we remind ourselves as we take of this meal that, you know what?
Joel Brooks:When someone in my church weeps, I will weep with them. When someone rejoices, I will rejoice with them. We remind ourselves of that. We remind ourselves that if somebody if they lose their job or or if they're if they are in need of shelter, or or food, or clothing, that we will gladly give of our own possessions for them. That nothing we have is ours, but it's the communities.
Joel Brooks:We realize that God is radically shaping a new community for us. And he highlights that in this meal in a couple of ways. For starters, I don't know if you've ever picked up on this, but the disciples were not blood family. They weren't all related. Usually, a Passover meal was for family.
Joel Brooks:But here, Jesus gets people away from their families, and he gets them together and says, this is your new eternal family. Right here. Normally, in a Passover meal, everybody had their own cups that they would take from. But here, Jesus says, no. One cup.
Joel Brooks:Because my blood will unify all of us. And so we remember this covenant community when we come here and partake of this meal. We remember the new relationship we have with God and the new relationships we have with one another. Paul explains it this way in 1st Corinthians 11, another greatly misunderstood verse. It says, let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
Joel Brooks:For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. When Paul says that he is not talking about without rightly discerning the bread, He's not talking about that. He's saying, without rightly discerning the body of Christ, without rightly discerning this new covenant community, you will eat and drink judgment to yourself. And later says, that's why you wait for one another. And in the reformed tradition, the church had been taking the elements and serving the person next to them, and then they would serve the person next to them and they would serve the person next to them as they would wait on one another and remind themselves of this new community.
Joel Brooks:Finally, when we partake of this meal, we don't only remember the past, but we remember the future. Paul says, you know, as we do this, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Jesus says that I'm not gonna drink of this, drink of the fruit of the vine again until the kingdom comes. And so we realize when we partake of this meal that there is a greater meal to come. And so as we remember his faithfulness to us in the past, that enables us to embrace and hold on to his promises for us for the future, and that Jesus will come again for our greater feast.
