It was less than 24 hours before Jesus would be hanging dead on a Roman cross outside Jerusalem. The city was bustling with people who had traveled great distances to celebrate the annual feast of Passover at the religious capital. Thousands of lambs were being slaughtered at the temple that day, whose blood would connect in the minds of the people regarding atonement for sin, and whose meat would be consumed, in memoriam, of the grievousness of personal evil. The spiritual message was that an innocent life would be extinguished, so that a transgressor could live.
The whole week-long event was the yearly reminder of deliverance that had come to those Israelites being held under Egyptian captivity, many centuries before. It chronicles the events of those who had believed the commandment of God to stain the door posts of one’s house with the blood of such an animal in substitution for one’s own guilt. Those who trusted that this was God’s message delivered through Moses, and that it was a directive to be taken serious, obeyed. And those who doubted the validity, didn’t take any action. When the angel that had power over death arrived, he was required to “pass over” the homes that had responded by faith, and removed the life from one member of each household that refused.
It is interesting that some tell the story as though it is a division between ethnicities, as though God showed favoritism to one race over another. But that isn’t the case. It was not a division between bloodlines and genealogy but a spiritual separation between believers and nonbelievers. Jesus was doing the same thing.
He was gathered with his closest followers in a guest room of a generous family when he identified that his betrayer was part of this circle of intimacy; one of the 12. Because it was not obvious to everyone that Judas Iscariot was a deceiver, they all mourned the possibility of personal villainy. In fact, they would each turn their backs on Jesus before he breathed his last, but their individual repentance would manifest that they were of a different spirit than Judas. Jesus said concerning him: “it would have been good for that man if he had not been born” (Matthew 26:24).
It was in the context of the cross section of pain and purpose that, after Judas had left the scene to pursue his treachery, Jesus instituted what became known as “The Last Supper.” Leonardo da Vinci did his best to portray it but it is the Bible itself where a more accurate picture is provided. And this is where Jesus again clarified his role within the grandiose commemorations that had consumed the city of David. The myriads of slain lambs were a typology of the Christ, the blood on the door posts was a symbol of the obedient faith of the believer, and the lives preserved from the destroyer at the original Passover was a lesson on eternal salvation. The new modus operandi would be one of unmerited favor known as “grace.” And the true Passover lamb that would atone for the sins of humanity is “the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:16). John the Baptist had said it perfectly a few years before: “Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
So when Jesus distributed the unleavened bread and called it his body, and passed the cup and said it was his blood, he brought the imagery of a long line of religious heritage out of obscurity into the light of clarity. His command: eat and drink.
Later that night Jesus was arrested and brought before an illegal court. And within the course of one day on the Jewish calendar, he was brutally slashed, convicted, sentenced, publicly executed, and buried in a hewn stone tomb. But a few days later, Jesus was risen from the grave, ultimately witnessed alive by more than 500 people, and ascended to heaven to take his place of authority. And Scripture predicts that he will return to earth again, not in the mannerism of his first visit, but in power, and great glory. In Revelation, Jesus is pictured as a lamb that was slain, and yet with power to rule the nations; an interesting dichotomy that confounds the intellect yet demands a personal response today.
Passover was, essentially, a spiritual division between believer and non-believer, and is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Ultimately, life and death hung in the balance, and still does. And Jesus’ charge to eat and drink is a call to personalize and internalize. We can choose to reject his message, and cause, and gift of redemption; many did and still do. Or we can accept the verity of Christ, and his plan and call, and respond as he said to. What will you choose?