Christ
in the Passover
Welcome!
Months ago, before our world was turned upside down with this virus, we had
planned to do a Passover Seder as a church together. We had chosen today as the
date to do this, as it is fitting with our celebration of Palm Sunday today and
Easter one week away.
Well,
the world has changed, and although it is easy enough for us to partake of
communion together even though we are physically separated (as we did last
week), I felt that it would be completely inappropriate to ask you to hunt
around town for the various elements of the Passover ceremony and meal so that
we could do something similar to celebrate a Passover Seder.
But I
really didn’t want to drop the topic altogether, so today’s message will be a
little different from normal as we talk about the elements of a Passover
ceremony, looking at the original experience as described in Exodus as well as
the modern ceremony. Most importantly, we will look at how both the ancient and
modern expressions of Passover point remarkably to Jesus Christ. That the
modern Passover points to Christ is quite remarkable, even miraculous, because
it is the result of modifications and adjustments made by people who professed not
to believe in Christ! How has this happened? Why has this happened? I
believe it is because God still loves the Jewish people and the Holy Spirit
continues to draw them, to whisper to them, and although it may be possible to
reject Him, it is impossible to truly run away from Him (a lesson that Adam and
Eve learned in the Garden).
The
original Passover was the culmination of God’s confrontation through Moses
against the Egyptians, who had made the Israelites their slaves. Again and
again, God had inflicted devastating plagues on the Egyptians, plagues so
impactful that the very way of life for the Egyptians had to change. The water
of the Nile turned to blood, killing the fish. There was a plague of frogs, and
then gnats, and then flies. I bet there was a shortage of face masks and other
personal protective equipment. Then the Egyptians’ livestock died. Without
doubt there was a run on meat in the local market. There was a plague of boils,
and then hail, and then locusts, the last two of which destroyed the growing
grains. Yes, there was probably a shortage of bread in the local market! The
locusts destroyed all the plants, some of which were used, well, after doing
your personal business, so yes, there was a run on “toilet paper.” And then
there was the plague of darkness. Nine plagues in all. In each case, Pharaoh
said he would let the people go once the plague was stopped, but then he went
back on his word.
And
then the tenth plague, the worst of all: the death of every firstborn son. Many
of the earlier plagues did not affect the Israelites at all, and there was
nothing for them to do but watch what happened to the Egyptians. But the tenth
plague was different. Here the Israelites were to do something, described in
Exodus 12:
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month
of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel
that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his
family, one for each household. If any household
is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor,
having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine
the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. –
Exodus 12:1-4
The animals you choose must be year-old males
without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when
all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides
and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. –
Exodus 12:5-7
That same night they are to eat the meat
roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made
without yeast. Do not eat the meat raw or
boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal
organs. Do not leave any of it till
morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your
belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it
is the Lord’s Passover. – Exodus 12:8-11
On that same night I will pass through Egypt
and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I
will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 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. –
Exodus 12:12-13
Christ is our Passover lamb. Note that the
man of the house would select the animal for his household. Understand that God
the Father similarly selected His Son, Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away
the sins of the world, for us. Note that this means that we are of the house,
the family, of God the Father. The lamb that the man selected needed to be
perfect, without defect, and in the prime of its life. In a similar way, Jesus
was perfect, without sin, and in the prime of His life. The lamb was to be
slaughtered at twilight; so was Jesus, up on the cross. The blood of the lamb
was to be spread on a wooden frame that supported a door; Jesus’ blood also
spilled on a wooden frame, and Jesus called Himself the Door, saying, “If
anyone enters by Me, He will be saved.” (John 10) They are to eat the lamb.
Jesus told His followers that they must eat Him: (John 6) “Unless you
eat the flesh of the Son of Man …, you cannot have eternal life within you.”
The Israelites were guilty of sin just like the
Egyptians. The angel of death would bring death to every household that
did not do as prescribed. For every household, someone had to die as the
consequence of their sins. For those who followed the directions, someone did
die, but it was not a member of their own family, but a male lamb. The death
penalty due for the sins of each Israelite family was transferred to the lamb,
and the life and innocence of the lamb were transferred to the family. Because
the family personally applied the blood to their own house, the lamb died, but
the family lived. The angel of death saw
the lamb’s blood on the doorposts and passed over that household, because death
had already come. The angel did not bring death into these houses to strike
them a second time because they were reckoned to be already dead.
All of this points to Christ. We too are guilty
of sin. We too need to die as a consequence of our sins. When we put our faith
in Christ to save us, asking Him to forgive us for our sins, the death penalty
due for our sins is transferred to the Lamb, and the life and innocence of the
Lamb is transferred to us.
Note that the putting blood on your own home was
a radical departure from other practices. Normally sacrifices were made an
altar or temple, and only the ceremonially clean could enter in. God’s great
glory would be present at the altar, apart from the rest of the people. But
here, God was telling them to anoint their own home. God’s presence came
that night, and to those who had faith and did what they were instructed to do,
rather than experiencing judgment, it led to life and freedom. In the same way,
God’s presence (through the Holy Spirit) comes to us when in faith we put our
hope in Christ. He comes to us individually, wherever we are.
When I think about God the Father choosing the
Lamb for us, the members of His household, His family, I think of the following
verses from I Peter:
For you know that it was not with perishable
things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of
life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without
blemish or defect. He was chosen before the
creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your
sake. Through Him you believe in God, who
raised Him from the dead and glorified Him, and so your faith and
hope are in God. – I Peter 1:18-21
Two additional commands about the Passover lamb
can be found in Exodus 12:
Take a
bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the
blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. – Exodus 12:22a
Do not break any of the bones. – Exodus 12:46b
I mention this because in the crucifixion account
we find reference to both of these things fulfilled in Christ. From John 19:
Later, knowing that everything had now been
finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar
of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge
on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When He had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, He bowed
His head and gave up His spirit. – John 19:28-30
Not to over-analyze the picture, but John’s
mention of hyssop is significant. Undoubtedly he was thinking of the hyssop
used to put the blood of the lamb up on the doorpost at Passover. The details
are different, but the hyssop and the lamb are there. John goes on:
Now it was the day of Preparation, and the
next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want
the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to
have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who
had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that He was already dead, they
did not break His legs. – John 19:31-33
Breaking the bones was a way to speed up death.
But Jesus’ death was not sped up in this way. He tasted every last drop of
agony without this “mercy.” And in so doing, He fulfilled the requirements of
the Passover lamb that none of its bones should be broken. John even mentions
this connection explicitly a few verses later.
Now the Passover also included a requirement to
only eat bread without leaven:
This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to
come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting
ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made
without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for
whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh
must be cut off from Israel. On the first day
hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at
all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you
may do. – Exodus 12:14-16
Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on
this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this
day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In
the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening
of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone,
whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must
be cut off from the community of Israel. Eat
nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened
bread.” – Exodus 12:17-20
What
did the unleavened bread symbolize? For that first Passover, we are told later
in Exodus 12:
The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and
leave the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!” So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and
carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. –
Exodus 12:33-34
How
does not having leaven point to Christ? Leaven has multiple symbolic meanings
in Scripture, so we need to be careful. But Paul writes about this very
question in I Corinthians:
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. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened
with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and
truth. – I Corinthians 5:6-8
Leaven,
or yeast, here, is a symbol of our past life, our sinful life that we lived
before coming to Christ. Just as the Israelites were to leave in haste, not
trying to bring the (few) comforts of their old world with them, so we too are
to leave our old ways of thinking behind. We are new creations, reckoned dead
through the sacrifice of our Lamb, but now alive in Him. As new creations, we
are to follow Him immediately out of our “Egypt”. Unleavened bread is
not pretty. If you tell your neighbors you make your own unleavened bread from
scratch, they won’t be impressed. But it provides sustenance. It’s not puffed
up with empty air, leaving you hungry. It fills you up. As we follow Christ out
of our own Egypts, there is no time for worrying about the things the world
worries about, for trying to impress others, for deluxe creature comforts.
Instead we are to follow him sincerely and truthfully, offering up our entire
lives to Him.
Not
just the unleavened bread but also the Passover lamb was to be eaten every
year:
Obey these instructions as a lasting
ordinance for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as He promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean
to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the
Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed
over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when He struck
down the Egyptians.’” – Exodus 12:24-27a
This
was the Old Testament Passover. At the time of Jesus, the Passover was not very
different from this. It was a huge event. People from all over came to
Jerusalem to have their chosen lamb sacrificed at the Temple. Several hundred
thousand lambs would be sacrificed on a single day from noon to 3pm. Hundreds
of priests (or more) would be involved with sacrifice after sacrifice after
sacrifice. The people would take the lamb home and roast it. That evening,
families and friends would gather together and eat the lamb with the bitter
herbs and the unleavened bread. At least a little blood would be smeared on the
doorframes.
After
Christ died and rose from the dead, faith in Christ began to spread like, well,
the coronavirus. The new believers were initially mostly Jewish believers, but
as time went on, more and more non-Jewish believers joined them until they
significantly outnumbered the Jewish believers. We have reason to believe that
the early Jewish believers continued to practice the traditional Passover, no
doubt seeing how it, like essentially all the Old Testament, foreshadowed
Christ. Probably some of the non-Jewish believers also practiced the Passover,
especially those who followed the Jewish practices even before they were saved.
Probably many others did not.
And
then AD 70 happened. A few days before Passover that year, the Romans laid
siege to Jerusalem. Nobody could come in or out, and the city was already
filled with Jews who had come for the Passover. In September, Jerusalem fell,
and the Temple was defiled and destroyed. The lampstand, the table for the
showbread, gold trumpets, the fire pans used for removing ashes from the altar,
and other items were taken out of the Holy of Holies and paraded through the
streets. These events were commemorated in the Arch of Titus, which was built
11 years later and still stands in Rome to this day. Probably hundreds of thousands
of Jews died in the siege and its aftermath (Josephus says the dead numbered
1.1 million), and many survivors were enslaved.
This
dramatic and unthinkable event shook Judaism to its core. The Temple had been
at the heart of Jewish practice, as the sacrificial system was the core of
everything, including Passover. Christian believers grieved the loss along with
the Jews, but as they saw Christ as the fulfillment of the Law, some wondered
if Jesus had even predicted this when He wept for Jerusalem.
Non-Christian
Jews were forced to come up with alternatives to the sacrificial
Jerusalem-centered practices that had occurred before. Passover, in particular,
could no longer be a communal event in which large crowds gathered, but instead
would need to be practiced in its entirety in individual homes. Again, I cannot
help but seeing the parallel to us in our homes today. A key difference,
however, is that we can continue to worship Christ as we always have.
As
Christianity continued to spread, non-Christian Jews’ hatred of the Christians
only increased. They wanted their modified practice of Passover to point to the
Exodus, and the Exodus only. Practices
began in which unleavened bread and bitter herbs were used, but the lamb was
not. They believed that the Temple would be rebuilt again (as it had been
rebuilt before), and that the Jews would once again be in charge of Jerusalem. The
sacrifice of lambs would have to wait until then.
Over
the years, the practices of the Passover were written down. An outline of the
components of a Passover service that matches the modern practice can be found
in the Mishnah, a document written by rabbis in the 1st and 2nd
centuries AD. A more detailed service can be found in the Haggadah, a book that
is at least 1000 years old. The word “Haggadah” means “retelling.”
In my
remaining time, I want to highlight a few elements of the Haggadah ceremony.
The
first involves matzah, the unleavened bread. Three matzot (the
plural of matzah) are placed in a special bag called the matzah tosh.
The bag has compartments for each of the three matzot. The ancient
rabbis taught that the matzah tosh was symbolic of three in one. How
interesting! But the rabbis couldn’t agree as to what the three-in-one was. Some
of them taught that it referred to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Others said that it referred to the division of tribes in the priests, the Levites,
and the rest of the people. But I believe that the matzah tosh referred
to the three Persons in the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
One of
the reasons I believe this has to do with how these matzot are used. Near
the start of the ceremony, the middle matzah is taken out, broken in half,
wrapped in cloth, and hidden from view. Much of the ceremony takes place, and
then dinner is served. After dinner, the leader of the ceremony feigns surprise
that the half of the middle matzah is missing. He explains to the children
present that the ceremony cannot go on until the missing half is found. The
children hunt for it and the one who finds it is rewarded. This middle matzah,
called the afikomen, is then broken and distributed among the
participants who all eat it together.
Does
this remind you of anything? Three matzot. Three Persons in the Trinity,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The middle matzah is broken. So is the
Son. The middle matzah is wrapped in cloth. So is the Son. The middle
matzah is hidden away. So is the Son. But then the middle matzah appears, and
there is great celebration. So does the Son, and yes, there is a great
celebration. The middle matzah is broken and distributed among those who eat it
together. Jesus broke bread and said to the disciples, “This is My body, broken
for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
The
parallels are uncanny. Even the name afikomen means “The Coming One,” a
clear reference to the Messiah. Because of this, some Jews have suggested that
Christians have corrupted this practice with their own interpretations of it.
But it turns out the afikomen actually precedes Christ. The Rabbi
Hillel (who was active from 30 BC to 10 AD) wrote about the afikomen,
saying that it represented the speed to which salvation came to Israel in
Egypt. And Hillel’s contemporaries around the time of Christ wrote that the afikomen
was indeed symbolic of the Messiah, who remained hidden from view.
Modern
Haggadahs are filled with explanations for various elements of the Passover
ceremony, but they are completely silent about the afikomen. This
suggests that the writers knew of the clear Messianic symbology but wanted to
avoid bringing it up. In a similar way, Isaiah 53 (the chapter that most
forcefully speaks of the suffering messiah) is absent from the annual cycle of
scripture readings in synagogues.
A third
surprise involves the Passover plate. The plate includes karpas (a green
that is dipped in saltwater or vinegar), the three matzot (unleavened
bread), maror (a very bitter root), charoset (a honeyed apple-nut
mixture), beitzah (a roasted egg that is not consumed), and zeroa (a
lamb shankbone, also unconsumed).
The
dipped karpas is said to represent the tears that were shed in Egypt. I
would say it also represents the hyssop used to spread the blood on the
doorposts, and it also represents Christ being offered the vinegar with hyssop.
The maror
is meant to remind those who partake of it of the extreme bitterness of
slavery, and the charoset is said to represent the mortar used to build
bricks for the Egyptians. For the Christian I would say that they also
represent the bondage of a person to sin and to Satan prior to coming to faith
in Christ.
The
inclusion of the beitzah is not clear; half a dozen reasons have been
proposed. Some have even suggested that it is a pagan influence (a symbol of
fertility, perhaps not unlike Easter eggs? I don’t want to ruffle any feathers,
pun intended.)
But
the item I want to focus on is the zeroa. The meaning of the lamb
shankbone is pretty clear – it is a symbol for the Passover lamb. But what
about the name? The name comes from Isaiah 53: “Who has received our report?
And to whom has the zeroa of the Lord been revealed? He grew up like a tender
shoot…” The zeroa of the Lord is none other than the suffering messiah of
Isaiah 53. Verse 5 says of Him, “But He was pierced for our transgressions, He
was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on
Him, and by His wounds we are healed.”
This
coming week we should solemnly remember Christ’s sacrifice for us. The Passover
ceremony both ancient and modern points clearly to Christ as the fulfillment of
the Passover lamb, without blemish, chosen by God to die so that we could live.
I want
to close by simply reading Luke’s account of the Last Supper.
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb
had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent
Peter and John, saying, “Go and make
preparations for us to eat the Passover.” “Where do You
want us to prepare for it?” they asked. – Luke 22:7-9
He replied, “As you
enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the
house that he enters, and say to
the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may
eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show
you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.” They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they
prepared the Passover. – Luke 22:10-13
When the hour came, Jesus and His apostles reclined at the
table. And He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I
suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again
until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” After
taking the cup, He gave thanks and said, “Take this
and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not
drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” – Luke
22:14-18
And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to
them, saying, “This is My body given for
you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same
way, after the supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured
out for you. – Luke 22:19-20
No comments:
Post a Comment