Celebrating Passover

Now the day of the Passover celebration arrived, when the Passover lamb was killed and eaten with the unleavened bread. Jesus sent Peter and John ahead to find a place to prepare their Passover meal.

“Where do you want us to go?” they asked.

And he replied, “As soon as you enter Jerusalem, you will see a man walking along carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house he enters, and say to the man who lives there, ‘Our Teacher says for you to show us the guest room where he can eat the Passover meal with his disciples.’ He will take you upstairs to a large room all ready for us. That is the place. Go ahead and prepare the meal there.”

They went off to the city and found everything just as Jesus had said, and prepared the Passover supper.

Then Jesus and the others arrived, and at the proper time all sat down together at the table; and he said, “I have looked forward to this hour with deep longing, anxious to eat this Passover meal with you before my suffering begins. For I tell you now that I won’t eat it again until what it represents has occurred in the Kingdom of God.”

Then he took a glass of wine, and when he had given thanks for it, he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come.”

Then he took a loaf of bread; and when he had thanked God for it, he broke it apart and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, given for you. Eat it in remembrance of me.”

After supper he gave them another glass of wine, saying, “This wine is the token of God’s new agreement to save you—an agreement sealed with the blood I shall pour out to purchase back your souls.      (Luke 22:7-20, Living Bible)

In my Wednesday morning Bible study, we are reading the book, “The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi,” by Kathie Lee Gifford and Rabbi Jason Sobel. We hadn’t planned it this way, but this week, we will learn more about the Jewish traditions surrounding Passover and the significance of Jesus instituting communion.

If you’ve watched “The Ten Commandments” with Charlton Heston, you know that Pharoah released the Israelites from slavery in Egypt after God had sent ten plagues. The final plague was that God would kill the firstborn sons throughout the land unless the blood of a lamb was spread on their doorposts. For two millennia, the Jewish people have celebrated Passover in remembrance of this “passing over” of the angel of death.

And here we are - Jesus celebrating Passover with His disciples. Jesus is the perfect lamb whose blood would soon be shed on the cross to save all mankind.

At the time, the disciples didn’t know what was going on – that happened to them a lot, poor guys. But we know, and we partake of communion in remembrance of our Lord and Savior.

(Today’s picture is from the Amsterdam airport when I was on my way to Kenya for the second time in 2013. Not quite like the bread used at Passover, but bread does seem to be a staple in most cultures.)