I am so excited to be able to post about these passages today! You know why?? They describe the very first and the very last Passover feasts!!!! Is that not interesting?? I thought it was. I'm totally going to skip over the actual exodus out of Egypt to focus on that today.
The first thing I found interesting about the very FIRST Passover, is that GOD, Himself institutes it. He even named it. Christians worldwide for centuries have celebrated various "holy days," but none of them have been named OR instituted by God. They're all important occasions for Christians, but God hasn't instructed us to observe any of them in the way that He instructed the Israelites to observe this and several other celebrations we'll get to in the coming chapters. These were commanded celebrations; ours are voluntary expressions of our love for Him and our gratitude for what He's accomplished on our behalf. Of course, the reason for this distinction between Old- and New Testament-era holidays and celebrations is that Jesus' death on the cross changed things pretty drastically. We'll get to that later!
Secondly, I'm drawn to God's attention to detail. The entire twelfth chapter is devoted to how this holy day is to be observed. There are very specific instructions about what kind of animal is to be used, how it is to be cooked, which seasonings to cook it with, what to do with the animal's blood, how the meat is to be shared if a family is too small to finish off the entire animal by themselves, and how the leftovers ~ if any ~ are to be disposed of and when. God tells them to prepare bread to go with their meal, but that it can't contain yeast (which, throughout Scripture becomes a metaphor for sin and its insidious nature), and even how to wear their clothing for the meal! There was NO confusion about what He wanted done!!
Thirdly, there was no confusion as to WHY He wanted it done. I love 12:24-27: "Keep this command permanently as a statute for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as He promised, you are to observe this ritual. When your children ask you, 'What does this ritual mean to you?' you are to reply, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, for He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and spared our homes.' " So the people bowed down and worshiped.
This was specifically designed to be a vehicle for sharing God's goodness with future generations! Later on, we'll see that the very next generation completely lost sight of that goal and when their children were living in the land of Canaan, they "knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals." (Judges 2:10-11) How sad that within such a short period of time, the meaning of this tradition ~ possibly even the practical observation as well ~ had been virtually completely lost and abandoned.
Oh my friends, we see here how VITALLY important it is to celebrate our spiritual victories and God's wonderful protection and provision in our lives!! Not necessarily to commemorate each and every one with a new family tradition, but to remember them verbally, especially in the presence of our children. I do NOT want it to be true of my children that after I'm gone, their passion for God and connection to God is also gone! They MUST hear of His effect on our lives in order to desire what we have!!
Okay, wow, this post is getting really long, but I still want to draw your attention now to Jesus and His disciples are also celebrating the Passover together and the significance of this event as Jesus, the last necessary, perfect sacrificial Lamb, prepares to obliterate all the old traditions and ceremonies that God instituted in the Old Testament. (I'm going to cut and paste the excerpts from John MacArthur that I shared in a post way back in October dealing with this same thing)
I love how Jesus, knowing all His life what He came to do, made sure that He would be sacrificed at exactly the same hour as all the ceremonial lambs would also be sacrificed. For thousands of years, millions of substitutionary Passover lambs have been sacrificed in anticipation of this final Sacrificial Lamb and now Jesus makes sure it happens perfectly according to ceremony. I think that's beautiful.
So Jesus and His disciples are celebrating the Passover ~ the LAST Passover ~ and then we come to the monumental transition from the old covenant, the Old Testament, to something brand new: Communion. The Holy Eucharist. The Lord's Supper. This ONE simple commemorative ceremony wipes out centuries of observing numerous traditions and holy days prescribed and dictated by God.
What happens here? I’ll tell you what happens. This is the end of the whole ceremonial law, all the dietary laws, all the Sabbath laws, in fact there’s no more Sabbath. Immediately after this, the church starts to meet...when? The first day of the week. This is the end of the ceremonial law. This is the end of all the ceremonies, all the rituals, all the rites, all those social things that separated the people, the Israelite people, from the Gentiles. They’re all gone. The moral law doesn’t change because God doesn’t change.Isn't that absolutely breath-taking?! And THAT is the reason we desire to voluntarily celebrate significant events on the Christian calendar. Both the commanded celebrations of the Old Testament and the voluntary celebrations of the New Testament-era are born out of gratitude, but instead of just looking behind us and commemorating God's goodness, we can also now look ahead with eager anticipation to the eternal celebration our absolutely AWESOME God is preparing for us to enjoy!
This is the end of all the rituals. This is the end of all the sacrifices. This is the end of all the altars, all the temple had to offer. This is the end of the priesthood. This is the end of the holy place. This is the end of the Holy of Holies and God would split the curtain from top to bottom and throw it wide open for anybody and everybody to walk in and out. This is the end of everything that they knew in all of their religious life that was symbolic. No more ceremonies, no more rituals, no more priests, no more sacrifices, no more altars, no more temple, no more holy place, no more Holy of Holies, it’s all gone. He dies, He rises, they meet on Sunday and they are a priesthood and there is no more sacrifice ever until the Lord institutes some memorial sacrifices and the Passover in the Millennial Kingdom.
Tomorrow's passages: Exodus 14-15, Matthew 26:36-75
4 comments:
I, too, thought it was interesting that we saw the first and last Passovers.
Very nice post, Tammi!
Great post, Tammi, thanks! I actually thought of your October post while reading the Matthew passage today and I'm glad you included that portion again. It was good to read it over a second time.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
The part of passing it on to the children stood out for me as well. I have been really enjoying the rides to school each morning with my children (we have 2 (30 minute) commutes each day and the discussions that come out during those times are quite amazing. I want my kids to hear the good things that God is doing and how He works in mysterious ways but always according to His purpose. If we, as parents, forget to pass this on to our kids, we have not been the kind of parents that God planned for us to be. Thanks Tammi.
Very cool the way the OT and NT passages lined up that way!
I didn't realize the Sabbath was eradicated and that the believers started meeting on Sundays at that time - very cool.
So true how vitally important it is to purposefully, proactively, share with our children what God has done - both in history for all believers, and for us specifically.
And isn't that what these celebrations do? Give us the opportunity to remember.
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