This last Passover
meal is so critical for us to understand
who Jesus is and what He did for us on the
cross. The Passover was first
observed in Egypt, on the night the Jews
were released from slavery from Egypt.
Each household was to share a lamb that
night as a part of the meal. They would
take some of the Lamb’s blood and place it
on the doorposts. By doing this, the
lamb became for them a king of
substitution for them.
It’s
important to realize that on this same
night Christ was betrayed. Christ became
for us our Passover Lamb (1
Cor 5:7).
What was impossible for the blood of bulls
and goats to do, Christ did. (Heb
10:5) For
He took away the hostility that sin causes
- the judgment of God. Jesus symbolized
his offering with bread and wine.
There’s three things you should notice
about the bread.
First, it was
unleavened. Leaven wasn’t even allowed
inside the house during the Passover. (Exodus
12)
Leaven represents sin in the Bible.
The bread had no leaven in it just as
Jesus had no sin in Him. He had no
sin or blemish in him. If he had,
then he would have the same sin problem
that the rest of us have. If He did,
then the cross would have been
meaningless, He wouldn’t have been able to
die for anyone’s sins.
Second, this body Jesus said is given for
you
v.19.
The connotation is that His body is a
gift. It wasn’t forced on Him by
someone else. The Pharisees wanted
to kill Jesus for most of his public
ministry. But, God the Father didn’t
allow it because his time wasn’t
fulfilled. They were so blind with
hate that they wanted to kill Lazarus too
when he was raised from the dead.
We need to
understand what
1 John 3:16
means when it says that Jesus laid down
his life for us. Scripture indicates
that God did this because he loves us and
wanted to justify you in his presence.
The Lord has been showing me that this
plays out much like in a courtroom.
The Lord is judge and the devil is your
prosecutor. He is the accuser of the
brethren, the adversary. Charges are
brought against you. The record of
offenses are read. There are only 2
pleas you can enter. Guilty or
Justified by Faith in Christ. You
cannot enter a plea of innocent because
the charges are true. You also can’t
blame your mother or father or the schools
or your environment. You need to
understand this point - that Christ’s
sacrifice allow me to stand before God -
justified and at peace with Him. No one
comes to God claiming innocent or
ignorance. This is why it says this
in Romans 5:1 “Therefore since we have
been justified through faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ.”
Third, the bread was broken. The
flogging that Jesus endured before going
to the cross alone was enough to kill a
person. Flogging involved a whip, a
cat of nine tails, that had bits of glass
and rock intertwined with it to open up a
person’s skin and cause as much pain as
possible.
Isaiah 53
says that Christ was “pierced for our
transgressions and crushed for our
inquities.”
V.5
There is also another significant passage
in
Isaiah 52:15.
It tells us that Jesus was marred beyond
human likeness. The physical beating
that Jesus took for you and me is beyond
words. But, worse than that is the
sin that was hung on Jesus on that cross.
We have no idea what the trauma of that is
like.
Doctors who have examined the story of the
crucifixion of Jesus tell us that Jesus
heart was literally broken for us.
The soldiers trying to see if Jesus was
dead pierced his side and it says in
John 19:34
“one of the soldiers pierced Jesus side
with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of
blood and water.” The presence of
flowing water and blood many think means
that Jesus heart was literally broken.
So, when we take this bread and juice
today we are reminded of Jesus sacrifice
for us. This Lord’s Table represents
the new covenant or new agreement. I
recently read in Jim Cymbala’s book “Fresh
Power” where a music minister in the
Midwest was rebuked by her new pastor who
was upset by her music selection. It
seems she had led the congregation in
several hymns that morning about the blood
of Jesus. The new pastor had been
offended and told her if she wanted to
keep her job she would never lead another
song about the blood of Christ. He
said he believed they were beyond that
crude symbolism. (pg.57)
By every standard we have the cross is
crude. The cross is violent.
The cross is ugly. But, only by
Jesus allowing Himself to be forsaken am I
saved. Romans 10:9-10 says “That if
you confess with your mouth “Jesus is
Lord” and believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you will be
saved. For it is with your heart
that you believe and are justified, and it
is with your mouth that you confess and
are saved. As the Scripture says,
“Anyone who trusts in him will never be
put to shame.”
Jeff Sims
jsimms615@hotmail.com
used with permission of
Jeff Sims