The Lord's Supper and the Passover
by Phil Roberts via Christianity Magazine
It was Passover season in Jerusalem, in the nineteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Jews from all over the empire were streaming into Jerusalem a week ahead of time to make preparations. Among them was a group from Galilee, including Jesus and His disciples, coming to commemorate their national birthday. Almost fifteen hundred years earlier, God had set them free from slavery and delivered then from Pharoah and the Egyptian bondage. On the night of their deliverance each family had sacrificed a lamb. They had put the blood on their doorposts to escape the plague of death that swept over Egypt that night, and then they had eaten the lamb along with some hastily cooked unleavened bread. The next morning God had led them to freedom. The Jews who were coming to Jerusalem on this Passover would celebrate their national birthday by re-enacting it. They, too, would sacrifice a lamb, prepare some unleavened bread, and gather that night in families to eat it as though they were once again in Egypt, preparing to leave for freedom the next morning.
It is little wonder, then, that the Jews of the first century, living under the heavy hand of Roman rule, celebrated each Passover with the eager hope that God would soon send the promised Messiah and save them once again from all their enemies. The intensity of this hope is reflected in the treatment the crowds gave Jesus as He drew near the city (Mark 11:7-10). Hopes were soaring that He was indeed the Lord’s anointed, and if He was the Lord’s anointed, then this might be the Passover of their deliverance.
Though the lamb had to be killed at Jerusalem, the observance of Passover was primarily a family affair. Later Judaism set a pattern for the observance. It included the following seven steps: (1) An opening prayer of thanksgiving, and the drinking of a first cup of wine. (2) The eating of bitter herbs. (3) The son asking the father why this night was different from all other nights, and the father telling the family the story and meaning of the Passover (based on Exodus 12:26-27). (4) The singing of psalms and the drinking of a second cup. (5) The eating of the lamb and the unleavened bread. (6) The drinking of a third cup of wine. (7) The singing of more psalms, and the fourth cup. There is a good reason to believe that pretty much the same pattern was followed by Jesus and His disciples (see the concluding song in Mark 14:26).
Notice especially the third step in the above sequence. I have found it helpful to look at Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper as a father’s explanation to his family of the meaning of the Passover. And, as always, Jesus presents Himself as the key to the real meaning of the Old Testament. In this case, Jesus presents Himself to His disciples as the true Passover Sacrifice, about to be slain to deliver the Jews from bondage - not from the bondage of Egypt (or even Rome) but from the spiritual bondage of sin.
But Passover lambs of the Old Testament had been eaten by those who offered them, and the blood had been applied to their dwelling places to deliver them from death. So Jesus instructs His disciples that they, too, must eat His flesh, and drink His blood if they are to have life in themselves (Mark 14:22-24; John 6:53ff). The eating of the bread will be the eating of His flesh, and the drinking of the fruit of the vine will be the drinking of His blood. Thus the Lord’s Supper was instituted. And every time we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we remember that Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7), and in His sacrifice we are set free from the bondage and slavery of sin and death.
The idea of participation in a sacrifice is, therefore, the key to understanding the Lord’s Supper. But Jesus identified His death, not only as a Passover sacrifice, but also as a Sin Offering, saying that His blood was shed for many for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28). The sin offering was another type of Old Testament sacrifice that was eaten only by those on whose behalf it was offered. Nothing could make a person more acutely conscious of his sins than the realization that the animal he was eating had died in his place and for his sins. So, too, when we eat His flesh we are to remember that He died in our place, and when we drink His blood, we are to remember that it was shed for the remission of our sins.
Yet, a third type of sacrifice with which Jesus identified His death was the Covenant Sacrifice: “This is my blood of the new covenant” (Luke 22:20). When the Old Covenant was originally made between God and Israel, bulls were sacrificed and the blood of those bulls sealed the covenant between God and the nation (Exodus 24:4-8). But, while they were forbidden to drink the blood of their sacrifice, we are commanded to drink it. Why? Because the life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11), and this New Covenant ministers life, and not death (2 Corinthians 3:6-11). Each time we partake of that blood, there ought to be a renewal of that covenant in our hearts.
The Jews have a saying that each participant in a Passover celebration should reckon himself as actually present on the night of the Exodus. Perhaps we could also say that each Christian who partakes of the body and blood of Christ should reckon himself as actually present at the cross where the sacrifice he eats was offered.