After Pentecost Devotional - Day 48
“Jesus
told them to go to a certain man in the city and tell him, 'Our
teacher says, “My time has come! I want to eat the Passover meal
with my disciples in your home.”’” Matthew 26:18
As
Passover was a special celebration in the Old Testament texts, so it
was a special celebration in Jesus' own day. Historians tell us that
for Passover, Jerusalem's population swelled in the First Century
from 200,000 to 1,000,000. There was a huge influx of Jews from
throughout the Roman Empire who strove to be present in Jerusalem if
at all possible. Some would make the journey in order to spend their
last days in Jerusalem in order to have the opportunity to
participate in the expected Messianic banquet upon the coming of
Messiah.
This
was a full dinner celebration that included a host of rites of
significance pointing back to the origins of the nation in the Exodus
from bondage in Egypt. Passover was the defining moment of their
identity as the people of Yahweh. Still today, in many circles of
Judaism one cannot be fully Jewish without participating in the
Passover celebration and identifying oneself with the event of the
Exodus and thus personally redeemed from Egyptian bondage by Yahweh's
personal intervention.
Interestingly
enough, we do not find any trace of Jesus celebrating any other
Passover meal with his disciples. It is only this final Passover
celebration we find specifically recorded in Jesus' ministry as
celebrated with the Twelve. It is also this third Passover that Jesus
chooses to restructure from a celebration of God's redemption from
Egypt to what God was doing through Jesus in his upcoming death and
resurrection.
It
is now in these final moments in which Jesus had attempted to prepare
the disciples for his death that he could speak more freely about the
new significance he was giving to the Passover Seder. He was placing
new parameters of understanding on it in regard his death and
resurrection. He spoke of bread and wine as symbols of his own flesh
and life he was offering in redemption. More than the redemption of a
people from bondage and slavery, he was offering a new redemption
that would transcend boundaries of nationality, race, ethnicity,
language, and culture in a deeper way.
We
should have expected Jesus to have celebrated the Passover with his
disciple twice already. There is here no indication that was so. This
is instead the only such celebration, and it is a new, unexpected
manner in which they celebrated. The focus was not upon a redemption
from an Egyptian bondage long passed. This was a new event with a new
focus tied to the themes of a past redemption. Rather than leaving
bondage to Egypt, the disciples would be embarking upon a new journey
with God that downplayed any sense of geography and political
structures.
That
night, he spoke of betrayal. He spoke of his body and lifeblood being
given for reconciliation with God. He spoke of rejection,
forgiveness, restoration, and reconciliation. He spoke of entering a
new life with God. Then he was carried away to become the means of
that redemption. He was celebrating the redemption he was making a
reality, a redemption for us to continually celebrate.
Celebrate
what God has done for you, finding new expressions for God's grace.
"Lord,
help me recognize the depths of your redeeming love, that I might
celebrate fully."
—©Copyright 2016, Christopher B. Harbin
http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/ My latest books can be found here on amazon
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