Tag: blood

Luke 22:14-23 Jesus is the Son of Man: Last Supper, First Communion

Luke 22:14-23

Jesus is the Son of Man

Last Supper, First Communion

Grab your Bibles if you will and open with me to Luke chapter 22.

So, as we continue through Luke 22, we see that all the pieces have been put in place. These are the last days, even the last day in the life of Jesus. The divine, eternal plan was coming to fulfillment and everything was taking shape.

Jesus and the twelve were in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. Jesus had been teaching and rebuking and correcting the scribes and the chief priests and all the other religious leaders and the they were fed up, after three years of this. They were ready to kill him. So Judas went to them and made plans to betray Jesus. Jesus sent Peter and John to secretly prepare the Passover meal. Now, the Passover meal was ready for Jesus and the twelve. Nobody knew where they were meeting so Jesus would not be interrupted before or during the meal.

And that brings us current so far in Lukes Gospel. So now, lets go ahead and look at this mornings passage, :uke chapter 22, verses 14 through 23. I will, as always, be reading out of the English Standard Version. I encourage you to grab your preferred translation and follow along so that you are reading the Word of God for yourself.

Luke 22:14-23, Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit records:

 

And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it[b] until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.[c] 21 But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. 22 For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” 23 And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this.

 

May God Bless the Reading of His holy and inspired Word.

 

 

So we pick up with Jesus and his disciples at the Passover dinner and ready to enjoy the company and food. Jesus reclined with his disciples. How they would do this in those days is that they would lean forward on their left elbows, with their feet behind them and their heads facing the table and they would eat with their right hands.

Jesus tells them that he “earnestly desired” to have this meal with them. He strongly wished. He needed this to happen. And the disciples wouldn’t have quite understood this because they would have shared Passover meals before. They didn’t realize what this meal would become, what it represented or that this was the last meal they would share together.

This was the last chance that Jesus would have to share a meal with his closest friends. This would be the last chance that Jesus would have to fellowship with them as a family, as a group of close friends. This would be his last chance to teach them, warn them, train them. And this is why he took such great pains to make sure this dinner would take place and that there would be no interruptions.

This was the was the last Passover meal before Jesus death and resurrection that would be the fulfillment of the Passover. Jesus was what the Passover was looking forward towards.

Jesus is the unblemished and spotless lamb that would be sacrificed once and for all for the forgiveness of sins.

It is Jesus blood that covers us so that the wrath of God passes over us.

It is His fulfillment of the Passover that frees us from the bondage of and slavery to sin, and allows us to enter the promised land that is the kingdom of God.

This is what much of the Old Testament is pointing towards. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Messiah. The Son of God.

This is what they had all been waiting for. This night is when, in my opinion, we see the birth of the church of Jesus Christ. Many will say that happened at Pentecost, but tonight is the night that Jesus institutes the New Covenant.

The rest of what the Old Testament was pointing to is Christ’s glorious Second Coming. This is one of the key differences between Passover and Communion. The Passover is looking forward to the first coming of the Messiah, the promised savior. Communion remembers the first, commerates it and look towards his second coming. Jesus here is looking forward to the marriage supper of the Lamb, as its put in Revelation 19:9.

So, after the Passover meal, Jesus explicitly sets up what we call communion. This is a fully communal thing. This is not an individual thing, but is intended and instituted to take place among the church family, among fellow believers, fellow Christians, not alone and not amongst or including the general public. This is also not for the “worthy,” the put together, or the perfect Christians. This is for all believers, warts and all.

 

Jesus and these disciples have spent three years together. Traveling, sharing meals, sharing lodging, sharing ups and downs. Jesus specifically has been sharing His power, his knowledge, the Kingdom of God. Now, this night, he is sharing his blood and his body. Nothing is being held back, not even Jesus’ life.

And Jesus here uses symbolism and figurative language.   And he does so in order to help us understand what communion is and what it represents.

He tells the disciples, the bread is my body. Like this bred will be broken apart, Jesus body will be broken on the cross. Like this bread will be shared with the disciples, his body and sacrifice will be shared with all believers. This bread is given to the disciples by Jesus, just as his life and his broken body on the cross are given over by Jesus.

The bread does not become his body. Jesus is not physically present in the elements, like some claim he is. But the bread represents what he did, what he gave and what happened to him.

Jesus says, do this in remembrance of me. Remember, not just his life, not just his resurrection, not just his ascension. Remember what happened on the cross. As one commentator points out, this shows “the centrality of the cross to the Christian faith.”

And you may ask, Why do we have to continue to be reminded time and time again? Of course, as a Christian, of course I wont forget what Jesus did for me!

But we do. We do forget. If not completely, then practically and we take it for granted, at times. And so Jesus tells us to do this often, is remembrance of him. To intentionally focus and refocus to ground ourselves and remind ourselves exactly what it means that Jesus died on the cross. What it means that he did it for us. What it means that he gave himself up for us and what the results of that are.

And then Jesus takes the cup of wine, remember the cup is often associated with Gods wrath. Jesus takes the cup and says that the wine symbolizes His blood. Jesus blood absorbs Gods wrath. Jesus blood is poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Scripture make it clear, New Testament and Old that the wages of sin is death. Blood needs to be shed for the forgiveness of sins.

The most important day in Old Testament Israel, and maybe today as well, arguably even more than Passover, was the Day of Atonement. Leviticus 16 gets into the details, but the gist of it is that one day a year, the people would have the wrath of their sins put upon one goat, whose blood would be sprinkled throughout the temple and the Most High places, and the alter and so on. And then another goat would be brought in, still alive, and the priest would symbolically place the sins of Israel upon this goat and release him into the wilderness.

Again, the point being that it takes blood to cover up and atone for sins. And that’s what Jesus did for us. He shed his blood for the forgiveness of our sins. This si the cup of the New Covenant.

 

So, what is the difference between  the Old and the New Covenant?

Exodis 24:3-8 tells us the Mosaic Covenant, the convenant that God made through Moses to the people of Israel. IT reads:

3 Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules.[a] And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” 4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. 6 And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” 8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

 

          This was dependent on the people following the rules that God laid out. And the people could not keep those rules for even one day, just like we cant either.  The New Covenant was completely and totally dependent on the work of Christ.

The Old had the laws, the rules of God written in stone, physically written done for people to read. THe New has the law written in our hearts, as the Holy Spirit changes our heart.

The Old was a type, was a shadow, it pointed towards the new. The blood, the sacrifices, all of it, pointed directly at what would be fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

The Old was not salvific. The sacrifices were made time and time again, over and over.  The sacrifices were animal blood and so therefore were not able to atone for human sin.

The Covenant is salvific. Jesus was sacrificed once and for all. He shed his blood; human blood, and he had lived a perfect and sinless life so that he could indeed atone for human sin, the sin of all humanity, or at least the sin of all who would believe.

Jesus fulfills all of the promises, foreshadowing, prophecies and so much more that appears in the Old Testament and the old Covenant.

GotQuestions sums up the differences this way:

the Old Covenant was governed by a law that prescribed correct behavior and that the people continually broke. It contained a sacrificial system that only temporarily removed sins. The sacrifices were administered by priests who represented the people of Israel to God, but the people could not enter God’s presence themselves.

The New Covenant is governed by a law that is internalized by the people of God and energized by His Spirit. The sins of the people are forgiven and removed once and for all by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the people of God have direct, intimate access to Him. Finally, Gentiles who believe are included in the New Covenant.

 

 

          After Jesus set this up, he tells the twelve, one of you, one of you 12 right here, one of you is going to betray me. Thing about this. You are a group who are closer than family. One of these guys, one of this family, who have been thorough thick and thin together, who have been through good times and bad, who have thorough easy times and hard. One of them will betray that trust and that bond that has been forged.

Jesus makes it clear, I already know all this. I Know its going to happen. I am not surprised by this. Its factored into the plan and I am allowing this to happen.

However, that does not excuse the guilt or responsibility of the one who will be doing the betraying. This does not alleviate the sin that will be and is being committed.

This statement, that one of them would betray him, shook the disciples. They started questioning amongst themselves who it might be. I imagine it was probably equal parts self reflection, thinking, Could I be capable of doing what He is saying? And blame passing, I bet it will be Peter, Jesus did just call him Satan not too long ago…

The truth is that each and every one of us is guilty of betraying God. Everytime we sin we betray his love. RC Sproul says :

Sin is cosmic treason. Sin is treason against a perfectly pure Sovereign. It is an act of supreme ingratitude toward the One to whom we owe everything, to the One who has given us life itself.

 

All of us are guilty of committing treason against the King, of betraying him. Jesus gave his life for those who betrayed him. We showed us the epitome of loving your enemies. We, the church, the universal church, all believers, we are a church of forgiven betrayers.

And that’s one of the things that we are to remember. Jesus gave himself, shed his blood, purchased forgiveness, for us and for you, if you believe, as much as he did for the disciples he was talking to that very night. He loves you enough to allow the wrath, the justly deserved wrath of God Passover you and I and all who believe. That is what we celebrate and remember at the Lords Supper, the sacrament that he instituted that very night as communion.

 

 

Passover Sermon Exodus 12 and Luke 22

Passover Sermon

Exodus 12 and Luke 22

Good Morning! Please grab your Bibles with me as we open up Gods Word. This is a special week for Christians. Today, the Sunday before Easter is known as Palm Sunday. This is when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey and many bystanders laid down palm branches as a way of honoring Jesus. This would kick off the week known as Holy Week. Much of the Gospel stories take place during this week. We are going to especially focus on one of the nights of this week.

Jesus and his disciples met in an upper room on a Thursday night for a dinner celebration. The twelve that were with Jesus did not have any idea that this would be there last meal together. They had no idea that one of them was about to betray Jesus, that he would be illegally tried three times that night. They had no idea that he would die the next day and they had no idea the things that he would reveal to them that night.  This was not an overly special week to them, with one exception.  All they knew was that it was Passover, and they were there to celebrate.

If you look at your calendars, you will see that Passover started at Sundown last night. Today we will take a look at the Passover we will look at a number of different texts, but if you want to open up your Bible, we will be starting in Exodus 12, and then moving over to Luke 22. When I read the scriptures, I will be reading out of the English Standard Version, though I encourage you to read along in which ever is your preferred translation.

To know about the Passover, to see why it was a celebration and how important it was to the Jews in that time, we need to start in Exodus 12. The setting of Exodus 12 is that the people of Israel were slaves to the Egyptians. God was done with that and was ready to free his people and bring them to the land that he had promised Abram 400 years ago. So, He told Moses to go tell Pharaoh to let the Israelite go. Pharaoh would not so God sent a number of plagues on Egypt to show his power and might and Pharaoh would still not let them go.

So, God decided to send one final plague. A plague that was so harsh, so brutal, that Pharaoh would not be able to stop the Israelite s from leaving. God was going to kill all the first-born males in Egypt. This included all the first-born Egyptian sons. This included Pharaohs first born son. This even included the first-born male cattle. And this was going to so complete and so total that it would have included the first-born male Israelite s, except that God gave them a way out.

Exodus 12 lays out the way out of this plague. Starting in verse 3, God tells Moses and Aaron,

“Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers house, a lamb for the household….” V.5, “Your lamb shall be without blemish…”, and picking up in v 7 & 8, “Then they shall take some of the blood (from killing the lamb) and put it on the two door posts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.”

OK, so God told them how to eat a very specific meal and to wipe the blood of the lamb on the doors. But it doesn’t yet tell us that God will spare the Israelite s from this plague. But God then goes on to spell it out for them and us.

Starting at the end of v11, “It is the Lord’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night and I will strike all the first born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”

God told them to sacrifice a lamb without blemish, and that the blood of that lamb would protect them from the wrath of God that would be poured out on the nation. More on that in just a little bit.

The LORD also went on to describe to the Israelites how they were to continue to celebrate this Passover celebration every year for all the future generations to learn as well.

We pick right back up in v 14, “ This day shall be for you a memorial day and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.” and later in v 25, when Moses is telling Israel what the LORD told him about Passover, he shared this with them for the future, “And when you come to the land that the LORD will give you, as he promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, “What do you mean by this service?” you shall say, “It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.” (v25-27)

God told the people that this was a joyous occasion, that he had spared them from this wrath and that they needed to celebrate it and teach their kids what had happened. Sometimes, in the church, we forget that our kids don’t know as much as we do about some of these things. We forget that they have not had the experiences that we have. In this case, the children would not have seen Gods wrath passing over the nation of Israel and sparing them. To this day, in the Jewish Passover celebration, the youngest child asks the question and the father then tells the Passover story.

I heard a quote a couple years ago. I don’t remember who it was that said it and I couldn’t find it this week, but they said, “What the first generation knows, the second generation forgets, and the third generation never knew.” What this is saying is that we need to constantly remember to teach our kids, not just church, but the gospel. This was one of Israel’s big problems throughout the Old Testament. Israel would turn to God and experience a revival, but within one or two generations, they were back to worshiping false idols and, as God puts it in numerous places, committing spiritual adultery on him.

God knows all this ahead of time and told the Israelite s that part of this yearly ritual and celebration was to pass the story on to the younger generation.

I also saw a quote recently that reminds just how smart our kids can be. It said, “As soon as we assumed that children were too stupid to figure out what the pastor was talking about, they were” Our kids are much smarter than we ever give them credit for and if we teach them and talk to them as if they are smart enough to get it, they will.

But this is also a reminder to ourselves. How many times, how often do we receive an answer to prayer, a miracle from God and we forget about it shortly after it happened? I know it happens to me all the time. And with big things even. Right after Hope and I got married, I lost my job and was out of work for 6 months. I happened to get placed in a company through a temp agency, and through circumstances that could only be brought about by God, I got hired on full time. Not only was this a job, but this was a job that paid well, and had great benefits. To be completely honest I would have taken a decent pay cut just to have had those benefits. But I would often forget how God arranged all this and I would take it for granted and I would look for other jobs and I would get frustrated there. Then something would remind me.

This is why the disciples were celebrating the Passover with Jesus on this Thursday night. To Remember. They didn’t know that the Jewish leadership was planning on arresting Jesus. Well, one did.

Luke tells is right at the beginning of Chapter 22 that the Jews were afraid of the people and that was why they were looking to put him to death. They were afraid of the people because Jerusalem was packed full of Jews traveling there to celebrate the Passover. Luke tells us earlier in his book, that the religious leaders had trouble coming up with ways to kill him because the people were hanging on every word to come out of his mouth. There was no way that all those people would stand for the arrest of Jesus. They would be whipped into a frenzy. It would become a mob mentality and there would be no predicting what would happen. So, to protect themselves, they would wait until they could encounter Jesus away from the crowds.

Even with the evil in their hearts, their preference was to not do this during Passover. They did it because the opportunity came up and they did it because they could not see who Jesus was.

Jesus revealed himself to be THE Passover Lamb. The New Testament shows us this in many places. John the Baptist saw Jesus walking towards him in John 1:29 and recognized Jesus for who and what he was. He said to himself, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” It wasn’t just that John called him that that made it so. There were many reasons the scriptures point out. Exodus calls for the Passover lamb to be one without blemish. In 1 Peter 1:18-19, Peter says “You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”

The lambs that were chosen for sacrifice in the Old Testament times were very purposefully to be without blemish. We are blemished, we are sinful and full of defects. We are told that “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) In the Old Testament, we would offer blood sacrifices to atone for our sins. But that was just temporary, we could not stay perfect, no matter how hard we tried. We needed someone who was perfect, who had no sin, no blame. The only person that could accomplish this was a perfect man. The sacrificial lambs were sacrificed in place of us to pay the temporary payment of our sins. Jesus was the Lamb that was sacrificed for our sins permanently.

While the blood on the door for the Israelites signaled for Gods wrath to Passover that household, so does the blood of Jesus on our hearts signals the wrath of God to Passover us when stand before him in judgment.

The Passover ended up being the final plague on Egypt. After the death of all the firstborns, Pharaoh wanted them to get out and they left. They were now freed from slavery. In the same way, we are slaves to sin. The New Testament is very clear on this. In the same way the Passover freed the Israelites from slavery of Egypt, Jesus freed us from the slavery of sin.

Now, as I said, the Israelites were commanded to pass along the tradition and celebration of the Passover. We are no longer under the law. On the night of the last supper, Jesus replaced the Passover celebration, and the Abrahamic Covenant was fulfilled in the New Covenant. But Jesus orchestrated the Passover to be the time when he was going to be crucified. In Luke 22:15-16, Jesus tells his disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”

What he is saying is that while Jesus is THE fulfillment of the Passover lamb and he secured freedom for us from Gods wrath, that freedom will not become totally seen until we are with God in Heaven.

He replaced the Passover meal with communion. Instead of eating of the Passover lamb, sacrificed and drained of blood, we are to partake in eating the bread, symbolizing the body of Christ, who was THE Passover Lamb and drink the wine which was the Blood of Jesus who was THE Passover lamb.

Instead of celebrating the freedom from slavery every year, we are to celebrate the freedom from sin and the freedom from eternal torment whenever we gather together. But that doesn’t mean that we are to forget. Hope and I enjoy celebrating Passover and Hanukah, some of the Jewish holidays. Of course, it is not required as it was previously, but, for me it helps make the Bible more real. It helps us to remember that Jesus is our Passover lamb. It helps us to remember that his blood allows Gods wrath to pass over us.

We forget that sometimes. If not intellectually than definitely practically. We all have things that become our practical Passover lamb, our idols, our practical saviors. For some of us, it’s that we are a good person. We think that is enough to save us. That was what mine was. For most of my life I figured I was a good enough person and that’s all that was needed. That is one that I still find myself struggling with at times.

For some of us, it’s our good works. If we do, do, do, if we help the poor, if we protest against abortion or homosexuality, the we can outweigh whatever bad we may do on the scales at the end. I’ve heard one pastor describe this as trying to wear the same set of white clothes for eighty years and trying to keep them pure and spotless. And I think that’s a good illustration, but it doesn’t go far enough. Because, even if we were to physically keep the outfit pure and spotless from our environment, we could not keep our sweat, tears, that sort of thing, just as our mind, our heart, our sinful nature has already ruined the outfit. We all have these things that come between us and Jesus.

And the Passover, and communion remind us that Jesus closes that gap. Between us and him. It is not through anything that we do, but through his blood, his love and his grace that are out white outfits stay pure and spotless.

Finally, the Passover is an intrinsically important part of our history. It’s not just world history, or Jewish history or American history. But it’s your history and it’s my history. Its believer’s history. If you are a follower of Jesus, who was Jesus?

Jesus was not a Christian, not in the sense that we understand it. He was not American; he was not white. He was not gorgeous. He was not anything like we picture. He was a plain looking, brown skinned, middle eastern Jewish man.

Most of us spend our time in the Bible in the Gospels and Paul’s letters… We might go through the Old Testament for our daily reading plan, but how often do we spend intentional, studious time in Numbers, or Deuteronomy, or Lamentations, or Joel? Joel is one of the Old Testament prophets by the way…

But what Scriptures did Jesus know? The Gospels weren’t written when he was alive. Neither were Paul’s letters. Jesus had the Old Testament. He had the writings of Moses, the first 5 books of the Old Testament. He had the historical books, starting with Joshua and going through Esther. He had the wisdom books, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon and the like, and he had the Prophets, Isaiah through Malachi.

These are the scriptures that Jesus had, and the Jews had, and they were vital for understanding God, his story and his redemption plan. Now, most of us are not Jewish, ethnically speaking. But Once Jesus came, he followed the Old Testament, and he came as a Jew, to the Jews, and offered them salvation. Then he turned to all the rest of us and we were allowed to receive the gift of salvation as well.

For us to know Jesus better, we need to know who he was, when he grew up, what the culture was. That’s one of the things that The Old Testament does for us. Jesus celebrated the Passover, for us to know Jesus better, to have a better relationship with him, we don’t have to celebrate the Passover, but you have to understand it and why Jesus celebrated it.

My challenge to you, to me, to us, is, are you, are we utilizing all of the resources available to us to understand Jesus better, to grow closer to him.

We have our Bible, are we reading it? All of it? Or just our favorite parts? Are we only skimming it because it’s in our daily reading plan or are we actually reading it? Both Testaments?

Are we praying? This hits a couple of areas. Are we praying for those around us? In our congregation and in our family? Are we praying the list of prayer requests that come in the bulletin each week? What about prayer requests that come in Bible Studies? Or even just your everyday conversation with friends, family, coworkers, and the trials and troubles that come up in their lives. What about personal time in prayer just for you and God. Time to pray, meaning talk to him, listen to him and just be with him.

Are you talking to the people in your life that you can learn from? If you’re not sure who that might be. My phone is always on and my office door is always open. Are you reading or listening to things that bring you closer to God? This could include things on TV, music on the radio, but it includes books about Jesus, in includes sermons online, podcasts, things like that. I’m not saying you have to do all, or even any of these things. If you belong to God, you belong to God, but these are resources that you have, that can help you know Jesus Christ better, help you grow closer to him.

 

 

 

As I referenced at the beginning of the sermon this morning, this week is what is called Passion Week, or Holy Week. Today is Palm Sunday. The day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem for the last week of his life. He was there this week specifically because it was the Passover. Thursday night is when he had the Last Supper with the disciples, the Passover meal, the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. Thursday was the night the Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus and turned him over to the Romans and Jewish leaders. He was illegally tried through the night, with false witnesses on trumped up charges, the loudest of which was blasphemy.

Friday he was beaten to within an inch of his life. The beating the Romans doled out was called the half death, because half of the prisoners who received it, died from it. He was then forced to carry his own cross and then crucified on it.

The details are horrendous, and I won’t go into them today, but there was a reason that the Passion of the Christ was Rated R. Jesus died on that cross. He died for me, he died for you, he died for all of us.

And on Sunday morning, he accomplished all he came here to do, by being raised back up from the dead by God the Father and proclaiming victory over death and sin.

This is the most important week in Jesus life. We today tend to celebrate Christmas as the most important date in Christianity. And don’t get me wrong, the birth of Jesus Christ was a monumental moment in history. It was world changing, to say the least.

But then, 30 plus years later, Jesus would have yet another, greater world changing moment. This week is designed by God to be one of reflection. Do you understand what Jesus went through this week? Do you see that what he went through allowed you and I to be passed over in our sin? That his life, and his death, were a fulfillment of the Passover, and that his resurrection made that Passover permanent? Take some time this week, think about it. Reflect on that. How serious are we about our relationship with God? And what are we doing to bring ourselves closer to him?

 

Let’s Pray