He is Risen!
That’s my joyful shout this time of the year. I hope you are well on your way to celebrating the resurrection this weekend!
But that also means that a couple days ago, my wife and I celebrated Passover. We’ve done it every year for the last 26 years.
And yes, we do as authentic a celebration as we can manage – with a few commentaries about how it informs our Christian beliefs.
Our church has been really supportive, and we had over 170 people celebrate with us.
For me, Passover is the trigger that kicks of the celebration of the resurrection. It’s like the signal that tells my body and my heart that the Resurrection is just around the corner. Literally the smells of the Passover create a physical reaction that builds my expectation.
One of the reasons that I love to celebrate the Passover so much, is it gives me insight into Jesus’s experience “on the night He was betrayed.”
At it’s heart, the central star of the Passover is the lamb. In the first Passover in Exodus it all came down to the lamb sacrificed and blood over the door. Only through the lamb could the family have life.
As Jesus celebrated Passover that night, with His disciples, He was undoubtedly thinking a lot about the lamb.
He was the Lamb of God, celebrating the sacrifice of the lamb.
It had to be poignant. He had to have felt some heavy emotions celebrating what was a foreshadowing of His own impending death.
We know a few hours later, the stress of what was about to happen caused sweat as drops of blood and a passionate plea to His Father “If there is any way for this cup to pass…”
But during the Passover celebration, He had to rejoice in the sacrifice.
Undoubtedly, His disciples were having a great time. The Passover really is a celebration festival. They were together, the pressure of the crowds and religious leaders were gone for a time.
They had no idea what Jesus was going through.
They didn’t know what was about to happen. They didn’t realize that their celebration was looking back to Egypt and forward to Calvary. They didn’t realize their rabbi would become the sacrifice for them.
Jesus was utterly alone in this moment. Not a person knew. Not a soul could support Him. His closest friends were clueless friends.
Stop for a moment and try to imagine how that might have felt…
But there’s more.
In the middle of that, Jesus thought of you.
In the middle of the celebration, He stopped and gave us the ordinance we call Communion or the Lords Supper.
He called out across the years for us to partake of the symbols of the Passover (wine and unleavened bread) as a way of remembering the Lamb.
He thought of you, coming thousands of years after the event. And gave you this gift. Something to remember Him by.
It blows my mind every year.
It doesn’t get old or familiar or common. It hits me like a ton of bricks every time. It’s a terrible struggle for me to not break down and weep while explaining it to the people in the room. I’m that emotional about it.
Even writing it now, tears in my eyes make it hard to see the screen.
I invite you to meditate on this. To think about it. And whenever you next celebrate Communion or the Lords Supper, remember Jesus, the Lamb of God celebrating the sacrifice of the lamb – just before He made that sacrifice Himself. Alone because His disciples were caught up in the pageantry of the ceremony and not aware of what was really happening.
And in that moment He thought of you and gave you this memorial.
See if it doesn’t change the way you celebrate the bread and the cup going forward…
He is Risen!
Dennis
