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Will you pray with me?

 

Jesus, we want to see you tonight. Lamb of God, give us a glimpse,

perhaps for the first time or in a fresh way—a glimpse of your love as

you poured out your life. In your name, Jesus, we pray.

Amen.

 

 

Tonight and tomorrow night’s message is really one message with two parts.

 

Tonight we’re considering how in dying Jesus takes our place. Tomorrow night we’ll consider how in dying Jesus takes our sin.

 

You know, whenever I consider the Passion Week, I’m often struck by the same thing. From one angle it appears that Jesus is the quintessential victim of circumstance—sadly caught in a web of injustice between the rock of the Jewish leaders and the hard place of Rome.

 

And in one sense it’s true. Yet from another angle, taken in its broader gospel context, the cross of Christ is the culmination of his life of love, and taken even more broadly still, it is the purposed climax of God’s plan of redemption.

 

From one angle the cross is an unfair, regrettable mistake, but from God’s perspective, it is the most important moment of all.

 

Viewed within the context of God’s unfolding epic, it isn’t just the death of an innocent man, but the intentional sacrifice of the innocent lamb: a sacrifice that secures redemption for everyone who identifies themselves with him.

 

This past Sunday was Palm Sunday, the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem to the praise of the crowds: “Hoshanna! Save us! Hoshanna! Save us!”

 

But little did they know what they were asking for—what saving them would ultimately mean for him!

 

He was the Savior/King, but he didn’t have a sword. He was the Savior/King, but assuming the throne would mean embracing a cross. He was the Savior/King, but he was also the Lamb.

 

But while they had conquering on their minds, Jesus had sacrifice on his!

 

All the gospel accounts explain that the timing of Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem was no normal time in the life of Israel.

 

There are three feasts in the Jewish calendar—designated times of gathering in Jerusalem in order to commemorate God’s gracious intervention in the history of His people.

 

These would have been times when thousands upon thousands—even hundreds of thousands—of pilgrims would have gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate together.

 

The city would go from a modest, bustling town to a cramped, throbbing city of anticipation.

 

Jesus arrives during one of these three feasts: the Feast of the Passover.

 

The Passover is a special Feast. It looks backward and forward: back to God’s gracious intervention in Israel’s past, and forward to the day when God would intervene again, once and for all, establishing His reign on the earth forever.

 

Now, the most celebrated intervention of God in Israel’s history was the Exodus when God delivered the nation of Israel out of the clutches of Egypt, the most powerful nation in the world.

 

Just before God delivered them, He gave Moses some very specific instructions. He said, “Have each

Israelite family select a one year old lamb without blemish, spotless, perfect. And on the fourteenth day of the first month of the year, each family-lamb is to be slaughtered and sacrificed on their behalf. Have them take a hyssop branch and dip it in the blood of the lamb and have them spread it over the lintel and on the doorposts of their home because I’m going to bring judgment upon Egypt and their gods.”

 

God was going to come and He was going to kill the firstborn son of every home that didn’t have the blood of the lamb covering it.

 

In Exodus chapter 12 we read God saying to Moses, “The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.”

 

“Notice, the blood of the lamb will be a sign for you,” God says. He doesn’t need some marking for Him to identify which homes are Egyptian and which homes are Israelite.

 

No, the sign was for the people. Identifying with the blood of the lamb was a demonstration of their faithful devotion, and it was also a sign of their trusting embrace of a hope-filled promise: the people could rest knowing that God’s mercy was indeed upon them.

 

The blood of the lamb: it served as God’s gracious gift of assurance that He would surely pass over them and preserve their lives! And it happened just as God promised it would.

 

Judgment came and those who identified with the lamb were delivered!

 

Again, this great moment is remembered as the Exodus, Israel’s going out of captivity. And God commissioned them to remember His saving act of redemption throughout the ages by sharing in a meal together feasting upon a lamb, drinking wine, breaking a very special bread together.

 

The bread was to be unleavened—that is, without yeast—because this would be in remembrance of God’s swift deliverance. The people were led out of Egypt so quickly that they didn’t have time to let the dough rise, so they didn’t put yeast in it.

 

That’s why even traditional Jewish seder meals today include Matzah which is unleavened.

 

These elements are represented here tonight in this triclinium table.

 

This meal of remembrance became known as the Passover. And it’s been celebrated for thousands of years.

 

Again, whenever Jews celebrate the Passover they’re doing two things really: they’re reflecting back on God’s gracious, miraculous deliverance, and they’re anticipating His final act of redemption—a new, final Exodus which they see as still to come.

 

This is the context for Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem: hundreds of thousands of Jews gathering together in order to sacrifice the Passover Lamb and feast together as they had always done. This was no average time, nor was it a coincidence.

 

Jesus came to Jerusalem at this very time in order to bring all of redemptive history upon himself: to fulfill all that redemptive history had been pointing towards. Jesus came to Jerusalem specifically during the celebration of the historical Exodus, so that he could begin the real Exodus, securing the real redemption of God’s people. Jesus came to Jerusalem when the spotless, perfect Passover lambs were to be slaughtered in place of the people so that he could become the real Passover Lamb himself offering his life as a sacrifice for ours.

 

But the majority didn’t make the connection. Though he had given them hints along the way, most of his followers didn’t understand that he was to be the Lamb. Like everyone else, they expected the Messiah to be a triumphant leader who would eliminate Roman rule and establish a Jewish Kingdom.

They saw their enemy mainly as political; Jesus saw it primarily as spiritual. And they saw it as Caesar, and Jesus saw it as sin.

 

As he made his way through his final week, the shadow of the cross grew longer and darker and heavier upon him. Jesus knew that it was time to finally lift the veil: time to redefine for his followers the true way of Kingship. His throne would be a cross. His heart as a ruler would be the heart of a servant. And the way of the King would be the way of the Lamb. And so he determined to model it for them one last time.

 

As David read on Thursday, he sent Peter and John to make the needed preparations for the eating of the Passover.

 

And on that night, the night on which he was betrayed and falsely accused and arrested, Jesus gathered with his disciples for one last meal.

 

By all accounts, though the Passover was not to be celebrated until the next day, this last meal was a Passover.

 

As we have represented here, they probably had lamb, cups of wine and certainly unleavened bread.

 

The reason for this premature Passover isn’t actually clear. One possibility is that Jesus and his disciples were Galilean Jews and some have suggested that maybe they were following a slightly different calendar than the Judean Jews. And that’s possible, but I think even more likely, I think we see the reason found in Jesus’ identity as the Lamb of God himself. Though few had eyes to see it, Jesus understood that the fulfillment of all that the Passover had symbolized throughout the years was now finding fulfillment in him. And so in his coming, the Passover meal that would have been celebrated the next day was no longer valid since each Passover lamb pointed beyond itself to the True Passover Lamb of God and since that Lamb was finally here to offer himself as a sacrifice, the festivities of tomorrow were not even necessary.

 

It’s as if this premature celebration was Jesus’ intentional way of validating himself and invalidating the next day’s feast with which the masses would be occupied while he as occupied on a cross.

 

I think Jesus’ intention is confirmed as we look at Luke’s account. If you’ll turn with me to Luke Chapter 22 beginning in Verse 14. That’s page 1637 in your pew Bibles. Luke Chapter 22 Verse 14:

 

They prepared the Passover. When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “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.”

 

Luke sets the stage here for us describing the position that they would have assumed around the table. You know, we sit up straight and tall and we have our own place and space, but they literally reclined. Some of you were able to come in and see the elders gathered around the table—literally reclining at the table, even leaning at times, these disciples, against each other’s chest. That would have been normal.

 

There was an air of intimacy present that is quite foreign to you and me. And in addition to intimacy, there was also a great sense of urgency.

 

Jesus says here, “I have eagerly desired to eat this meal with you.” Literally it says, “With desire I have desired.” In other words, “I have been passionately longing for this particular moment! My life has been aiming for this, and it’s finally here!”

 

Notice, Jesus is emphatic! It’s this particular Passover that he has longed to eat! He says, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover before I suffer.” Why this Passover? I think it’s because it’s the last Passover!

 

He knows that tomorrow everything the Passover meal has ever symbolized will find fulfillment in his own sacrifice! He knows that the sacrifice of Passover lambs have only been good for a year, but his sacrifice will be good forever!

 

Oh, this Last Supper is so important to Jesus. He even employs a word-play here that I think he intended. Our English doesn’t really catch it. The word “to suffer” at the end of verse15 actually shares the same root with the noun “Passover:” Passover lamb. Jesus is literally saying, I think, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover lamb with you before I am Passover Lamb.”

 

And whether his followers got it then or not, in time they did.

 

In I Peter 1:19 we read this declaration from Peter:

 

You were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, the Passover Lamb without blemish or defect.

 

And in I Corinthians 5:7 the apostle Paul writes:

 

Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed!

 

And then in John’s vision of Heaven in Revelation Chapter 5, he explains that he sees the elders bowing down worshipping the Lamb who was slain because he had ransomed people for God by his own blood.

 

And even John the Baptist, even John the Baptist long before the Passion week ever unfolded, he understood—at least in part—Jesus’ Passover Mission. When he first set eyes on him, he said, “Look! Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

 

You see death wasn’t merely a part of Jesus life; death was his life. Shedding his blood wasn’t an accident; it was the very reason he came. Jesus was on a predetermined, love-motivated mission of rescue: a mission that had the cross in mind all along, a rescue that had you in mind all along!

 

The next day at the very hour when thousands of Passover lambs were being slaughtered at the Temple, on the cross the Lamb of God was sacrificed for you and me: his sacrifice in our place, his blood on our behalf, for our redemption. It’s a New Exodus. It’s the Real exodus: delivered, not from captivity to Egypt, but from captivity to sin—taking the right judgment of God upon himself so that by His grace we might be passed over, forgiven, set free!

 

Oh, Jesus’ whole life was a journey of mercy to Calvary, and it culminated on a Thursday evening with a meal that we remember tonight: a Passover that Jesus redefined forever.

 

The cup would now be his blood. The bread would now be his body. And Jesus himself would be the Lamb.

 

Is he your Lamb? Have you received Jesus as God’s gracious provision for you? Have you dipped your branch of hyssop in his blood and put it over the doorframe of your heart?

 

If not, there’s no better time than tonight, and if so, then come celebrate afresh the gift of the Lamb of God.

 

This is a New Passover. Tonight remember the Lamb’s sacrifice for you, and anticipate the Lamb’s return.

 

Amen? Amen.