Passover

I am in the midst of teaching the Passover from a Jewish perspective in my 10th grade Bible class. As I taught the same thing over and over all day long I was pleasantly surprised by new things that the Lord brought to my mind as i read and studied. Jesus said to His disciples, " I have fervent desire to eat this last meal with you." That is pretty strong Greek. The more I thought about it, the more I could not let the idea go that there is/was a pretty high, positive attitude from our Lord as He prepared for the Passover knowing that He would die the next day, yet He remained in good spirits. The event of the Passover can really be broken down into two things: The event and the remembrance (meal). As we know the event is the time in history when The LORD had promised that the death angel would come and kill all the first born kids, despite race, and the only way to live was to make sure that you have the blood of the lamb on the door, I mean death really surrounded this whole plague, Death, for the wages of sin is death. Then comes the celebration, the feast of Unleavened bread, the celebration in which much of the emphasis if not all is put on the fact that the Jews first Born got a "get out of dead" free card, but than I took a closer look, they really did not get out of death, they just got it prolonged, a prolonged death, a prolonged physical death. This celebration is in the midst of an event in which its emphasis is on a prolonged death and physical freedom from death, but physical freedom is not enough, in fact wasn't physical death a blessing to Adam, "What shall we do lest they eat from the tree of life and live forever?" God banished Adam and Eve so they could die, if they lived forever we would not be here. So Jesus institutes something special in the heart of the Feast of Unleavened Bread that He is so excited to share with his friends. So many years earlier when Adam and Eve sinned they should have been cursed, instead they were judged, the cursing went to the serpent and the ground, man's curse, well let's just say God has been holding onto it for a long time. Jesus is fervently desiring to eat this meal with the disciples because He is about to take something that is saturated in death and physical freedom only and turn it into life and spiritual freedom, a Passover like none other. He then makes a promise, "I will not drink of the vine again until we are in my father's house. See next year Passover will be celebrated and the year after and the year after, just like it always had. But that passover was different, there will not be one like it until we are with Jesus in Heaven, he is not eating it until he comes to get his bride. The groom goes to prepare a place for his bride but he is not at his dad's house eating the wedding cake, He will eat that later after he comes to get her, his bride, us. God has been holding onto that curse for a long time, Jesus is fervent with desire to eat this with his friends because he is bringing death to life. The event of the Passover is followed by the remembrance of the Passover feast, incorporated in that is the event of Christ's death burial and resurrection, the real remembrance of that will be, not when we take communion again, but when we have that feast again at the marriage supper of the lamb. God has been holding that curse for a long time, he is going to give it to someone finally on good Friday, he should have given it to Adam, he should have given it to me, but he held it and blessed me with death so to speak, a physical death, so that I can have spiritual life in him. Adam fell to the sin of pride, he died, Jesus was tempted on top of the temple by the devil, "jump off the temple, let them see that you are God" What if he had done this? What if they had seen him descend and angels carry him to the ground, I believe they would have called him Lord and you know what? I believe that they would not have crucified him, Satan would have won. Jesus beat the devil in the desert.

Jesus was pumped to eat this meal for the first time with his disciples, because it would not be the last time that they did this, in fact, it is not the beginning of the end, but rather the beginning of the beginning of the beginning. Jesus was pumped to eat this with his friends because he knew He had made it, he made it to the end, He made it the point in which he would in hours beat death, He made it further than Adam, He made it further than me. He offers more than a supper representative of prolonged physical death, he does not represent anything, He is.