Christ Our Passover

[Steve Myers] How do you celebrate the Christian Passover? It is something that Jesus Christ Himself spent a lot of time with the disciples teaching them to observe. You know, they were so locked into the Jewish Passover, the Old Testament Passover that this was something new that Christ was looking forward to. He said with fervent desire He desired to eat that last Passover meal with them before the crucifixion. It was something that He was going to change to make it spiritually significant for the New Testament Church. So it's something you need to know about.

[Darris McNeely] And He did that by changing the symbols that they were sitting and eating, actually the bread and wine that evening and that meal. And He showed that they both represented significant key parts of His life, His body at that point. The bread, His body, which was being broken, and the wine symbolized the blood that He was going to shed for the sins of all mankind. So those two symbols, those two elements became the symbols for two of the most important matters regarding salvation in our relationship with God.

[Steve Myers] It's interesting it wasn't about a Jewish Passover meal, it wasn't about a Seder, it wasn't about any of those kinds of things. It's about what that bread and wine would represent—the symbolism behind it, the sacrifice of Christ. Instead of passing over the houses of the Israelites in Ancient Israel, it was going to represent the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and that passing over of our sins when we accept Christ as our Savior and we're repentant before God.

[Darris McNeely] And that was done on an annual occasion. It is done once a year according to the time when the Passover was kept, which was on the 14th day of the first month of God's sacred calendar. And that date floats on the Roman calendar every year, but it coincides in the March/April period of time, which we're in right now.

[Steve Myers] And as a Christian, it's something that we do. We come together to celebrate that Passover. And it's a somber, serious occasion because we recognize the sacrifice of Christ. And in fact, in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, the Apostle Paul gives specific instructions for us on how to celebrate the Passover. First of all, he begins by saying when you come together as a Church. So as the body of Christ, we come together. So are you meeting with a Church that celebrates the Christian Passover? Paul says we need to come together to do that and he says it's not to eat the Lord's Supper. He makes that very clear in verse 20 of 1 Corinthians chapter 11. And so this Passover is not the Lord's Supper. It's not communion, but it is the Passover of the bread and wine that Jesus Christ set aside representing His body and blood (1 Corinthians 11:20).

[Darris McNeely] And if you think that perhaps you have been doing this correctly through the years, examine exactly your practice, your custom against what the Scripture says. And I think that you're going to find that in some cases you're going to be missing something.

[Steve Myers] So we celebrate it by remembering. He says, take my body—that bread—it's a remembrance of Me or a memorial to Him. We're recognizing the ultimate sacrifice that He gave. The same thing with His blood—the cup—it says is the New Covenant in My blood. That's 1 Corinthians 11:25. Do it in remembrance of Me, or as a memorial to Me, He says. And so by doing those things we proclaim His death until He comes. We're recognizing that sacrifice. We're recommitting our lives to Him every year when we take that Christian Passover. So we recognize His sacrifice and how all important it is for us even to be Christians in the first place (1 Corinthians 11:24-26)

[Darris McNeely] It's important that we get it right and we get it right by following the example that Christ set and that Paul himself said he received from Christ and He instituted and placed within the body of the Church. 

[Steve Myers] It's a big subject—lots to it. We'll be talking about it a few times here on BT Daily. So stay with us.