Jesus Christ, Our Passover

Well, good afternoon. See if any of you wake up. It's still morning. Still morning to see all of you. It's wonderful. And of course, we've got a few people out of town, and yet we sounded great. So thank you for your good singing. I was just thinking, right before church, right before Mr. Jackson started, everything was awfully quiet. It seemed like we've got a very attentive group. So we're finding out who the really noisy ones are. You know, the Hausletons and Carol and Lorraine and my wife.

Those are the really noisy ones. So anyway, it's wonderful to be here with you today. And it's fabulous to be able to begin the Holy Day season again. The Holy Days for this year are truly a wonderful reminder. God needs to remind us. He needs to remind us of His plan. Because we live in this world, and we need to be reminded of His purpose and of His plan for us.

And of course, with the Passover coming up this week on Thursday evening, it's important for all of us to be reminded of the significance of the way that God used the Passover lamb that we read about in Exodus 12, and then the commemoration of the Passover all down through what we see in the Old Testament.

Now, I don't see that they were always observing it. Many times they were not. They were not. They, it seems, occasionally were brought back to awareness that there was some importance or some significance in their lives. So God used that type of a symbol as He dealt with Israel of old.

But, and maybe even more importantly, we want to think about the importance that God has placed on our Passover lamb. Jesus Christ. It's a wonderful thing to have the mercy and the love and the forgiveness extended to us that we need to be able to be, as Tom was mentioning, to be the children of God. He wants us in His family. He doesn't set up things without meaning or without purpose. He does things with intention, and that intention is to help us.

It is to serve us in a sense, because He loves and wants us so much to be in His family. We want to learn about that. We want to learn how to approach that, and we want to do that with our hearts. And a part of that is our respect of the Passover.

I want to run through Exodus 12 here just a little bit, just to keep in mind how it was that God used the... He instituted the Passover in Exodus 12. At this point, the children of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Jacob's sons, they were all enslaved. They were brickmakers, I guess. You could say that they had to continually do the work that their taskmasters, the Egyptians, laid upon them.

And no matter how hard they made it, they had to do it, or they would be beaten, or they would be harmed in some way. But here in Exodus 12, you see the example of what happened with the Passover. In verse 3, it says, And Moses was directed by God to do this, tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of the month, you were to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household.

And down in verse 6, you should keep that lamb until the fourteenth day of the month. A whole assembled congregation of Israel should slaughter it at twilight or between the two evenings. That was meaning at what would be the beginning of the fourteenth of the month. And if we go on in verse 7, what they were to do, they were to take some of the blood, they were to put it on the doorpost, the two-door post in the little of the house, in which they eat it.

In verse 8, they were to eat the lamb that same night. They were to eat it with fire, and with unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs. Drop down in verse 10, you shall let none of it remain until the morning. Anything that remains until the morning, you shall burn. In verse 11, it kind of talks about it in that this is a time that you need to be prepared for.

Verse 11, this is how you ought to eat it. Eat it with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly. So it was, you know, to be something that they were excited about. They were, you know, they didn't know exactly what God was going to do fully.

They could listen to what Moses was being told and what he was telling them. But it says that you should do this, having in a sense being prepared in order to leave. And he said in verse 11, it is the Passover of the Lord. So he was designating what it was that they observed with the lamb and with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They were observing that in their own home. In verse 12, I will pass through the land of Egypt that night. I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human and animal.

And on all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. You know, clearly, you know, God was fully in charge of this operation. He was telling Moses what to do. He was going to relay that on to the Israelites. In verse 13, he says, The blood of the Lamb, the blood, shall be a sign for you on your houses where you live. When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. And so this was clearly, you know, God's doing. He said, if you have the blood of the Lamb on your doors, on your outside of your house, well, then I'm going to pass over you.

In continuing in the instructions, if we drop down to verse 19, for seven days, of course, it was going to be following this particular day, for seven days no leaven should be found in your houses. For whoever eats what is leaven shall be cut off of the congregation. In verse 20, you shall eat nothing leavened, in all your settlements you should eat unleavened bread. And so, again, God gave Moses more direction about not only the Passover of the Lord, but what they would be doing shortly thereafter, eating unleavened bread, because they had come out of Egypt in haste.

We drop down to verse 23. After Moses had told the elders what they were to do, he said in verse 23, you need to do this because the Lord is going to pass through to strike down the Egyptians. When he sees the blood on the lintel and on the doorpost, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down.

See, that was an amazing occurrence. Not just that God was executing judgment upon the gods of Egypt, but in essence, what we see is that He was going to provide a divine cover for the Israelites. He was providing divine protection. In essence, this blood that was on the front of the house, it provided a cover for their house. And of course, ultimately, we're going to find that the blood of Jesus provides a cover for our sins.

It blocks out and covers our sins. And in a sense, it's an absolutely wonderful blessing to live in a household under the cover of the protection that God is able to provide through Jesus Christ. Down in verse 27, He said, when your children ask, you should say, This is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord. For He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He struck down the Egyptians, but He spared our houses, and the people bowed down and worshiped. And the Israelites went and did, just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

In verse 29, at midnight, so it was shortly after they had all done what they had been told to do. They had been told in each of their households to take the lamb, to have the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs, they were to eat it and expect deliverance. And at midnight, in verse 29, the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne of the firstborn, the prisoner who was in the dungeon.

And of course, Pharaoh rose in the night, and there was a huge cry, terrible cry in Egypt, because clearly they had suffered a tremendous loss. But I go over this quickly with all of us, just to remind us that the Passover was instituted, and it involved the lamb, it involved the blood of the lamb, and it displayed a divine protection, a divine cover for, at this point, the people of God, the people of Israel. Now, when we come to the New Testament, we see in 1 Corinthians 5, in 1 Corinthians, of course, Paul is writing to one of the congregations of the church, one that he was very close to, one that he had been instrumental in raising up.

And yet, you know, they struggled with things, and yet, what we want to see is simply what he states here in 1 Corinthians 5, because he's telling them, you know, you need to recognize what God has done for you. You need to appreciate what God has done. Now, clearly, the people there in Corinth were struggling. They had problems that, you know, ranged from, you know, almost every imaginable issue. They didn't seem to comprehend the depth of the conversion that they should have been enjoying. But in verse 6 of chapter 5, he said, If your boasting is not a good thing, don't you know that a little yeast or a little leaven, leaven's a whole bunch or the whole batch of dough.

And he says, clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our Passover, Jesus Christ, has been sacrificed. And he makes the reference to and clearly identifies who our Passover is. Our Passover, for each of us individually and for all of us collectively, is Jesus Christ. And he says, Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, of malice and hatred, of anger, but celebrate the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

See, this is instruction that the Corinthians would eventually benefit from as they realized what was taking place. This is a custom that all of us have been observing, many of us, for many, many years. And yet the significance of it doesn't go away. Understanding that Jesus is our Passover, understanding that it is because of His blood that in a sense we are covered and we have not only God's protection but His forgiveness.

And so I ask us, what is your motivation to obey God? What is your motivation to obey God? What is your motivation as you struggle against sin? Because sometimes it can become somewhat commonplace that we're struggling against the same thing and we're not making as much progress as we would like. Maybe we ought to think about what should motivate us. I think our motivation ought to be understanding our Passover, understanding Jesus Christ, and in a sense not only be reminded, which we are every year, but also to envision Christ's sacrifice for us.

His blood that was shed to cover our sins and His body that was broken for us as He suffered considerably before He would ultimately die. Again, as we had pointed out, with the shedding of His blood, with the spear of that soldier, ultimately His death occurred, and yet He was suffering considerably throughout that day, as I want to point out to you. I'd like for us to look in Matthew 8. Matthew 8, you see, and again our focus should be right now.

And as we go into the time of the Passover, it should be on Jesus Christ. It should be on the one who really has so much concern for us, it's hard for us to perhaps even imagine, how much love Jesus Christ has for us. Here in Matthew 8, you see in verse 14 an account of something that we need to think about at the time of the Passover.

It says Jesus entered Peter's house, and Peter's mother-in-law was lying in bed with a high fever, and it says He touched her hand, and the fever left. She got up and began to serve Him. That's certainly a positive story, a positive outcome. It indicates numerous things that I'm not going to focus on.

Clearly, God can intervene, and Jesus was able to intervene in the lives of people to provide them physical healing. And yet you find, as we continue in verse 16, that evening, they brought to Him many who were possessed with demons, and He cast out the spirits with the Word, and then He cured all who were brought to Him who were sick. And so in a sense, we see a statement about Jesus not only ability to heal the sick and to provide cure, but also to heal those who were spiritually sick.

There were people who were plagued with demon spirits. And clearly Jesus not only could identify that, He could solve that for them. He could help them. He could, in a sense, in another way, provide healing to them. And in verse 17, Matthew writes, this was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, that He took our infirmities and He bore our diseases. See, Matthew would write that this is a part of what God provides. This is a part of the benefits that come from knowing Jesus Christ, our Passover, but also knowing God the Father.

If we go to 1 Peter 2, you see Peter making reference to this same type of concept about the body of Christ having been beaten and broken, having been given, in a sense, as a sacrifice, not just His blood, but His body was given as a sacrifice, so that we have a wonderful benefit available to us. In verse 2 of 1 Peter, starting in verse 21, he says, to this you've been called because Christ suffered for you.

Now, it wasn't just that He died for us, but He suffered for us. I would assume that there were perhaps times that He suffered throughout His life. You don't see a lot of distress or frustration in His life, but I'm sure there were times He was maybe grieved, a little concerned, that clearly nobody understands what is going on. It says He had compassion on the city. He looked upon people in a very merciful and very loving way, and yet ultimately there was going to be great distress in His last day.

And yet it says, Christ suffered for us. He suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you should follow in His steps. So, should we expect to suffer any in our life? Well, Jesus' example was one of being willing to endure suffering, and that is what we often do.

We do labor and suffer in many ways in our physical life. But He goes on to say in talking about Jesus' life and His sacrifice, our Passover, verse 22, He never committed sin. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth, and even when He was abused. He didn't return. He didn't retaliate that abuse.

When He suffered, He didn't threaten those who were attacking Him. He didn't try to fight the soldiers who were nailing His hands. He didn't retaliate. He simply entrusted Himself to the one who judges righteously, or who justly judges.

And it says, Peter quotes in verse 24, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross or on the tree, so that free from sin we might live for righteousness. See, it's not only what He did for us as far as covering our sins and covering our past. He wants to live in us. For it says, by His stripes, or by His wounds, or bruises, whatever word that is translated there, there are several different ones. It says, by His wounds or stripes, you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your soul.

See, again, these are often verses we go over at the time of the Passover, even in the Passover service, in connection with the bread. Now, the blood has a very obvious implication, I think, to have His blood shed so that ours isn't required. We don't have to give our blood for our sins. We did, and that would simply be the end of us. But we are covered. We have a divine covering, which is our Passover. And this dimension of it is really amazing when you think about... And I know we have often, perhaps in the past, and even now, we teach that the breaking of His body clearly has a connection to healing. And of course, we would like to, any time we're ever physically ailing, we'd like to immediately be healed. But that is not God's plan or purpose. The benefit of healing, the benefit of looking to God, the benefit of trusting God, the benefit of having faith in God, even through a period of time that it's up to God as far as when He would choose to heal. We often make that connection, but I hope in showing you that there may be more to it. There may be more to it than just that. In Hebrews 5, we see another statement that Paul makes that is instructive here because it points out even a little more about what Jesus learned. See, right now, He is our high priest. Right now, He is at the right hand of God, and in all the glory of the great God, reinstated to that role and to that glory. And yet it says in Hebrews 5 verse 7, in the days of His flesh, when He was right here, when He walked this earth, when He was physical in Hebrews 5 verse 7, in the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplication with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save Him from death. And He was heard because of His reverent submission. See, what should human beings do? This was at a time when Jesus was in a physical, in a human form. Well, He was crying out to God. He was praying to God. He was communing with His Father. Now, was He close to His Father? Yes, very much so. Absolutely, almost, you could say unequivocally, He was always in unison with and one with His Father. And yet, being a physical person, He needed to plead to God. He needed to draw close to God. And it says He was heard because He was in reverent submission. He was clearly dependent upon the help that the Father would provide Him. And in verse 8, He says, although He was the Son, the Son of God, although He was His Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. See, that's an important lesson for us because if Jesus was able to learn obedience, His obedience was perfect, of course, but He learned more even about a response to God. And it says in verse 9, having been made perfect, and so He was, in essence, through that process perfected, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who would obey Him. And so, you know, He's the one who has set the example. He's the one who is our pattern. And He is the one that we can look to for help and encouragement as we struggle, as we struggle against sin, as we think about, well, what is our motivation? Well, our motivation ought to be Jesus Christ, our Passover.

I'd like for us to think about, you know, what suffering Jesus did. What suffering He did before He actually died. See, we know He physically had to suffer. He was beaten. He was flogged. He was slapped.

People were striking Him. You know, this is appalling, you know, to me. Whenever I read it, I think, how ridiculous. How utterly ridiculous for human beings to be so arrogant and so crude and so rude and so, I mean, every description you could bring out to beat, to flog, to slap, to strike in the face or in the head, their Creator. That's incredible. But see, I would think you would also say that not only did Jesus physically suffer, which He clearly did, you know, there was a certain level of mental suffering that He had to be going through. I'm sure at times He had to be somewhat discouraged. At least He expressed to the Father, I'm in deep distress here, and I need to be supported. I need to be helped. You know, He had to be discouraged. He endured betrayal, clearly by Judas, but really He endured rejection by everyone who were His friends, people He deeply loved, people that He had a close working relationship with. And so clearly He was suffering, in a sense, a certain level of mental stress. And I would guess psychologically, you know, whenever you read what was going on, the disrespect, the senseless humiliation, clearly abuse without cause. Had He done anything to bring any of that rightly upon Himself? Well, no. So there was more than simply, you know, the physical pain that He was suffering. You know, there was anguish in other forms. Let's turn back to Mark 14. Mark 14 is one of the accounts of what Jesus went through, and I want to just quickly go through some of this.

Mark 14, starting in verse in the latter part of it. I'm not going to read all of this. But in Mark 14, this is where Jesus was before the Council. He was not, had been betrayed, and then He was taken to the Jewish authorities. And in verse 59, it says, even at this point, you know, those who tried to testify against Him, they couldn't agree on anything. They couldn't come up with any accusation that would be valid, because there were no accusations that could be just in blaming or accusing or criticizing the Son of God. In verse 60, the high priest stands up, quite arrogantly, you might say, well, don't you have anything to say, Jesus? What is it that they testify against you? But in verse 61, it says Jesus was simply silent. He did not answer. And the high priest asked Him, well, are you the Messiah and the Son of the Blessed One? And Jesus said, I am.

And down in verse 64, of course, the high priest jumps up and yells, you've heard His blasphemy. You know, what is your decision? And they all condemned Him to death. See, that was kind of a kangaroo court. Clearly they didn't have any evidence, so just declare Him guilty.

That was all they could do. But then verse 65 is just, it's crushing to even read. Some of them began to spit on Him. You know, one of the more rude and disgusting things that people do toward each other, some began to spit on Him.

Some blindfolded Him. And then they would strike Him saying, well, prophesy the guards would then take Him and beat Him. That's a pretty concise verse there in verse 65 of what it was that our Passover suffered. He wasn't dead yet. He was suffering, not only physically, from being hit or being blinded, blindfolded.

But from just the humiliation of going through such a treacherous thing.

If we jump over to chapter 15, I want to just read another short section here.

Chapter 15 is when Jesus was before Pilate, because He was taken from the Jewish council to be standing before Pilate. In verse 9, then He answered them, do you want me to release? This is Pilate. Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews? Or even Pilate could see that he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priest had handed Him over.

Clearly this was a rigged trial or test in any way. Pilate, of course, would later find, you know, I don't find any reason to kill Him. I see no fall or error or sin in Him. There's no reason for me, but I'm going to just do it because you wanted me to.

But in verse 10, He points out how this seems to be ridiculous. And in verse 13, it says, they shouted, of course, back, crucify Him. And Pilate asked them, oh, why? What evil has He done? And they shouted all the more, crucify Him. So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas to them. And after flogging Jesus, why did He flog Jesus? Well, again, this was a part of what was to be, but it almost seemed adding insult to injury. He had already been abused in numerous ways by the Jews. And now, in the Roman system, Pilate ordered Him to be flogged and handed Him over to be crucified.

And then the soldiers led Him into the courtyard of the palace. And they called together the whole cohort, and they clothed Him in a purple cloak. And after twisting into thorns, or twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on His head. I doubt if they just gently laid it on top. They probably just jammed it on His head. And they began saluting Him.

Hail, King of the Jews! They struck Him. They struck His head with a reed. They spit upon Him again. They knelt down in homage to Him. And after mocking Him, they stripped Him of the purple cloak and put His own clothes on Him. And they led Him out to crucify Him. In all of this, we're not even reading the part where they crucified Him and caused Him to hang on that tree for hours as He would then be put to death and die. But all of this was beforehand.

This was suffering that He was willing to endure. And yet, do we think about what Jesus went through so we can be forgiven? And so we have the benefit of healing, healing in multiple different ways. Not just physical healing that we always so easily want whenever we hurt. But He says, I've gone through a lot of humiliation, a lot of distress, a lot of rejection and betrayal. There are many other types of suffering that Jesus endured. Isaiah 53 is a chapter that, again, we often read in thinking about the crucifixion.

And yet this was clearly a prediction long before. Hundreds of years before Jesus would come, God inspired Isaiah to write down what it would be that the suffering servant would do. And again, I'm not going to read. You can read a few verses at the end of chapter 52 and then throughout the whole chapter 53 to get the whole picture.

But I want to read just a couple of these verses because the disgusting treatment that Jesus would endure was predicted long before. Verse 2 of chapter 53 says, He grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of a dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.

Jesus looked like everybody else pretty much and commonly at that day. But it says in verse 3, He was despised, and He was rejected by others. He was a man of suffering, and He was acquainted with infirmity, and as one with whom others hid their face or hide their face, He was despised, and we held Him of no account. Clearly, the Jews and then the Romans were directly involved in His murder, and yet all of us, as we earlier had pointed out, all of us have a part in the rejection that Jesus endured.

Verse 4, surely He has borne our infirmities. Surely He has carried our diseases, yet we accounted Him stricken and struck down by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, and upon Him was a punishment that made us whole by His bruises. We are healed. See, those are references that we read in Peter or in Matthew to the fact that what Jesus went through, what He suffered, what He endured for us was incredible.

There was a reason why He was doing it. He was doing it because the Father and He love us. The Father sent Him to go through that and for us to be connected with them through Jesus Christ, through our Passover. In 1 Corinthians 6, the next chapter from where we were a while ago, 1 Corinthians 6, He says in the latter part of this chapter, He's discussed a number of things with the people of the church there in Corinth.

And He said, you know, you need to understand how that as members of the church, as individuals who have devoted your life to a commitment, to a covenant with God that you intend to fulfill for the remainder of your life, whatever that could be.

He says, you need to be mindful of the fact. Drop down toward the end of the chapter. Verse 19, He says, don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?

That Spirit that is within you, which you have from God, that you are no longer your own.

So He wanted them to remember that, well, you've given up the rule over your life. You've given up, or you've come to see that, well, you know, what I ended up doing was making a huge mess of my life.

I've sinned. I deserve the penalty of death. And I appreciate the fact that that sin can be covered. I have a Passover sacrifice individually that I can depend on and trust and believe and know that that is the motivating factor in my life.

He says, don't you know that the Spirit of God is within you and you have that from God and you are no longer your own?

For you, in verse 20, were bought with a price.

What was the price that we were purchased by? Well, the price was what Jesus endured, what He went through, what He suffered, what He gave up for us. He did that for us. He did that because He wants us to be in His family. He wants us to be the little children, the little brothers and the little sisters who are going to be eternally in the family of God. He wants that. He desires that.

And He should be our motivation. The Lamb of God, our Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ, should be our motivation in everything that we do. And of course, He closes that verse with just saying, therefore glorify God. Glorify God in your body. Do what God would wish for you to do. What you are not only understanding, but what you should desire to do because God motivates you by covering you with a Passover sacrifice. I think it's fabulous that God reminds us of this every year because we tend to be forgetful, and it's good to be reminded. And we need to be reminded, of course, of this fact throughout the year. It should never be something that we ignore or forget or put on the back burner or sideline. And yet because of our Passover Lamb, because of the Passover that was sacrificed for us, we have a covering that allows us to be the people of God and allows us to enjoy the mercy of God.

Again, if we go back to 1 Peter 2, 1 Peter 2. Again, Peter is talking to the entirety of the church then and now. And of course, he says that Jesus Christ is our cornerstone in verse 6. And even though some would reject, and many all of us have, he says that stone has got to be the foundation. It's got to be the motivation for us. And he says in verse 9, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people. In order that or so that you may proclaim the mighty acts of Him who called you out of darkness into this marvelous light.

See, Peter has a somewhat clear way of stating, you know, the fact that we were in darkness and we've been brought into the light. We were in sin. We were enslaved to sin, but we've been brought into a state of forgiveness.

We have that available to us. We have healing available to us. And again, not just physical healing, but healing that involves even an understanding of the suffering that human beings often struggle with. Suffering that may not even be obvious. Suffering that is, you know, within our own makeup.

But he says in verse 10, in conclusion, once you were a people, or excuse me, once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. You are God's people. You have been drawn by the covering blood of the Passover lamb. You've been drawn into a protected state to be the people of God.

And he said, once you had not received mercy, but now you have. You have received mercy.

So, brethren, we have been given so much. And of course, we observe the Passover as we're commanded to do. We're directed to do that. And Jesus says to do that, to eat my flesh and to drink my blood. And he says, as you do, you have eternal life.

You have a hold on eternal life. And of course, the only way that we can have eternal life is through Jesus Christ. We'll conclude with one other verse here, if we turn back a few more pages into 1 John.

1 John chapter 4. It kind of tells us what we should do.

Now, I realize we're approaching the Passover. We want to not only do that, we want to observe the days of Unleavened Bread. We want to live our lives with God guiding and directing us.

But here in 1 John 4, he says what to do in verse 7. He says, Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God.

Love one another because love is from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. And whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.

See, that's a description of God, a one-word description that you could easily remember. All of us know that, and yet he goes ahead to even elaborate on that more. He says that's a necessity to be a part of your life.

God's love in verse 9 was revealed among us in this way.

God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

And in this is love, not that we loved God. We don't initiate that. We're not the one that, you know, God is waiting on us.

And this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us.

And He sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. And, beloved, since God has loved us so very much, we also ought to love one another.

And no one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, then God lives in us.

And His love is perfected in us.

Brethren, we have the Passover Lamb that provides a divine cover for our lives.

We want to live expressing the love of God for Him, for each other, and be able then to benefit from the tremendous suffering that Jesus went through and the tremendous sacrifice that He gave when He allowed His blood to be shed for us.

God is very concerned about each one of us. He's concerned about our relationship with Him.

He wants that. We need, as it says, God extended it. We need to return it. We need to return it to each other. We certainly need to return the love of God that He's willing to give us to return that to Him.

And we do that as we celebrate the Passover, as we observe the Passover, I guess we could say, and celebrate the beginning of the days of Unleavened Bread.

We do that by envisioning and by being reminded of our Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ.