The New Testament Passover

Good to have you here. I hope you're having a wonderful Sabbath, and thank you to all those who participated in that new hymn. It's great to see some familiar faces. Thank you for your service in recording that and preparing that. It's beautiful, and the words are very meaningful. Well, I want to talk to you today about the Passover, as we are preparing for that now, and as we heard in the sermonette. I'd like to start by just sharing a short story. Many years ago, my wife had a friend she met during a ballet class in which her daughter was enrolled.

Her daughter and our daughter were in this ballet class together, and over several years we got to know this woman and her husband and family. We'd go to their house in Sunnyvale and also to their house they had in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and we'd enjoy time with them. One year, of course, we shared our faith with them, and they respected that. But one year, around this time, our friend invited my wife and daughter over to an Easter egg hunt at her home. She described this Easter egg hunt and how it was all going to play out, and how our daughter would come, and there would be other kids there, and they would all enjoy an Easter egg hunt.

My wife obviously declined, said that she wouldn't be coming over with Sophie, and she explained that as Christians, we didn't feel comfortable participating in this non-Christian practice of doing an Easter egg hunt. Our friend accepted the decline and moved on. But then later, she called my wife back, and she was quite frustrated. She was quite frustrated because around the same time, she also invited one of her Jewish friends over, along with her daughter, to come to this Easter egg hunt. Her Jewish friend declined as they didn't feel comfortable participating in this Christian practice because they were Jewish.

So my wife's friend was just very confused about this whole thing. She's like, well, you're Christian, and you say it's non-Christian, and then I've got my Jewish friends who are saying it's Christian. What is this thing? Why does nobody want to come to my party, basically? And Easter is actually a very interesting holiday because it is considered to be the holiest day of the Christian year. And yet Catholics and Protestants alike understand that the name Easter, the day Sunday, and the meaning that is the celebration of a resurrection, weren't celebrated by the first century church. So again, the name, the day, and what it's supposed to mean was not something that the early first century church celebrated. According to the online international standard encyclopedia, the word Easter comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ishtar, and Easter was a Teutonic goddess. We have a very good booklet on this. I'm not going to go into the details here, but through a series of events that stretched over the course of several hundred years, a good four or five hundred years, the name of this non-Christian goddess who was worshiped and celebrated around the same time as the Passover became the name in English of the holiest day of the year for Catholics and Protestants around the world. That day had been known for thousands of years previous as Passover. The evening of the Passover is determined based upon the Hebrew lunar calendar, and yet when Christians implemented Easter, they never actually agreed on what Sunday it should be celebrated. We've talked about the Council of Nicaea before, and it was in 325 AD that the Roman Catholics determined that Passover should no longer be celebrated, and Easter Sunday should be celebrated, but they didn't actually stipulate what Easter Sunday should be celebrated. Across Europe, for hundreds of years, some Christians celebrated it on a Sunday here and others on a Sunday there, and there were five different Sundays that people celebrated on. It wasn't until much later that they came up with this fairly complex way of saying that the first full moon after the vernal equinox of the this and that and so forth determines what day is Easter. Most of all, the meaning of the day, which focuses on the celebration of a resurrection of Jesus Christ, was really never the focus of Passover. The Passover focused on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and it specifically contained three symbols—foot washing, bread, and wine. And so the true Christian Passover is neither a Jewish Passover or what often is called a Seder, nor is it a Catholic Protestant Easter. It is a solemn evening of reflection, meditation, and thankfulness for what our Savior did for us. And so in today's message, we're going to contrast the Jewish Passover and the Catholic Protestant Easter with the true Christian Passover as observed by Jesus Christ, the disciples, and the first century church. And we're going to focus on the three new symbols that were introduced by Jesus Christ—the foot washing, the eating of bread, and the drinking of wine, or the taking of wine. And we're going to discuss why Jesus would consider these new symbols so significant that he would change what had been a practice of the Jewish people for the previous 1,400 years. And we'll see that although the resurrection is a critical part of our Christian hope, there are only hints of it in the Passover that as Christians we focus on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And so the title of today's message is the New Testament Passover.

Many of these things, if we've been in God's church for a while, we've looked at. But I think it's important that we step back and look at these things as we prepare for the Passover evening coming up on March 26th. So let's start by looking back at the original Passover. If you turn with me to Exodus 12, verse 3, we're going to look at the original Passover that was instituted.

Exodus 12 and verse 3 lays out how this evening was to unfold and what the significance of this evening was. It says, speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, on the tenth day of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.

And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of persons, according to each man's need, you shall make your count for the lamb. And again, lambs were assets. They were valuable. And you wanted to make sure that you allocated the size of the lamb and the size of the household. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, and then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And I think we've gone through this before, where you bring this lamb into your home, and you get to know this lamb. We were visiting some friends who raised chickens, and they, you know, or we were with another family. I think some of you know Ben Light and his family, they have, I guess, 11 chickens in their backyard, and those chickens are named. And you get to know this chicken, and you got to know this lamb. And so this lamb was just not some animal, but it was this fragile thing that was in your house, and perhaps your kids played with it, and you got to understand, and you took care of it for several days. And then you slaughtered that lamb. And it says, you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And this twilight period is, the actual term is between the two evenings. And there's a great deal of controversy about this that makes for some good study, because there were those who felt that this twilight period referred to the end of the fourteenth of Nisan after 3pm at the end of the day. And that's when they celebrated it. Whereas others, and that's what the Church of God teaches, that this twilight refers to literally between the two evenings. That is, after the sun goes down, but before it's completely dark. And so this term twilight, or between the two evenings, is the beginning of the fourteenth, after the sun is set, and before it's completely dark. That's when you were supposed to do this. And that's why we, as Christians, take this Passover as the sun has set, and right as this twilight begins before it's completely dark. And then verse 8, they shall eat the flesh on that night, roasted in fire with unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs. They shall eat it. Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire, its head with its legs and its entrails.

You shall not, excuse me, you shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. And thus you shall eat it with your belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn of the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood I will pass over it, and the plague will not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. So this day shall be to you a memorial, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.

And so since that time, until today, the Jewish people have developed highly nuanced traditions to celebrate this evening, what they call a stater. And most of the stater traditions came much, much later if you study that. And so what we keep as a Passover is really indistinguishable from what a traditional Jewish Passover would be. We don't eat bitter herbs, and we don't take a lamb. And in fact, we understand from the first century instruction that there really came a time where Paul told people to not even eat a meal together, and to focus completely on the symbols of what the day meant.

So let's turn to Mark 14 in verse 22, and let's read now how the disciples kept the Passover with Jesus Christ. And of course, we understand it's not the complete telling. We acknowledge that, but we see what Mark recorded for us as the things that we should focus on. Mark 14 in verse 22. It says here, And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, Take eat, this is my body. And then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.

And he said to him, This is the blood of the new covenant which is shed for many. But surely I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drank it new in the kingdom of God. And when they had sung of him, they went out to the Mount of Olives. So this is the very short summary of what a Christian Passover looks like. And as I said, we won't turn there, but you can look in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 22.

And you can see that the church in Corinth were having these fairly elaborate parties, and there was a great deal of division being created by these dinner parties that were intended to celebrate the Passover. And he just told him, Don't even do it. Just eat your meal at home. So the funny thing about the Lord's Supper is that you don't eat it with brethren.

You have a meal at your home, and as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11, 22, you come together and you take of these symbols, as summarized here in the book of Mark. So given how important these symbols are to the Passover, let's spend some time going through what these symbols are. Now we've seen two of them here, which is speaking of bread and what is called the drink of the fruit of the vine, which is wine.

And there's some reasons why we believe that this beverage they took was a fermented beverage. It would have been incredibly unusual to have created a non-fermented, non-alcoholic beverage that they would have taken with their bread that evening. But let's go to John 13. We went to John 13 in the sermonette, so this will be a nice tie-in. And let's look at the foot washing, which is the first of the three symbols.

So we're taking notes that foot washing is a symbol of service and love for one another. Let's go to John 13, and let's start in verse 1. We read this on the evening of the Passover, and we're only going to hit a few of the highlights here. But if we look at John 13, verse 1, it says, "...now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come, that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own, who were in the world, he loved them to the end." And many times we might just jump right into the story because he's going to be describing this symbol.

But John starts the chapter with a discussion of love, and this theme of love is all the way through this chapter as we read in verse 34 and 35 in the sermonette when Mr. Willis went through that. He loved them to the end, a point that John is going to keep returning to throughout his narrative. Then in verse 4, he says, "...he rose from sufferer," that is Jesus, "...and laid aside his garments, he took a towel, and he girded himself.

And after that he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded." The God of the universe, the one who was there from the beginning, takes one of the lowliest of the lowliest jobs, no royal robes, no rousing speeches, no grand pronouncements, just a simple act, yet profound in its meaning. And then in verse 6, he came to Simon Peter, and Peter said to him, Lord, are you washing my feet? And Jesus answered and said to him, What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will know after this.

And Peter said to him, You shall never wash my feet. And Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you have no part with me. Now, when Jesus said that Peter would not understand what he was doing until later, that's what we just read, I don't think that that means the next verse Peter suddenly understood. Later means after Jesus's death and resurrection. Peter was focusing on the cleaning aspect of this. That's why, you know, you're not going to wash my feet. You know, this is not something you would do. And, you know, wash my whole body. And so he was, he didn't get what this meant at the time. That's what Jesus made clear to us. He didn't realize that Jesus was giving him an example of how he was going to serve and love and support his brothers and sisters in the faith and how he was going to serve in his communities. And with all people he would come in contact with. He was going to certainly remove the spiritual dirt that accumulated on the journey as people had through life, but he was going to serve and love people in a way that he had not imagined. Not from the aspect of the grand leader, the commander, the person in charge, but from the lowliest of low positions he was going to lead.

In verse 12, it said, And so when he had washed their feet, taken his garments, and sat down, he said to them, Do you know what I have done to you? You call me a teacher and lord, and you say, Well, for so I am. If I then, your lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. And so we wash one another's feet as part of the ceremony of the Passover. We have a few introductory words. We don't begin with prayer. We don't see that here in this story. We just jump right in to a discussion of the meaning of that event, of the symbolism that we're going to partake of. And we go in and we begin to wash one another's feet, men in one room and women in another. And everybody participates. And everybody has a chance to have their feet washed, as Peter did, and to wash one another another person's feet. You know, as we wash one another's feet, as part of the ceremony of the Passover, it's a symbol. And it doesn't mean that that's the only time we do it. It's not like we just do this once a year. It is a symbol of love and service that we should be performing every day. The point is that every day we must show love for our brothers and sisters through service to them, even when their feet stink, metaphorically. And the situation doesn't look pretty. It's so easy to start telling someone how to avoid a muddy path, right? Or what sandals to wear to reduce the mud on your feet. We all want to do that.

You know, please take your shoes off, or please be careful when you're walking out there, because I don't want to clean up your muddy feet. But that is not what Jesus tells us to do. He's not telling us to give people advice on what shoes to wear. He's telling us to wash people's feet.

Our path is to love our brother. And in verse 16 to 30, Jesus builds on this example of foot washing and discusses how he's going to be betrayed. And I'll let you read those verses for yourself, but I want you to think about what it means to be betrayed by a brother or a sister you have served. If you want to imagine giving so much of yourself to someone and then having that person turn on you. I mean, this is what we somehow can disconnect these stories, but this is one continuous narrative. He has washed all the disciples' feet, including Judas' feet. And he's been part of that.

And there's no reason to believe that he hasn't. And now he's going to be betrayed by the one he served, by the one he had been with for three and a half years. Who knows what other sacrifices he had made, how he had gone out of his way to help and to serve. And now he's going to be betrayed by somebody close to him, somebody he cared for. And so with this in mind, I want you to skip down to verse 34. We read this, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another, except for the people who betray you.

No, it doesn't say that, does it? By this, all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love, one for another. He gives this command, and it's not disconnected from verse 1, or verse 4, or verse 12, or even the verses that talk about betrayal. It's all one continual narrative. It's all about love, even for those who hurt us, even for those who cause us pain. We can't separate this command to love one another from the new symbol of foot washing, or the first verse of the chapter. You know, I was asked recently what I thought the greatest trial would be that would beset God's people in the days before the return of Christ. I asked you to consider that question yourself. What will be the greatest trial that we will face as God's people in the days before Christ returns? And as I reflect on that question, I frankly think it is going to be betrayal by our brothers and sisters in the faith, by our own family. And I think we've gotten a little bit of a taste of that, and I think down through the ages people have gotten a taste of that as we've seen divisions that have come up within the body of Christ. Paul faced it in Corinth. That's why he told people to eat their dinner at home. Even on this very night, you can imagine the frustration that Paul must have had as he saw this holy and sacred time be debased by people having big meals and not sharing of their abundance one with another. And I think we've seen it in our modern era as we've seen divisions within the body of Christ.

You know, Proverbs 18 verse 19—I won't turn there, but you can note that—it says, a brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a castle. When we contend with one another, it's a bar and it's a prison. And I wonder who's in the prison, whether we're in the prison or they're in the prison. I think probably both. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, and I'm quoting now, in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. We live in a time of division and hurts among the people of God.

We speak of the church of God, or the churches of God, or the congregation. In my humble opinion, the fact that we have different groups is entirely the result of leaders and men of pride wanting to shape other people into their own image and into their own image of God.

And we as God's people, sadly—and I count myself in there—we can go along with these visions if we're not careful. We can buy into these prideful views that people will push onto us of what a follower of Christ should look like and behave. And if you don't fit into that form or in that mold, then you're the other. Frankly, it's really a form of spiritual racism. If you don't look like me, if you don't sound like me, if you don't act like me, well, therefore, you're the other. You're wrong. You need to leave. And if you don't leave, I'm going to separate myself from you. This is not love, and this is not service, and this is not what Jesus describes in Matthew 24. In Matthew 24, verse 49, he talks about the evil servant and the profitable servant, and the evil servant beats his fellow servants. Jesus is not looking for us to beat up on one another. He's looking for us to wash each other's feet. And it's one continuous story with betrayal smack dab in the middle. Think about the examples of love that Christ showed for those around him. We won't turn there, but I'll just give you a few references. In John 4, there's this Samaritan woman that he meets at the well, and she'd been married five times, and she was living with a man who wasn't even her husband. Imagine the hurt that she felt. Imagine the sadness. Imagine her status in society as a Samaritan, a woman who probably people considered her a woman of ill repute, someone who they would just put aside. Jesus could have put her out of the church, but what did he do? He talked to her about worshiping God in spirit and in truth.

He saw the person that was there, the person who needed love and support, and he talked to her about worshiping God in spirit and in truth. Think about the woman who washed Jesus's feet when he died at the home of the prominent Pharisee. She was a woman of ill repute. Did he recoil at her presence? That's what they expected him to do. You can look at that story in Luke 7, verse 36.

No, he saw someone who wanted to be forgiven, and he taught a lesson to everyone there about forgiveness. Think about Nicodemus in John 3. Nicodemus came to him at night with a question. Did Jesus call Nicodemus out for his hypocrisy as being part of the ruling elite that was corrupting itself with the Romans? There was a lot of things he could have said to Nicodemus. I am sure.

He shared a lesson about what it means to be reborn of the spirit.

I'm not advocating abandoning standards. We must each live by God's law. We're talking now about what it means to renew our commitment and to be identified as the disciple of Jesus Christ, and what it means to have love one for another and through acts of service.

I think what we have to realize is God's people is that people are different one to another.

We have different backgrounds, different paths. We behave and respond differently to things. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love us and that we're not part of the body of Christ, even if we don't respond in the way that maybe we'd expect. We look for fruits clearly of God's love and law working in people's lives. We also look for grace. What are you doing? What is your service? How have you followed this commandment this past year? And how are you going to renew this commitment this coming year? What distractions are you going to eliminate? What wastes of your energy and time are you going to remove so that you can focus on what Christ describes here?

In this symbol, this first symbol of the Passover, which we participate in, it's one of the few things that we actively get up from our chairs and we go and we actively participate in something.

What energies are you going to dedicate to understanding what it means to love and to serve in this way? The next symbol that we see is the symbol of bread. If you were taking notes, this next point I'd call the bread of life. You are what you eat, as they say. Let's turn over to John 6. Just a few pages back. John 6 verse 27. John 6 and verse 27. It says here, Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him. Now, the context of this verse is that in the beginning of the chapter, Jesus had fed a great multitude of 5,000 people, and later many in that group were on the hunt for him. Where is this guy who worked this great miracle? And in verse 26, Jesus explains that these people were less interested in signs from God, but in bread from God. You see in verse 26, Jesus answered and said, Most assuredly I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. I actually see this directly. I've talked to our pastor in Cameroon, lives in Diwala, Cameroon, where he and I might go out and we might speak in an area and so forth. We say God and they hear bread because people have needs. We have needs, and in Africa, a lot of those needs are physical needs of eating. A lot of times that comes down to money.

I'm a person or he's a person that has money to give out, and that money can be used for bread or health care or whatever people's needs are. That's what Jesus is saying here. You weren't interested in signs and wonders. You were interested in being filled. So Jesus knew that they were hungry and they were looking to be fed. Let's skip down now to verse 30. Therefore, they said to him, What sign will you perform then that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do? Then they even gave him a hint. Our fathers ate the man in the desert, as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. So they're kind of making a reference back to this miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. It looks like in the past food was given out for free and people were taken care of, and you seem to have fed us. So what is this sign that you're going to provide? And Jesus said to them, most assuredly, verse 32, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then they said to him, Lord, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes me in me shall never thirst. As John 6 and verse 35.

Our modern world is quite different from the first century Middle East, but one thing that we are not different in is the sense that each of us has to figure out how to take care of ourselves. We have to figure out how we have enough to eat, how we pay our rent, how we clothe ourselves. I mentioned healthcare. I mean, these are things that we have to take care of. We live here in the San Francisco Bay Area where things are very expensive. We pay more for our gasoline. We pay more for our rent. We pay more, it seems, for everything. And we've got to figure out how to make all this work. And I've spoken to many of you, and you're working through those things. And when something comes along that's a financial shock, it's a great source of stress. So this is a very real thing. A lot of energy goes into just making ends meet, staying out of debt, and providing for our families. But at the end of the day, it's not those things that bring us meaning in life.

What brings meaning are the higher order things, more of the mental and emotional things, rather than the physical things. We've heard this classic structure of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

But really, what Jesus is doing here is taking this hierarchy, as it were, to a whole new level.

A whole new level, really focusing on the spiritual, on the transcendent things.

And notice in verse 48, he says here, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. I, in the living bread which came down from heaven, if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. Jesus gives this instruction that they have to eat of him. He is the bread. And in this process, he uses this term living forever.

If we eat this bread, we will live forever. And when he says this, I think there are so many facets that we can really only begin to understand. We talk about how God is outside of time and space. And I think he moves through time and space in ways that we can't even imagine. When we say forever, what does that mean forever? I think we tend to think of this concept in terms of we're at this present moment. It's the Sabbath, it's February 20th, it's a quarter to four or something. And time is now flowing. And time is like a river, and it's flowing in one direction. And a day from now, or a year from now, or a million years from now, we're going to be farther down this flow of the river. And we can think going the other way, in the past, where we were 10 years ago, or 50 years ago. And it's sort of this river of time. But if you listen to theoretical physicists who talk about a four-dimensional time-space universe, they'll describe time very differently. In this model, there is no present or future. It's just time is.

God exists. It's a present tense concept. Jesus exists. Jesus says, I am, present tense, eternally present. This is what Jesus offers us. You know, we again tend to think in these terms where we think, you know, well, there's, you know, today is a day, and tomorrow is another day, then that means there's two days, and then there's three days. But you know, when you start introducing concepts of infinity, and we had a sermon up for Joe Carusz here, and he and I used to still do enjoy talking about this, and he's definitely loves mathematics. And when you start introducing the concept of infinity, and you introduce infinity into mathematical models, a lot of things just start breaking. Because, you know, it's outside of sort of our finite space, and that's where God lives. And that's what God is offering to us as we eat of his, of his body, of the bread that he is. He's offering us this infinite concept of time, this infinite concept of living.

And then there's the concept of what it means to truly live. As has been said before, all men die, but not all men truly live. Maybe you've heard that expression.

Living, really living, living abundantly, living without fear, living at peace, living with profound meaning. You know, often people will go to India, and they'll live in an ashram, and they'll study Buddhism or yoga or chanting or meditation. They'll do anything to try to understand how to truly connect and be in the moment and live. And yet Jesus offers us a day-to-day peace, where our buttons don't get pushed. People are not triggered, and whatever offense or hurt we carry is just let go. You know, the special music hymn kind of speaks to some of these ideas.

What do we think when we wake up in the morning, when we get ready for our day, and we interact with those around us? Are we at peace? Are we calm? Are we ready to rejoice in every moment?

This is what Jesus is offering. It's an eternal rejoicing and at peace.

And we are to ingest this word, this logos of God daily, studying and applying these concepts. Man should not live by bread alone, physical bread, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And finally, we come to the symbol of the blood, or the wine. And if you want to make this in your notes, you can call it the wine, living a redeemed life under the new covenant.

And for this one, let's continue here in John, because really there's the same sort of concept of food and drink that's discussed in John 6 verse 52 we'll read now. And we'll see that this symbolism, though, goes from here and even further. Let's look in John 6 verse 52 and our final point here, about the third symbol of the Passover. Verse 52, the Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? So, you know, is this cannibalism? What is this all about? And verse 53, then Jesus said to them, most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

You have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. And this is one of those passages that created a lot of confusion for people. Notice verse 60, therefore many of his disciples when they heard this said, this is a hard saying. Who can understand it? And notice in verse 66, from that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more.

Drinking someone's blood sounds pretty gross, pretty cannibalistic, really.

But it's just an extension of the metaphor of taking our nourishment directly from Jesus Christ.

Notice Jesus himself makes it clear that he's going beyond the physical in this instruction. Notice in verse 63, he says, it is the spirit that gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. So Jesus makes clear this is not about physical flesh that he's describing, and by extension physical blood that matters. The words, the words it says that I speak, the words, the teaching, the logos, these are spiritual, and these are life. This is why the church teaches that these things are metaphors and not actual physical details. These ideas, you've probably heard this long term, transubstantiation. Transubstantiation. It's professed by Catholics and Orthodox churches.

Or consubstantiation, as expressed by the Lutherans, where some people believe that the bread and the wine are somehow transformed into Jesus's actual flesh and actual blood, and that Jesus somehow imbues these things with his presence that way. The church of God does not teach that. The church of God understands that these are metaphors that Jesus is bringing out about how we are to feed on him. We are to be nourished by him if we're going to have life. We have to live and breathe every word that comes from the mouth of God. His word. His word in Scripture here.

Let's turn to Matthew 26 in verse 26 and see that Jesus goes really beyond this when we talk about the Passover, where clearly we have this first element where we have to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood to have eternal life. We have to feed on him. But then in Matthew 26 and in verse 26 it says here that, as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, Take ye, this is my body. This is consistent with what we read in John 6. We have to feed on Jesus. And then he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them and said, saying, Drink from it, all of you. Now notice verse 28, For this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. So the wine we take at Passover is a symbol of Christ's blood, as he said in John. It represents taking our nourishment from him. But Christ expands the metaphor by describing how this blood comes from a sacrifice that creates a new testament or a new covenant, a new agreement, in terms of what we will do and what he will do.

And it brings with it forgiveness of sins. So there's a lot packed into verse 28 here, For this is the blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

So just like the wine and the bread gives us this idea of feeding on him, the blood has this symbolism, which is expanded here. When we take this small thimbleful, or as described here, a cup, this small thimbleful of wine that evening at the Passover, we accept the forgiveness of our sins and we agree to be bound by a new covenant that gives us certain promises. Jesus in sharing this was following a similar form to what he did when he made a covenant with the physical nation of Israel. I'd like you to turn to Exodus 24 and verse 7, and let's read how this was done with the Sinai covenant. Exodus 24, and you'll see it's the same pattern.

It's the same pattern. Exodus 24 and verse 7.

It says here, then he took the book of the covenant and read in the hearing of the people, and they said, all the Lord has said we will do and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to these words. And then we see in verse 9, then Moses went up also with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel. 70 people. And they saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. But on the nobles of the children of Israel, he did not lay his hands, so they saw God, and they ate and drank. You see, in ancient times it was customary to have a meal after making an animal sacrifice to, as it were, seal the deal. So you're going to make this sacrifice, which is going to have some sort of agreement, and then you would have a meal. You would have wine and food, and you would seal the deal together. And so this is what happened here in Exodus. What happens that evening of the Passover is just like in the Old Covenant, where the people said they would obey, and they were committing to obey. And so these 70 elders, and these people who are specifically named, they ate and they drank. So there's a covenant, there's a sacrifice, there's a covenant, there's a sprinkling of blood, and then there's a meal.

And Jesus was there, as we know. And so he's doing the same thing with us during the Passover.

We are committing to this covenant with him, and we are in fellowship with him, and we are in a meal at a table with him. And again, we understand that that actual physical meal is left at home from the discussion of Paul, and we focus on that spiritual meal.

Now, the book of Galatians chapter 4 goes into great detail to describe these two covenants, as described Sarah and Hagar. And I encourage you to read those two stories, because we understand that fundamentally the covenant that God is making today with us is with all peoples, not just with Israel. This covenant here in Exodus 24, this was a covenant with Israel. But the covenant that Jesus is making with us at the Passover is a covenant for all peoples, no matter our heritage, no matter our ethnicity, no matter our background, no matter our circumstance in life, he's making it with us.

So let's turn to Hebrews 8 and verse 10, and let's see what this covenant is. That we are sealing, that we are taking as part of this blood and this wine, that this wine that symbolizes the blood of the sacrifice, Jesus Christ. Hebrews 8, 10 to 12.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest. That is, it isn't, again, this is not like Israel knew some things, and then they would tell their neighbors about them. No, every single person is going to know. Every single person is going to have an opportunity. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins, and their lawless deeds. I will remember no more. He accepts us wherever we've came from. We don't stay in that condition. You know, it's not one saved, always saved, but when we come into that covenant relationship with him, he forgives wherever we were in that position. And Galatians 6 verse 16 speaks of the Israel of God, the church. This is who God's people are today. The new covenant is with the spiritual house of Israel, those who have circumcised their hearts, those who are willing to forego their own ideas and live by God's ways. So these are the symbols that we're describing. If you turn over in conclusion to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

First Corinthians chapter 5, and in verse 7 we see that we are to purge out the old leaven. And I haven't talked about the days of unleavened bread here. I've just focused on the Passover itself.

But clearly we have a preparation and we'll have a chance to talk about those things as we get closer. It says, therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Christ is that lamb. He was sacrificed for us. That blood, once and for all, was for us. And when we take this blood, we symbolize that. When we take the bread, we eat of His flesh. We nourish on Him. And when we wash one another's feet, we commit in love and service, no matter who, no matter what the circumstance, even under circumstances of betrayal, to love one another. And so in contrast to Easter, which is a morning service that focuses on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Passover is a focus on love, service, and living by the Word of God, and accepting the sacrifice and forgiveness offered by Christ so that we might live in newness of life.

Many of these things we've studied for years, but I think it's important to review them in advance of the Passover evening coming up to the evening of March 26. And again, there's nothing wrong with rejoicing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but I think it's very interesting that we rejoice on the Feast of Trumpets when Jesus returns at the last trump, and we are resurrected. So we celebrate His return and our resurrection, and our resurrection is made possible by the truth of His. And so in that sense, we certainly do not in any way put down the incredible significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's just that the Passover is not about that, and it was co-opted and changed by the Catholics and the Protestants to become something that Passover was never intended to be. And this year, we anticipate meeting in the Arinda Community Center, as we did in 2019 before the pandemic. We will meet at twilight—that is, between the two evenings after the sun is set, but before it's completely dark to begin our ceremony—and we will wash one another's feet, and we will read, and we will contemplate these symbols. And as we've read in different times, and for sake of time, I won't go through it here, we have to be prepared for that evening, which is why we're going through these symbols right now. And I think of the many years that I have kept the Passover, which I think is now something like 35 years as a baptized member of God's Church, I am very much looking forward to keeping the Passover this year in person. I don't think having appreciated as much what it would mean with a pandemic, and I think many of you are probably in the same boat. I look forward to keeping the Passover with you. My wife and I have decided under these circumstances that we will not be traveling to France this year with a pandemic. We will be here locally in Northern California, and so we look forward to keeping the Passover together and understanding these symbols. And I encourage you to read and study in advance as we approach that time.