Passover: Washed By the Word

[Darris McNeely] As a Christian, I have observed the New Testament Passover for a number of years. Every year on the anniversary of the death of Jesus Christ, we gather, we take the bread and the wine as the symbols of Christ's body and His blood. It's a commemoration of His death. We also go through a service on that evening in the example of Christ in John 13 where he took water and a basin and towel, girded Himself, and washed His disciples' feet. And in John chapter 13 and verse 8 where that is mentioned, Peter wanted Christ to wash all of his body because he couldn't understand exactly what Christ was doing by kneeling like a servant and washing his feet. And Jesus said in verse 8, He said, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me," as He was talking with Peter (John 13:1-17). That one statement really does resonate if we understand what the totality of the Passover observance really means and we take the bread and the wine, the symbols of Christ's life and death. And that foot washing service, there's a washing impact that really does make us clean when we focus upon what the death of Jesus Christ, His sacrifice, actually does for us spiritually.

[Steve Myers] It's a startling statement to have no part in Christ—none whatsoever. So that leads us to believe it's more than just understanding we're supposed to serve. As we get down and wash one another's feet it's more than that—that in order even to be a servant, we have to be cleansed. We have to have the cleaning up. Our lives have to be cleaned up; sin has to be rooted out and that's only possible through the cleansing that we find through the sacrifice of Christ.

[Darris McNeely] I've always felt very clean on the evening of the Passover service, walking out of the place where that may have been held, understanding what we had just done, reading through the Scriptures, going through the entire service as we focus upon Christ's death and the seriousness of that to our lives and the fact that the penalty to sin can be lifted from us. That washing, that cleansing, is something very important and it's also ongoing.

[Steve Myers] So let's keep that in mind as we keep the Passover this year—that without the cleansing that comes through Jesus Christ, we can't even get started to come out of sin.

[Darris McNeely] That's BT Daily. Join us next time.