February 5 - Luke 22:15, 19-20

[Jesus] said to [his disciples],

"I have eagerly desired to eat this

Passover with you before I suffer ...

Then he took a loaf of bread ...

"This is my body, which is given for you. ... 

He did the same with the cup after supper,

"This ... is the new covenant in my blood.

Luke 22:15,19-20

 

Once a week, God gives Christians a meal of thanksgiving. (That's what "the Eucharist" literally means.)

 

Once a year, God gave his people, Israel, a meal of thanksgiving. (That's what "the Passover is.)

 

See if God's institution of the Passover in Exodus 12:24-28 has anything in common with our Lord's institution of Holy Communion: "You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children. And when your children ask you, 'What do you mean by this observance?' you shall say, 'It is [a] sacrifice to the Lord ...' And the people bowed down and worshiped."

 

It is no accident that Jesus chose the passover for the institution of Holy Communion.

Yes, it was a meal of thanksgiving.

It was also a meal of freedom -- from their slavery in Egypt and from our slavery to sin.

Both involved the covering of the blood of the lamb -- the blood of a sacrificial lamb on the Passover door posts and the blood of The Lamb, Jesus Christ, sacrificially covering our sin.

Both of these meals involve bread -- in the New Testament, Jesus is the Bread of Life and his feeding means eternal life; in the Exodus there was not only the unleavened bread and it's festivals but the manna that meant feeding and life in the desert. 

 

With God, there are no consequences. His rescue from Egypt -- out of slavery, through the waters (of the Red Sea), and into the Promised Land -- prefigured everything he planned for you and me. The Christian life is out of slavery (to sin), through the waters (of baptism), and into the Promised Land (heaven).

 

In Christ's Love,

a guy who's booking his flight

to the Promised Land