The Passover

Scripture: Maundy Thursday, A.D. 2014 A

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. AMEN.

What makes this night different from all other nights?

God’s people Israel have been gathering on or near this night for thousands of years to answer exactly that question. For thousands of years we have come together to celebrate the Passover. For thousands of years we have gathered this night to remember, and to retell, the story of God’s faithfulness, and the promises He fulfills for His people in every age.

The Passover meal is a remarkable thing. Every part of the experience—what foods are eaten, what Psalms are sung, the manner in which diners recline to the left—each aspect tells the tale of God’s people in a visceral and living way. It is a liturgy. We’ve read the tale of the Exodus, learned about Moses and Mt. Sinai in Sunday School; we’ve even seen the miracles of Israel’s liberation translated to the silver screen. 10 Plagues, 10 Commandments, burning bush and parting sea—we know this story by heart, at least in the broad strokes. But in the Passover meal it becomes more than something written.

In some deeply real and mystical way, when God’s people reenact the liberation of the Exodus together, in this meal, on this night, we join in the original event. The story of God’s faithfulness becomes not a story but our story, not ancient history but present reality! God keeps His promises. He remembers His people. He cares for the lost, the forgotten, the enslaved. This is the central message of Passover. This is how we pass the story on to our children, so that they know that our God is their God, as well as the God of their own children as yet unborn.

For Christians, Maundy Thursday commemorates the night of Jesus’ Last Supper. 2,000 years ago, our Lord came to Jerusalem in order to celebrate the Passover, to retell and to relive the story of God’s promises fulfilled, just as His people and His family had faithfully done for at least a dozen centuries since Moses. He came to Jerusalem for this despite a very real and present danger to His life, what with the violent unrest simmering between the Judean population and their Roman overlords. Jesus was being hailed by many as the Messiah at just the moment when ancient prophecy warned us to expect the Messiah. And just the other day, not two miles from Jerusalem, Jesus had very publically raised from the dead a man who had been festering in the tomb for four long days. That’s enough to get anyone excited—if not outright terrified.

Once in Jerusalem, Peter and John, two of Jesus’ closest disciples, went to prepare a room for the Passover meal. They set up low tables about six inches off the ground, arranged in a horseshoe shape. Guests reclined upon pillows, leaning on their left elbows, with their feet laid out behind them for the servants to wash. John, as the host of the dinner, sat to the far left of the horseshoe, where he could direct the serving of food. Peter sat opposite him on the far right, taking the position of servant and, thus, of foot-washer (a position His Master would soon usurp).

Then Jesus led them in the Passover meal. He retold and relived the story as God’s people had done for over a millennium. He reminded them of what it is that makes this night different from all other nights, this night of liberation, this night of promises fulfilled. Royal wine represents the sweet fruit of freedom. Flat bread reminds us of the rapidity with which the bondsmen were delivered, so quickly that loaves had not the time to rise. It is the ancient story, the good old story—our story.

But now Jesus does something different. At the Last Supper, He takes the Passover bread and proclaims that from now on, this bread shall be, in fact, His Body, given over for us. He takes the wine of liberation and declares that now this is His Blood of the New Covenant, shed for us and all people for the forgiveness of sin. What does this mean? He is retelling the old, good story, but He is also making it bigger, expanding its scope, proclaiming it new again. The Passover, in Jesus, is no longer about one nation’s deliverance from slavery but about all nations’ deliverance from sin, death, and hell. The bread that we eat and wine that we drink become the flesh and blood of God Incarnate, nourishing us, imparting to us eternal life, binding us as one in the Body of Christ. It is the old story made new: the old story fulfilled.

Long ago God set out to save mankind and heal our world. He chose to do so through an old man named Abraham, to whom God gave an unbreakable and two-fold promise. First, He promised to make of Abraham a great nation, a priestly people. This, of course, is Israel. But He further promised that through this people, all the nations of the world would be blessed. The Exodus, the old Passover story, fulfills the first half of the promise. Abraham’s family became a great and priestly nation, and remains so to this day. But the new Passover—the story told at the Last Supper—fulfills the second half of the promise. Now, through Israel, through the person of Jesus Christ, all the nations of the earth are blessed. Sins are forgiven, death defeated, and the power of Satan broken forever.

By the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, and through the Baptism of His death and Resurrection, we are made one in Him. We are adopted into the family of Abraham, wild branches grafted onto the cultivated vine of God’s people Israel. The Passover becomes ours by adoption; the old story again becomes our story. And the new story, the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ—His Body broken and Blood shed at our hands and for our sake—becomes now the common inheritance of the entire world, of Jew and Gentile alike, indeed of all Creation!

The old Passover is fulfilled, is resurrected, in the new story, the Greatest Story, and every time we gather at this Table, every time we proclaim that this bread and wine become Body and Blood—every time we pronounce Christ as the Passover Lamb Who saves us from destruction—we remember, we retell and relive, the story that proves the faithfulness and undying love of our God. It becomes not a story but our story, not ancient history but present reality. This is how we pass the story on to our children, so that they know that our God is their God, and the God of their own children yet unborn.

Tonight, brothers and sisters, we welcome young families to the Lord’s Table to share in this gift for the first time. As they join us here they join in the long line of God’s people, all those who have been saved by the mercy and grace and promises of God. They share this Table with Moses and Aaron, with Peter and Paul. They share this Table with grandparents lost and grandchildren yet unborn. They share this Table with every person from every land in every time whom Jesus Christ has called and forgiven and raised up to new life. He is, after all, both the Host of this Table and the sacrificial host of the meal.

The Passover, the Last Supper, Holy Communion—all are one in Christ. And when we join Him at this foretaste of the feast to come, so are we all one in Him. This night is different from all other nights, for the Meal we share here and now we share with Jesus and the saints for all eternity.

Thanks be to Christ, the Ancient of Days and Son ever-new. In Jesus’ Name. AMEN.