The Irony of Passover

Introduction

My new teacher orientation begins tomorrow so I have been getting into English teacher mode these past couple of weeks. Congratulations, you get a sneak preview this morning. For some of you, this might be a review, but for others this might be new. It’s a lesson on irony.

Now irony is not a synonym for “unfortunate” much to Alanis Morisette’s chagrin. In fact, there are three types of irony and not one of them has anything to do with unfortunate events in and of themselves. Irony as a whole just simply means that something happens that one would not expect to happen at the moment it happens. The most popular form of irony is verbal irony. Verbal irony is when someone says something that wouldn’t be expected at the moment it is said. For instance, if I were to give you a bowl of gruel and you said, “Thanks a lot!” that would be verbal irony. You’ve probably figured out that another name for verbal irony is sarcasm.

There is also dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is when a person is watching something or reading something and knows what will happen that the characters don’t know about but allude to at some point in the book, play, movie, etc. For instance, in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, there is a point when Cassius says that the assassination of Caesar will long be remembered and plays will be written about the event.

“How many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over in states unborn and accents yet unknown!”

It’s ironic because we are watching that very scene being acted over in a country that did not exist when it had happened and in an accent yet not known. We know that his words are true, but not in the way he was expecting them to be. Cassius thinks it to be a lofty scene but we are watching it not because he did something lofty, but something horrid.

Still though, there is one other type of irony: situational irony. This is when a situation does not turn out like one would expect it to turn out. This can often be accompanied by the words, “I did not see that coming!” The movie Sixth Sense has irony as its chief plot. The main character is dead throughout 99% of the movie, but most people who watched it were shocked at the end to find out he’d been dead this whole time.

Situational Irony has the ability to bring excitement to a situation. But it can also bring bewilderment. Still, it can bring a better understanding of what is happening.

That’s the kind of irony we see today in the preparation of the last Passover Jesus observed. We see two ironic moments in just this introduction to the last Passover that will help us to have a better understanding of what is happening not only in Jesus’s day, but our own. The first ironic moment is the Timing of Passover Itself. The second is the Type of People Involved.

The Timing of Passover Itself

The Type of People Involved

Luke 22:1–6 ESV

Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death, for they feared the people. Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve. He went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how he might betray him to them. And they were glad, and agreed to give him money. So he consented and sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of a crowd.

The Timing of Passover Itself

The first ironic moment that we come to in this passage involves the timing of the Passover itself.

Luke 22:1 ESV

Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover.

The events that are taking place revolve around this time of Unleavened Bread and the Passover. Technically, these are two different events that are observed back to back, so they are often observed with one mindset. It’s kind of like how we observe Christmas. Technically there is only one day of Christmas: December 25. But we will say it’s Christmas before the day arrives. We wish people Merry Christmas soon after Thanksgiving ends. We’re technically in Advent Season, but consider it Christmas. The Orthodox Church celebrates the twelve days of Christmas from December 25 until January 6.

The day of Passover was one day, but the next day would begin the Feast of Unleavened Bread. I quickly want to go over both of these holidays because I believe it is important that we understand what is happening.

First the Passover.

Passover was a yearly event that memorialized the night in which the LORD passed over those who had covered the door posts and the lentil of their doors with blood from a one year old lamb. They’d roast the lamb and then eat it in the house that had been covered by the blood. It was this night, the night in which the first born sons were killed by the God, that Pharaoh finally released the Israelites from captivity. God had delivered the people.

Every year, as the people observed this monumental occasion, there was a ritual that they went through. They would roast a lamb. They would bake bread without yeast. They would prepare bitter herbs and bowls of salt water. They’d ask questions as to what they all meant. Specifically, the children got to ask those questions. What makes Passover different than all other nights? Why unleavened bread? Why bitter herbs? Why roasted lamb?

And the fathers would answer their questions and explain the roasted lamb was used to save the people that would deliver them from slavery. It was roasted because there was virtually no set up, no dishes to wash afterward. The unleavened bread was not required because yeast represented sin, but because there was no time to let the bread rise. Bitter herbs were used because of the bitterness of the people in slavery, dipped in salt water representing the tears of the people.

Everything about the Passover was to represent freedom! It was to remind people of God’s deliverance. And that’s what makes it so ironic. God chose the night of Passover as the time that Jesus was betrayed and delivered into the hands of evil men. Imagine the men who made up the Sanhedrin who would put Jesus on trial. How many times had they answered the questions pointing to God’s deliverance. Perhaps even that night they would have reclined around the table with their children on their knees answering their little questions, only to be the ones asking the questions later but unwilling to hear the answers from the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread was technically a separate occasion, but always talked about with the Passover. This time, the unleavened bread was made for the symbolic purpose of removing the leaven, the sin, from the home. But it was a feast; it was to be a time of joy! It was to be a time of celebrating God’s provision to have their sin removed from them. Every day was to be a day in which offerings were offered—burnt offerings, grain offerings, and sin offerings. It was all about atonement and the joy of living forgiven. And yet, the greatest crime against God came during this time of preparation to celebrate God’s forgiveness.

One would think that the people would have eschewed such sin as the days of Passover and Unleavened Bread approached, like children trying to be extra good around Christmas time. Instead, there was betrayal, blood money exchanged, and ultimately the murder of God’s Son. Ironic. Not what we would expect.

Unless that is, we also have dramatic irony. Unless we know what they did not know. That Jesus, though he would be delivered into the hands of his enemies and murdered on the cross, would do so to cover sinners with his blood and deliver a people from the slavery of sin. That Jesus would die at the hands of sinners so that he could remove that very sin and innumerable sins from those who would trust in him. Jesus would in one moment become both the Passover Lamb and the Unleavened Bread. The shadows of these two holidays would find their substance in him over a matter of hours.

Hebrews 10:1–12 ESV

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’ ” When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,

The Type of People Involved

But that’s not the only thing that makes the situation ironic. The timing is not the only thing. It’s the type of people involved.

Luke 22:2–3 ESV

And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death, for they feared the people. Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve.

There are four types of people involved: the Chief Priests, the Scribes, a Disciple, and the Guards.

The chief priests were the high-ranking priests of the day. The group would have consisted of Caiaphas who was the high priest and Annas who was the former high priest, but also others who had clout among the Romans and the Jewish people. No matter what though, they were still to be of the Levitical line as well as the line of Aaron. And like Aaron and the levitical priesthood, these men were supposed to represent God to the people and the people to God. They were supposed to demonstrate God’s holiness and justice to sinful man, and man’s repentance to a holy God. The ironic thing is that these men acted in the most unholy and unjust of ways when it came to Jesus and they never batted an eye, much less repented over it.

Brothers and sisters, it is possible for people to be in places of religious authority and political influence, who look like holy men on the outside to be filled with sin and faithlessness on the inside. And you may be sitting there thinking, don’t I know it. And yet when it happens, we are shocked by it. And maybe that’s a good thing to be shocked, but not to the point of losing our faith or hope—not on pretenders. Let us not lose hope in the reality of Jesus because of religious pretenders.

The scribes were the people who would have known the law better than anyone. They were both the copiers and the interpreters of God’s holy Word. If anyone would have known who the Messiah would be and what to look out for when it comes to the Messiah, it would have been these men. We would have expected these men to try and talk sense into those who wanted to kill him. But they were the very ones who missed the truth of the Scriptures, and joined along in seeking the opportunity to kill their own Messiah.

Beloved, one can be a theologian and miss who Jesus is. He or she can know the Bible like the back of their hands, preach it and teach it, and never know Jesus. They could memorize entire portions of Scripture and not know Jesus. Let us not lose hope in the truth of Jesus because of faulty theologians.

Judas was one of Jesus’s twelve. He had been with him for years. He had seen the miracles and had heard the teachings. This guy wasn’t just in church every time the doors were open, he never even got to leave the church! Jesus was always there, always teaching, always preaching.

Church family, we can do everything right. We can rear our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord and have them in church services every Sunday and in VBS every week of the summer, send them to Christian camps, and do family devotions every night. But that doesn’t guarantee a saved life. Like Judas, they may depart and look for a way to betray the one they seemed to commune with for years. And it is good and right to be heartbroken, but may we never lose hope in what Jesus can do.

And then there are the guards. There are those who were to protect the temple. They were to keep order in such a busy and holy place. They would walk the perimeter, listen to the conversations, and keep an eye out for troublemakers. Surely, they knew what Jesus was teaching. Surely, they could see that he wasn’t a rebel. He was speaking gently, not heatedly. He wasn’t trying to sneak in weapons. But they also sought to kill him.

How sad it is when those who are set to guard the faith, defend the gospel, the ordinance, the veracity of truth, betray their own calling. But it happens. How many pastors, deacons, Sunday School teachers have walked away from the very Word that at one time they so staunchly defended? And yet our hope and our trust is not ultimately in those who defenders of the faith, but the author of our faith.

It’s heartbreaking when those who ought to know better turn from what they should have known, whether its our family members, our pastors, our theologians and professors, or whoever. The very people we would never suspect of getting it wrong often do.

So many today have deconstructed and deconverted from the faith, and we sit there bewildered and heartbroken as to why, how could it be? I think Paul helps us with this answer, though it will not likely bring comfort—only an explanation.

Ephesians 4:19–23 ESV

They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

The “they” in this passage are unbelievers. Unbelievers have become callous and given themselves up to sensuality and all the rest. Paul says that not the way we learned Christ. He doesn’t free us to live a life of sin and lasciviousness. He frees us to remove those things that cling to us. He gives us strength to rid ourselves of corruption. But then we see in verse 23: to be renewed in the spirit of your minds.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached a message on just this one verse, and he pointed out that it is not the mind that is dysfunctional. We know extremely smart people who know so much more than we could ever know. Their minds work just fine, and yet they remain unbelievers, or in our case they leave the faith giving all their reasonings for doing so. And we are left baffled and bewildered. What happened? Lloyd-Jones says, “It is not the instrument that matters; it’s the spirit of the mind that matters. . . . It isn’t merely that he does things that he shouldn’t do and that he doesn’t do what he should do. The real tragedy of every man who is not a Christian this morning is this: in the very citadel, the highest point of his being—the spirit of his mind, he has gone astray. What can be a greater tragedy than that?”

You see, we want to try and convince the very people who have deconstructed and deconverted with the very teachings and beliefs they have left behind. It is not that they do not have the intellectual capacity to see these things. They know what you and I will say before we say it. They have grown up with the intelligence of the gospel, with the understanding of the gospel, but never renewed in the mind by the gospel. Until the spirit of the mind has been renewed, until the veil of darkness is removed, no light of the gospel of Christ will help them to see. So beloved, pray first and foremost—not for the right words to speak, not even for an opportunity to talk to one who has left the faith—pray first and foremost that God would renew the spirit of their minds so that what they already know will get through.

Conclusion

As we close this portion of Luke, I want us to notice one last thing. Every human being has three enemies: the devil, the world, and the flesh; we may face them all at one or individually or any two at any given time. It’s not different here. We know that according to the gospel accounts, the religious leaders were jealous of Jesus and so wanted him dead. The flesh was warring against them. In the case of Judas, Satan entered him. Now Satan need not possess someone to be at war against him. One can be directly or indirectly oppressed by Satan and his thuggish demons. But then the pot was sweetened by the offer of money and so now the things of the world are at war.

We battle these constantly. The question is, will we see them for what they are? Will we be renewing the spirit of our minds day by day with the power and grace of Christ? Or will we be the the casualty in this spiritual war for our souls? As James warns us, we ought to seek wisdom from about—that renewal of the mind’s spirit.

James 3:14–18 ESV

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

May God grant that we not fall prey to the devil, the world, or the flesh that we would not betray our own Savior and Lord.

Prayer

Father,

That is our prayer. We do not want to fall prey to the devil, the world, or our own flesh. We have seen what each of these temptations can do this morning—turning smart, religious men into betrayers and conspirators against our Lord. And it all came about on the one night that was to commemorate deliverance by your mighty hand. How ironic it is that the Messiah would be delivered into enemies hands, but how beautiful it is that we were the ones delivered.

Your love for us is so great; it is beyond all measure. We forget that sometimes. We take it for granted. We overlook the wounds of Jesus that bought our redemption is bringing us to glory. May we then turn from this world, from the devil, and especially from the passions at war within our own flesh, and turn to your loving grace.

In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.