Luke #48: The Passover Lamb (22:1-23)
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Luke 22:1-23
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Good morning again, and welcome to the last Sunday of 2025, whether you’re in the room of online, to worship the Lord Jesus together, and to spend time in fellowship and in the study of His Word with the family of Eastern Hills.
If you’re a guest in the room today, I would like to encourage you to fill out the communication card that you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you. We would just like to be able to know that you were here this morning, be able to pray for you, and to send you a note thanking you for your visit. When you’ve filled that out, you can get it back to us by dropping it in the offering boxes that are by the doors as you leave later on, or better yet, if you could bring the card down to me here at the front once service has ended, I’d like to meet you personally and give you a small gift to thank you for your visit today. If you’re online and visiting with us today, you can fill out a short communication card on our website: ehbc.org, under the “I’m New” tab.
I have to commend our Children’s Ministry. Joe does a great job leading it, and has a great team behind him. But it wouldn’t work at all without our volunteer shepherds. Those of you who give your time to the children’s ministry, thank you so much for what you do!
However, we still are in pretty desperate need of some loving folks who want to spend time holding and taking care of babies in the nursery on a regular basis. If you would be interested in finding out how you can help care for our littlest ones, please talk to Joe, or email him at joe@ehbc.org.
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LMCO ($19,454.12), goal $32,500 through January, VIDEO from Dr. Paul Chitwood, President of the IMB - the Every and the All
Opening
Opening
This morning, we are going to begin our look at what is commonly called the “Passion” of Jesus—the last twenty-four hours of Jesus’s life before and including His crucifixion. Some people don’t include the Last Supper in the list of Passion events, but some do. I’m going to do so, because the text really starts a new section in Luke’s narrative of the Story of the King that will carry until the final section of Christ’s resurrection. This morning, we will consider Wednesday and some of Thursday of Holy Week, as we study and then participate in the Lord’s Supper ourselves as a church family to close out the year together.
Our focal passage today is Luke 22, verses 1-23. If you would, please turn in your Bibles or your Bible apps to this passage, and stand as you are able to do so in honor of the declaration of the Scriptures as I read this passage:
1 The Festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called Passover, was approaching. 2 The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put him to death, because they were afraid of the people. 3 Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, who was numbered among the Twelve. 4 He went away and discussed with the chief priests and temple police how he could hand him over to them. 5 They were glad and agreed to give him silver. 6 So he accepted the offer and started looking for a good opportunity to betray him to them when the crowd was not present. 7 Then the Day of Unleavened Bread came when the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8 Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.” 9 “Where do you want us to prepare it?” they asked him. 10 “Listen,” he said to them, “when you’ve entered the city, a man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him into the house he enters. 11 Tell the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks you, “Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover with my disciples?” ’ 12 Then he will show you a large, furnished room upstairs. Make the preparations there.” 13 So they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. 14 When the hour came, he reclined at the table, and the apostles with him. 15 Then he said to them, “I have fervently desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you, from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. 21 But look, the hand of the one betraying me is at the table with me. 22 For the Son of Man will go away as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” 23 So they began to argue among themselves which of them it could be who was going to do it.
PRAYER
How many of you are “preppers?” You know, you’ve got the food and water stored, a plan for power and heat, and the skills or know-how to manage if we were to have a severe unplanned shortage of any of those things? Many of you. Please hear that I’m not knocking that. Preparation is simply something that we do in order to try to assure a given result when faced with a particular circumstance.
Being prepared can be a very good thing. There are lots of things that we prepare for in life: tests, jobs, discussions, presentations, trips, houseguests… the list could go on and on. We prepare because we’ve been warned or we are confident that these events are coming, or at the very least: might come. Insurance is a form of preparation, if you think about it.
What we see in the beginning of this morning’s passage is a whole lot of preparation going on. But all of the characters we see in Luke’s record of this preparation are focusing on a different things. I see six different preparations going on:
First, we see the people of Israel preparing for the Festival of Unleavened Bread, which by this time was commonly called the “Passover” Festival, even though the night of Passover itself was not a part of the feast. The Festival of Unleavened Bread is itself seven days long, and Passover is the night before it starts. If you include Passover in the Festival, the Festival is eight days long. By the time of first century Judaism, the people commonly referred to the whole thing as the “Passover” Festival.
Second, we see that the chief priests and the scribes were preparing to kill Jesus, if they could just figure out how to without causing a riot. We’ve seen in the last few messages that Jesus was wildly popular with the common Jewish folks. They cheered His entrance into Jerusalem; they went to the temple early every morning of the week leading up to Passover in order to hear Him speak. And the religious leaders were certain that the people would riot if they attempted to do anything to Jesus in public. They needed a plan. They just couldn’t come up with one on their own.
Thus enters our third “prepper” in the opening verses of Luke 22: Satan, the devil, the deceiver and father of lies. Way back in Luke 4:13, we see:
13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
The opportune time had arrived, and Satan now moves to stop the ministry of the Son of God.
Our fourth “prepper” is Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve disciples who, under the guidance of the devil, makes a deal with the chief priests and scribes to help them find a way to arrest Jesus privately, in exchange for the price of a slave in silver—30 silver coins. We see each of these four “preppers” on Wednesday of Passion week.
The fifth “preppers” we see are Peter and John. Jesus instructs them to go into Jerusalem and get everything ready for the Passover meal that Jesus will have with His disciples. Jesus tells them exactly what they will find when the enter Jerusalem, and their responsibility would have been to make sure the room was ready, and then to go and slaughter the Passover lamb, get all the necessary side dishes and wine, and start the lamb roasting.
Finally, we have Jesus Himself as our sixth “prepper.” All of this was in preparation of His suffering and crucifixion, and a teaching that He needed to impart to His disciples before He died. Verse 15 tells us:
15 Then he said to them, “I have fervently desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
Ultimately, the preparation part is just the setting of the stage. Each player is getting ready (whether they know it or not) for the collision between the kingdom of world and the Kingdom of God. But it’s the Last Supper, or the first Lord’s Supper, that is central to this passage. Jesus was showing His disciples, both then and now, the connection between the Passover, His life and ministry, and the future consummation of the Kingdom of God at His return. In each picture, we see images of Jesus as the Lamb: one picture in shadow, one in substance, and one in supremacy. For us to see all of these pieces, it is necessary for us to jump around in Scripture a bit.
1: The Lamb in shadow.
1: The Lamb in shadow.
The fact that Jesus was crucified during the Passover Festival was no random occurrence. Jesus was redefining a concept that was a vital part of how the Jewish people identified themselves. In fact, more than a thousand years before Jesus hung upon the cross, the concept of the Passover lamb was given by God to the people of Israel. We find this in Exodus chapter 12:
5 You must have an unblemished animal, a year-old male; you may take it from either the sheep or the goats. 6 You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight. 7 They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them. 8 They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
11 Here is how you must eat it: You must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry; it is the Lord’s Passover.
When Israel was enslaved in Egypt, and Pharaoh refused to let them go, God sent ten plagues against the nation. The final plague was the death of the firstborn. God sent His destroying angel throughout the land of Egypt to strike down the first born of both people and animals as a final punishment against the nation, showing Himself to be more powerful than any of their so-called “gods.” The Passover set the people of Israel apart:
12 “I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, both people and animals. I am the Lord; I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. 13 The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will be among you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
The Passover sacrifice had a very specific purpose: the blood of the animal covered the people within the house when the destroying angel came to bring about this tenth plague. It “hid” them from the judgment and wrath of God which was going to be poured out against Egypt. The first Passover was a release of God’s people from the physical bondage of slavery, and to most Hebrew people was to that point the single greatest event in Israel’s history, even in the time of the Gospels.
In fact, they had (and still have today) an entire script that goes with the Passover meal (called the Seder), where the sons ask the father questions about why the night of Passover is different from other nights, and the father’s recitation of how God delivered them from bondage to slavery.
But the Passover lamb in Exodus was just a shadow of the reality it pointed to. Yes, the lamb was important. But the lamb’s sacrificial death wasn’t a permanent solution. Every year, they were to remember the Passover by slaughtering another lamb, and by holding another Festival of Unleavened Bread. The book of Hebrews speaks of this “shadow” problem with the Law:
1 Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year.
No sacrifice of an animal is enough to resolve our problem once and for all. Apart from Christ, we are all enslaved to sin and we all need to be rescued from it, because we are powerless to bring about our freedom on our own. We needed a sacrifice that would cover us so that we would not experience God’s wrath against sin, because the sacrifice had already experienced it on our behalf. The Passover lamb died so the people in the house didn’t have to. Jesus’s teaching at dinner reflected that He was redefining the this ancient ritual. Just as Paul wrote in the last part of 1 Corinthians 5:7:
7b For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.
The Passover lamb was a shadow of the better thing to come. That “better thing” is Jesus Himself. He is the Passover Lamb in substance.
2: The Lamb in substance.
2: The Lamb in substance.
This brings us to our focal passage for today. The silhouette of the lamb shedding its blood in order to shield the people in the house from the wrath of God against sin now takes on flesh and and bone, in the Person of Jesus, who would within the next 24 hours be arrested, tried, and crucified at the hands of sinful humanity. He takes the elements of the Seder and imbues them with new meaning:
19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
Just as the Passover lamb’s body and blood were given for the protection of the people of God through identification, so Jesus’s body and blood would be given so that those who belong to Him by faith would be identified with Him, and brought into a new covenant with God.
Jesus came and died so that by His sacrifice, He could make a provide the means of freedom not just from slavery to a human master, but from slavery to sin and death. And He did this not just for a small group of people, but His offer of freedom through faith in Him goes out to the whole world. In John chapter 1, John the Baptist recognized this fact when He saw Jesus:
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
How does Jesus’s sacrifice take away sins? By substituting His perfection for our imperfection through His substituting Himself for us in death on the cross. We have all sinned and deserve the wrath of God because we fall short of His perfection. But Jesus was perfectly righteous, and He died instead of us. Therefore, if we have faith in Jesus’s death in our place, then we are justified before God through His incredible grace.
22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Jesus’s sacrifice on our behalf was perfect, so His death can cover all of our sin. And since His blood covers all of our sin, then we are completely righteous in the sight of God through our trust in what Jesus has done.
21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
When Jesus said that the cup is “the new covenant in my blood,” He was specifically recalling the promise of the new covenant that the prophet Jeremiah had spoken of back in Jeremiah 31.
31 “Look, the days are coming” —this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—my covenant that they broke even though I am their master”—the Lord’s declaration. 33 “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them” —this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.
This new covenant is no longer a theological concept. It is a real, available, active covenant being lived out by those who belong to Christ. The Lord is our God, and we are His people. This new covenant is what we remember and essentially declare every time we take the Lord’s Supper together. We remember what He has done for us. We collectively reflect on this and worship Him together through identification—we come to the table together restating trust in His forgiveness, reaffirming our our unity in Christ, and recommitting to following Him as His disciples. He is both Savior and Lord.
And the Scriptures tell us that the Lamb of God will one day reign and rule in supremacy.
3: The Lamb in supremacy.
3: The Lamb in supremacy.
Our final concept to think through regarding the Supper is that it points to an incredible promise in the future—one that will be accomplished by the Lamb of God. In the book of Revelation, Jesus is referred to as the Lamb 28 times, beginning in chapter 5. We don’t have time today to hit all of them, but it is clear that Jesus reigns with and as God, with complete power, glory, and authority:
9 And they sang a new song: You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slaughtered, and you purchased people for God by your blood from every tribe and language and people and nation. 10 You made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign on the earth. 11 Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and also of the living creatures and of the elders. Their number was countless thousands, plus thousands of thousands. 12 They said with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing! 13 I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them say, Blessing and honor and glory and power be to the one seated on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!
Jesus is the Lamb who was slaughtered, who purchased people for God by His blood. He is the One who died so that we could live, and He is the One who is worthy to receive “power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing,” (v 12), and to sit upon the very throne of God. There is no name higher or greater, and every knee will bow to Christ—in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:9-11).
And even though the enemies of God will rise up and attempt to defeat Jesus, this will prove impossible. Jesus is supreme: the Lord of lords and the King of kings, according to Revelation 17:
14 These will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will conquer them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings. Those with him are called, chosen, and faithful.”
And those who are “with Him” are those who have surrendered their lives to Him by faith. These are the ones who will be invited to the feast that Jesus was referring to when He said that He would not eat or drink of it again until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God (Luke 22:16, 18). This feast is called the “marriage feast of the Lamb,” and it will take place when Jesus sets everything right in the world, and does away with sin, shame, and death. This is called the consummation of the Kingdom of God.
6 Then I heard something like the voice of a vast multitude, like the sound of cascading waters, and like the rumbling of loud thunder, saying, Hallelujah, because our Lord God, the Almighty, reigns! 7 Let us be glad, rejoice, and give him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has prepared herself. 8 She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure. For the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints. 9 Then he said to me, “Write: Blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb!” He also said to me, “These words of God are true.”
Those who have believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ and have placed their faith in Him for their salvation are the ones who will be invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb. We are the ones who have eternal life to look forward to because our King will reign forever.
Closing
Closing
Even today, as we come together for the Lord’s Supper, we are bringing these three elements about the Lamb together—that Jesus was the true substance of the Lamb that the original Passover lamb was a shadow of, and that He will come again when the Kingdom of God arrives in its fullness and reign supreme. If you are a follower of Christ, I pray that this picture helps you as you prepare your heart to take the Supper.
If you are not a follower of Jesus, I want to make sure that you hear that Jesus, the Lamb of God, came and died so that you could be forgiven of your sins and have eternal life. He was sacrificed on your behalf because sin must be paid for, and He was the only One who didn’t owe that debt. Salvation only comes through faith in Jesus, trusting in Him as Savior and surrendering to Him as Lord. I pray that this morning, you would believe the Gospel and trust Christ. If that’s you, would you come and tell one of us? We want to help you as you take this step of faith, and the church family wants to celebrate with you.
Baptism
Church membership
Prayer
Giving
PRAYER
Lord’s Supper Observance
Lord’s Supper Observance
I’d like to invite our deacons to come down and prepare to serve the Lord’s Supper to our church family.
As they come, we should spend a moment in preparation. We do this with both a welcome and a warning. The welcome is that it’s such a joy to be able to take the Supper together. The Lord’s Supper isn’t simply an activity that we happen to do together: as Jesus said, it is a remembrance of what Christ has done for us, so it is an act of worship and praise. But for the church body, it is also us jointly identifying both with the sacrifice of Christ and with each other as believers. It is in this way a way for us to renew the covenant of fellowship and love that we have committed to in the name of Lord through identification with Him. This is a time for us to remind ourselves that as the church, we are members of a body, a family, and together are the bride of Christ.
Look around you for just a moment and welcome each other to the family table.
The warning is that if you do not belong to God through believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, please do not take the Supper. Since this is a time of memorial of and identification with the Gospel, if you do not believe, you should not participate. This is to safeguard the sanctity of the ordinance and for your protection as well, according to Scripture. We love you, and we’re glad that you’re here. We pray that witnessing this ordinance will be a blessing to you and open your heart to ask questions or to want to find out more about following Christ.
Ask Jeff and Aaron to come and distribute the bread to the deacons.
As we have read today, in Luke 22 we find his record of the first Lord’s Supper.
As we prepare to take the bread and the cup, we’re going to have a time of directed prayer. Families or groups sitting near each other, feel free to turn or even to move in order to gather and share this prayer time together, if you’d like.
Directed prayer for the bread:
Thank the Father for the picture of the Passover lamb which points to Jesus.
Thank Jesus for becoming our Passover Lamb through giving His body in death on the cross.
In the words of the psalmist, ask the Holy Spirit to “search you and know your heart; test you and know your concerns.”
Confess any sins to God, asking for His forgiveness through the blood of the Lamb.
Lord, we ask you to bless this bread and help us to eat it in a worthy manner this morning. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Deacons distribute the bread.
Luke 22:19 tells us that Jesus said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
Have Jeff and Aaron come and distribute the cup to the deacons.
Directed prayer for the cup:
Praise the Father for giving us a means of salvation and justification through the blood of Christ.
Thank Jesus for the new covenant in His blood, which cleanses us of our sins.
Ask the Holy Spirit to help you to look forward to the full consummation of the Kingdom, when Jesus will reign supreme.
Thank the Lord for His gift of grace in your life through the Gospel today.
Lord, we ask you to bless this cup and let us bring you glory as we take it together. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Deacons distribute the cup.
Luke 22:20 records that Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
Thank you, deacons, for serving our church family this morning. We all appreciate your faithfulness. And thank you, Lisa, for playing during the Supper.
As the deacons return to their seats, I have just a couple of closing words:
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Bible reading (Rev 18:1-19:10, Pro 28… finishing the whole Bible over two years on Wednesday… New reading plan will drop that afternoon)
No Pastor’s Study tonight
No Prayer Meeting Wednesday night
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
The “Hallel” (praise) psalms are ordinarily recited near the end of the Seder meal. One of these psalms is Psalm 117. Let’s read this psalm out loud together as our benediction this morning:
1 Praise the Lord, all nations! Glorify him, all peoples! 2 For his faithful love to us is great; the Lord’s faithfulness endures forever. Hallelujah!
