24 Hours that would change the world - forever

Let me say it - and get it out of the way: the world has changed!

But it is time we moved on, Loved Ones!

Yes, it is true, today is different in every way, different than the same time last year, last month - different than even yesterday!

· Last year, many were making holiday plans for the Easter long weekend …

o Today, states have closed the borders, and we are not allowed to travel anywhere simply for leisure only

· Last month we could go to the shops, restaurants, beaches - and church!

o Today I am preaching in an empty church, and you are watching a pre-recorded sermon from the confinement of your homes or reading this sermon online!

· Yesterday was just another day, just another weekday.

o This evening, this Thursday in the year of our Lord 2020, is special. Special, because our circumstances in these days have also moved us to rethink what it means, to be church, what it means, even, to be a Christian family.

But today it is different!

So, join me, please, as we journey to another Thursday evening, a historical Thursday evening, which we can only understand now, in faith! Otherwise, it makes no sense at all!

Join me as we move on, back … into the future!

Thursday, the day before Passover (Pascha, +/- 33 AD, afternoon)

Luke 22: 7

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.”

Imagine the streets of Jerusalem: the town is bustling. From near and far people have come to celebrate the Passover feast!

Just as today, not all who have come for this feast, this holiday, are believers,

… but all are in a holiday mood!

· Business is good – especially for the sellers of sacrificial animals.

· Old friends and separated family members have made plans to celebrate together.

· Kitchens are busy as woman prepare meals, husbands talk

Not all are believers, but for some, the festival has a very special meaning – a Holy meaning!

And as the preparations are going on, fathers are explaining to their children, what it is all about:

I imagine it might have been something like this:

“Dad,” asks a young boy, “why are we going to slaughter the lamb?”

“Yes, abba, (dad),” the boy’s sister pleads, “can we not spare the lamb?”

The father looks at them, smiles, but with a sad kind of a smile, and says: “come and sit with me, and I will tell you a story – the most fantastic story! And you should remember it, and tell this story to your children one day, too; and they, to their children – and every time you do it, remember the lamb – the real lamb!”

“The real, lamb, father?”

“Yes, the Real Lamb! Now listen carefully … Once upon a time …”

Brothers and sisters, loved ones, yes, the real lamb! /..

To know the real lamb, who has come, who has been killed, we need to understand how God has given us all of history, to help us understand the coming of the Real Lamb of God!

How that special Thursday evening, some 2000 years ago, became part of history, to help us understand why a lamb had to be slaughtered, sacrificed, as an answer to the children’s question, and, perhaps, your questions, too?

To understand, we have to place ourselves in the shoes of the Israelites, captive and in slavery, in the land of Egypt.

Imagine the father of a family, coming home to his humble slave dwelling. His back is raw with the whippings of the slave masters, who relentlessly beat him every time his knees grew weak with the forced labour of the Pharaoh!

He is hungry, tired to the bone!

He asks for a little water from his wife … The children sit wide-eyed, afraid. Tomorrow the slave masters will come again, to chain their father, drag him to the site of a new pyramid that the slaves are forced to build. The wife offers her husband some food, but he is too tired to enjoy the meal, supplied by the Pharaoh, to ensure that the men remain able to work another day …

These are strange times! Over recent days, nine plagues have come over Egypt.

They came as a sign, to the Pharaoh and his people – and to Israel, God’s chosen people!

The Egyptians were still praying to their idols,

but Israel worshipped God, even in their distress. In the evenings, and on the Sabbath, they worshipped God, praying to Him, singing together – family worship!

And now it was as if all of nature was reminding the people that there is only one God, God almighty – yes, all of nature was proclaiming this truth!

1. Water turned to Blood

2. Frogs, everywhere

3. Millions of Gnats

4. Swarms of Flies

5. Death of Livestock

6. Boils that covered the bodies of the Egyptians

7. Hail Storms

8. Swarms of Locusts

9. A dense Darkness, so dense “it could be felt”.

… and there was one more plague to come! A plague so devastating it would change the Pharaohs heart, and the heart of many more over the ages!

In the meantime, however, back in Egypt, none of these signs, moved Pharaoh to bow before God and acknowledge Him as the One and Only True God. God had sent those plagues so that Pharaoh would obey God and release Israel from slavery, but Pharaoh refuses to bow the knee before God - and Israel’s ordeal continues! And Pharaoh’s, would soon be intolerable!

But, back to the home of the enslaved father. There is a knock at the door: a messenger, says, in a hushed but urgent voice, “Quick, get ready! We are going to be free! Free from this relentless slavery. Free, at last!”

“Now here is what you should do,’ he continues, in preparation for your freedom: Exodus 12: 3.

3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers’ families, one animal per family. 4 If the household is too small for a whole animal, that person and the neighbour nearest his house are to select one based on the combined number of people; you should apportion the animal according to what each will eat. 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. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or cooked in boiling[a] water, but only roasted over fire—its head as well as its legs and inner organs. 10 You must not leave any of it until morning; any part of it left until morning you must burn. 11 Here is how you must eat it: You must be dressed for travel,[b] 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.

You can imagine the confusion of the Israelites, friends.

Were they truly being set free? By what power, that would be stronger than the Pharaoh?

Where were they to go?

What if the Pharaoh’s soldiers followed them, and killed them, for trying to escape?

How were they going to survive?

As they listen to the messenger, however, fear comes upon them: because they hear how God is going to deal with Pharaoh and his slave masters, to ensure the chosen ones of God, Israel, would be free. It leaves them, in awe!

Exodus 12: 12-13: (God says …)

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.

What a price to be paid for their freedom! Who would pay this price, ultimately, for them?

So it is in due fear and trembling, no doubt, the Israelites, the chosen people of God, do as God had commanded them.

And as they prepare, they think … and they begin to understand …

They think back and remember that God had called them among all the nations, to be a God-fearing people; they remember that God decreed that the spilling of blood, alone, would atone for sin. They remember God’s command that Abraham sacrifice, Isaac, his only son, as a sign of his trust in God, as a test; and that God had stayed his hand. They remember that Abraham had been instructed to have every male child circumcised as a sign of their agreement to the Covenant of God. “You will be my people, and I will be your God.” had previously been the sign and the promise that God would never forsake them, never forget them!

For that to happen, there would have to be a cutting away, the spilling of blood – the blood of an innocent, pure, lamb?

And so they start their preparations …

(And everything unfolds, just as God had prescribed, and promised! A lamb is slaughtered! They are set free from slavery! They receive God’s law so that they would worship Him, according to His decrees!)

And for years, every year, those same preparations would continue, as a remembrance of their being set free from slavery, according to God’s promises

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And now it is the night before the Passover. Time to make those preparations again!

Luke 22: 1.

“The Festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called Passover, was approaching.”

Remember?

Exodus 12: 8 They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

Jesus has instructed his disciples to go and prepare for this remembrance service, the remembrance of that night, all those years ago, remembering that first Passover.

Why? His disciples seem to have more questions than answers at this point.

Why still do all of that, especially now, with the world around them fast turning into chaos! Jesus may well be arrested at any time – and probably be killed, perhaps just like Jesus Himself had predicted would soon happen!

Why now, at this solemn occasion! It may well be the last time they would be together!

Why would Jesus want to spend His last moments on earth, with His disciples, celebrating an age-old festival … that had all the reminder of death and sacrifice and suffering in it?

Jesus is about to explain:

Luke 22: 14-23.

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[a] 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.[b] 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.

Jesus explains. And it would take them the best part of 24 hours, to understand. – twenty-four hours that would change the world, forever!

At that point they are still arguing about the details of the occasion, still trying to figure out how they might fit into Jesus’ plan – but hardly 24 hours later, they would understand!

Jesus is the perfect Passover lamb!

The bread which He is breaking, is a sign of His body that would be broken on the Cross, just like the “Lamb without Blemish” was to to be slaughtered as a sign of their trust in God, to free them from slavery all those years ago!

The wine that they are sharing is a sign of the blood of Jesus, which was demanded for the forgiveness of sins, from the beginning!

This was another moment in History that would proclaim the Truth, the Gospel – Jesus is Lord! He is our Salvation and the restoration of broken creation!

You see. Now the blood of animals would be seen to be insufficient, as it was, anyway, for it could never truly atone for sin. It had to be repeated again and again and would have continued for who knows how long … but received true salvation!

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Let’s join the family in Jerusalem, some 2000 years ago, again, where a father and his family are also getting ready for the Passover.

(… are you getting ready, loved ones?): -

“Dad,” asks a young boy, “why are we going to slaughter the lamb?”

“Why, abba (dad),” the boy’s sister pleads, “why can we not spare the lamb?”

The father looks at them, smiles, but with a sad kind of a smile, and says: “No! The Lamb cannot be spared …the lamb has to die – for our salvation, and so that the world will not be this place of tears it has been in these times …

Come, children, sit with me, and I will tell you a story – the most fantastic story! And you should remember it, and tell this story to your children one day, too; and they, to their children – and every time you do it, remember the lamb – the real lamb!”

“The real, lamb, father?”

“Yes, the Real Lamb! Now listen carefully …

“Once upon a time …”