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SERMON 7: MAUNDY THURSDAY
"The Eternal Passover That Jesus Desired to Eat"
Luke 22:14-23
During this season of Lent, we've tried to be realistic even as we learn again to trust our God.
The realism has to do with evil: the evil that betrayed and condemned and crucified Jesus
long ago, and the evil in our world and our lives also today.
In the face of that evil, we trust
our God, and the plan he carried out in the Lord Jesus.
We can say to Satan, to the world,
and even to ourselves, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good."
This evening's service is a break in the action, in a way.
It's because of the gift that the Lord Jesus created that night long ago in the upper room.
Tonight is not a night to be somber, but to be quietly joyful.
It's a night to marvel at what happened when Jesus ate the Passover meal with his apostles, and to marvel at the new gift that has come down through the ages also to us.
Jesus said to them that night, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer."
That was a particular ritual that happened at a particular moment in a particular place.
I want to suggest to you-and I'll explain this as we go-that it was an eternal Passover that night.
By "eternal" I mean that it was not isolated, disconnected, alone, or even limited.
The Passover gathered up and brought to fulfillment so many things from the past, and the past gave meaning to that night.
That present moment long ago, however, was part of the
most significant "present moment" in the history of the world.
History was turning a corner
that night.
And perhaps most obviously to us from that Passover ritual came a new gift for
the future, and a gift that would last until tonight, and until the Lord returns in glory.
That all
happened the night that Jesus was betrayed-past, present, future.
So, consider with me this
evening "The Eternal Passover that Jesus Desired to Eat."
If you listen, you can almost hear the past rushing into the upper room that night.
In our
calendar reckoning, Luke is telling us about an evening that happened about the year AD
30.
The first Passover event happened more than 1400 years before.
That time gap is about
six times longer than the United States has existed.
But the point is this: beginning with the
first events in Egypt, with Moses and Pharaoh and the ten plagues and God's rescue, every
Passover throughout the centuries had been pointing to, leading up to that night-to that
eternal Passover that Jesus desired to eat.
Quickly review with me.
The descendants of Jacob, whose name God changed to "Israel," had become a nation; twelve tribes.
They were enslaved by Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
If you asked the man on the street how the Egyptians could do this, the answer would be, "The
Egyptian gods were stronger than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
The true God
changed that perception.
The blood of the lambs marked Israel's homes and the angel of
death spared them.
With an outstretched arm God brought the Israelites out of slavery,
to the edge of death at the shore of the Red Sea, through the death of the waters that
drowned the Egyptians, and out into a new life on dry ground.
The Passover meal began as a
remembrance of that-and down through the centuries, the people were supposed to remember.
But they didn't always remember very well.
The history of God's people was up and down, for sure.
And the time came when they finally succeeded in breaking their covenant with
their God.
He was eager and willing to be their God.
But they wanted to be his people at the
same time that they were the people of the Baals, and the people of Molech, and the gods of
the nations around them.
And a covenant with the true God is exclusive-he brooks no rivals.
Israel broke the covenant.
That covenant that Israel broke was in need of something greater.
And in hindsight, we can see that God always planned it that way-those past events were always pointing forward
to something greater.
And so that night in the upper room, with sin and evil all around and
with quarreling disciples seated with their master, the past came rushing up to them to cry
out, "How long, O Lord? How long until you deliver us again?
How long will your people
wander?
When will you do a new thing!"
And the answer was, "Tonight.
Right now."
That particular night long ago remembered the past mercy of God and magnified it.
On that particular night Jesus confronted the slavery of all of the gods of the world and even Satan himself.
He faced that slavery, took hold of it, and did not let go.
On that night Jesus freed sinners of all the ages and invited them to the table.
It all came together in the eternal Passover that Jesus desired to eat-right in that present moment.
In a way, we can say that evening, and the hours that followed were the turning point in all human history.
Jesus embraced the old, even as he created something new.
Not utterly new, with no connection to the old.
But larger, new in the sense of "renewed," larger and stronger and more beautiful.
Jesus begins that turning point in history with the old ritual that the disciples had probably known their entire lives.
He takes a cup that is part of the old ceremony, and he blesses it and asks them to divide it among themselves.
And then he says: "That's it.
I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes, until the great and last day."
Turning from the old, Jesus then gives them something new-really new.
None of the Gospels tell us how the disciples reacted when Jesus said completely unexpected things.
The Gospels don't tell us, so we shouldn't speculate; it's not important.
But it was new.
"This bread is my body which is given for you.
As you have remembered deliverance from long ago, now you will have a new deliverance to remember.
Do this in remembrance of me."
It was new.
"This cup being poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood, through my death."
It was
new.
And the old Passover meal has now passed away, and in the most important way of
thinking, the old Passover can't be observed again-at least, not by the disciples of Jesus.
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