Yeshua’s Passover

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

Truth, where we're more than just a fellowship. We're a family, so welcome home. So guys, most of us celebrated Passover last night. And how was it? Was it good? Did everyone have a good Seder? Super good to have family. I know we wanted to do a corporate Passover this year. Logistically, it didn't work out. But having it at home with family and friends, and hopefully some of you guys invited people over and made it like a big shindig, as it's supposed to be. Hopefully it was a blessing for sure.

Passover as Foundation

And today, we're going to talk about—guess what theme we're going to talk about? Passover, right? And as we discussed last time we met, Passover is kind of a big deal in the biblical text and the biblical narrative. I would assert the Passover event is the foundation for the entirety of the narrative of Israel in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Because as we will see, when Yeshua sits down at his last supper, everything about his death he explains through the meal of the lamb, which is just amazing. We start off in Genesis and we have the narrative of Abraham and all of these things leading up to Passover, but the rest of the Torah is all about the Exodus story.

It's all about coming out of Egypt, God taking a people for himself, a covenant people, and the journey into the place of rest, which is the land. We went over, I think last time, so much how the biblical authors were so intentional in the way that they told stories and they loved to thread the stories together so that when you read a certain phrase or a certain theme, you're like, oh wait, that happened over here too. We saw that in the opening chapters of Genesis with the creation story and Noah's Ark, we have the same phrases and the links and the threads through the Exodus story. We have the Israelites, after all of these plagues happened, they come out of Egypt and they're in the wilderness, this void, chaotic place of finding their way through. And this happens in the darkness, going into today.

They come to the waters. And then it says that God's breath, his spirit went over the waters— the Red Sea—and the waters split. And it says that dry land appeared. It's the Genesis 1 creation overlay. And the ultimate goal of the creation narrative ends, culminates with God dwelling with mankind on the day of rest, this resting place. And he talks about later in scripture, the land that he gives his people is described as the place where his rest is encountered, entering my rest in reference to the temple. And so you have all of these amazing things that connect the Passover to other sections of the story.

Ancient Tradition

And so when we come together and we celebrate Passover, something that I think we take for granted is just how old this tradition is. This is, give or take, a 3,500-year-old meal that has been kept every single year. And of course, we have transitions, evolutions, things change a little bit. But the core of it is the same. It is a meal that revolves around telling a story, telling an origin story about the people of God. And I heard someone in a story make the assertion the other day that this is the oldest living ancient meal that is still practiced today. Now, I'll be honest, I don't know how accurate that is because we have Hinduism and they might have some meals. I don't know, but still, that's an impressive thing to say. What we practiced last night when we broke the bread and drank the cups of wine and dipped into the bitter herbs is not something we just do. It is something that has been done generation after generation after generation. And the reason why it's done that way—why every year, what is the purpose of the Passover? What does God say? What's the focus?

Teaching the Next Generation

So we had all the kids out last night, right? And I know your children as well. Last night was not a quiet Passover, was it? No. And sometimes as adults, we're like, stop it. This is a solemn moment. This is weighty. Stop it. We're going to eat and do all the stuff. Stop it. And kids are screaming and playing with frogs. We got the little toy frogs, right? They bounce and they flip and they go in the cups of wine. It was great. I like to think that's how God intended it. Sometimes we like to take the holy things of God and overlay them with our set-apartness and what we think the holy things of God should look like.

And we forget about the commandments where God says, listen, this meal is going to orbit around your kids because you're going to tell the meal. You're going to tell this story. The thing that the meal orbits around, you're going to tell it to your kids every year. You're going to ingrain this into them so that they know this pattern, this story about what it looks like when people are suffering in oppression and God's salvation makes itself known. Your children will know that this is the God that unleashes wrath on the unjust and brings forth justice and redeems people to himself. This is what you will teach your children: that it comes by the blood of the Lamb.

And so that's just so significant. So I hope I hammered that in because we're going to talk about that today.

The Last Supper

And we're going to start in Luke chapter 22 today, and we're going to read a little bit in Matthew as well. And we're going to follow a similar workflow. I saw a pastor walk through this messianic work back in 2013—a message by Pastor Tim Mackey at the time. We're going to present the Passover Seder tonight in a bare bones way. But when we go into the biblical story, we see Jesus going up to the upper room for the Seder and the Last Supper. And this is like something that culminates. And so I want to paint the picture of why the Last Supper and the crucifixion is just so imperative to hammer on. Because you guys hear me talk a lot about the gospel accounts being the film that the gospel writers direct.

They're individual, unique films. They're the canvas of how these authors are painting the story of Jesus. And Matthew chapter 1 through chapter 20 talks about the life and ministry of Jesus. Like, these 20 chapters cover what, over three years? Actually, his birth as well. Like, this entirety span of all these things he did. But verses 21 through 28—seven chapters—guess what? How much time does it cover? A week, a week. I wonder what Matthew's emphasis was in the entirety of his film. Mark, chapters 1 through 10, the entire ministry of Yeshua. Chapters 11 through 16, the week. Luke, chapters 1 through 18, the life and ministry of Yeshua.

Chapters 19 through 24, a week. John, chapters 1 through 11, the rest of John is the one week. What was the emphasis of the gospel writers? Something about his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. And then what's he do? Like, he comes in and like, he's the king, right? Everybody's praising him like the palm branches, which symbolize victory and conquering. Like, this is the king coming in on a donkey—Hosanna, Hosanna, right? And it's all good until he walks into the temple and he starts disrupting the workflow of the religious. And he starts flipping tables over and everyone's probably like, man, look at this guy.

Yeah, that's right. Right, these guys taking advantage of people. But that was the moment when he also got a bad rap among the religious in Israel. That's when the people, yeah, we got to kill this guy. This guy—no, he has to stop. He comes in exposing the corruption of what the people of God had become as far as the religious leaders in Jerusalem and in the temple. And then we're introduced to a story where he's sitting at a table and this woman comes in and what does she do? She breaks the jar of perfume, same type of perfume that was common at funerals. And who gets upset with that? Judas. Judas gets upset.

Man, that's a pretty expensive thing. I could have sold it and given it to the poor. Irony, right? Irony. Because he's the guy that's going to make all this silver—30 pieces of silver, somewhere around like $4,000 to $5,000 worth of reward money—for turning in Yeshua, turning his back on Yeshua. It's so wasteful. And after that, Yeshua wants to have a meal.

The Preparations

And in Luke chapter 22, verse 8, here is what it says. This is the time of Passover. It's the time of unleavened bread. Then the day of unleavened bread came when the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John saying, so we got a mission, right? Yeshua's going to go in and he has a mission for them. He says, go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover. Well, where do you want us to prepare it? They're clueless. They don't know what's going to happen next. Where do you want us to prepare it? He said, listen—he said to them, listen to me. Everybody lean in. Listen. When you've entered the city, a man carrying a jug of water will meet you.

Follow him into the house he enters. Tell the owner of the house, the teacher asks you, where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover with my disciples? Then he will show you a large furnished room upstairs. Already furnished, ready to go. Make the preparations there. So they went in and they found it just as he had told them and they prepared the Passover. Here's a commentary I heard recently. I had never noticed anything about that chapter that seems strange. Someone compared it to like a spy novel, like something out of Mission Impossible. He's like, listen, guys, you're going to go into this city and you're going to see a man with water.

Don't ask any questions. Just follow him. And he's going to enter a house. Don't say a thing. Just follow him. The householder will say, "The master." That's the code word. The same thing happens with his donkey. The disciples go in and the master needs the colt. It's neat. Yeshua always has everything prepared ahead of time. Even when we have no idea what we're doing and all we're called to do is follow instructions, just follow the directions, even if you're not fully understanding it.

Following Instructions Without Understanding

And this is a culminating moment because they're setting this Passover meal, this Passover event, and there's only hours left in Yeshua's life. This isn't like we have days or weeks to prepare. He only has a few hours left to do this. And you notice throughout the gospel accounts, Yeshua does not spend a lot of time talking about why he's going to die. You ever notice that? He's going around portraying the fulfillment of all the prophecies in Isaiah about new creation coming and the end of the exile and all these things. But he never really talks about why he's going to die.

A Meal, Not a Lecture

And here, with only a few hours left, he gathers his closest followers and he sits down. And he does not give them a theological lecture about his death, the meaning behind his death. He does not simply expound, saying, "Okay, guys, here is what atonement theory is about to take place and I need you to follow along." No, instead of having a lecture, he has a meal. And it is through this meal that he is going to explain to his disciples the meaning behind his death. This is why he has to die in just a few hours. So guys, today I'm going to go ahead and give you a heads up. We are going to have a barebones play of the Last Supper. It's going to be simple. I'm going to ask for two volunteers. Do we have two volunteers? Who can do it? Yes. Zach is definitely. Not right now? Who else? We need a second volunteer. It's going to be Jacob. He raised his hand first. Okay. When it's time, I need you guys to come up because you'll be missing out on the hot meal for now.

The Last Supper, Communion, and Eucharist

But before we do that, we're going to talk about the Lord's Supper, the Last Supper, as it's come to be called. Also called what? Communion. Also called the Eucharist, which is a biblical term. When Yeshua thanked God for the bread, gave thanksgiving, that word is Eucharisto. Eucharisto. That's where the Orthodox tradition gets the term Eucharist from. It's neat—a little Bible nerd thing when the trivia matches. So when we think about the Last Supper, what images come to mind in our culture? We think of a lot of artwork, right? We reflect on older artwork, the Renaissance. And so I wanted to walk through some of the really neat portrayals. I love art. You guys know that. I share a lot of art. I posted a link about some art earlier this week. People didn't like it, but I don't care.

Renaissance Portrayals of the Last Supper

So we are going to talk about some of this art. And this is Tintoretto's Last Supper. And look at that. So this is portraying Jesus and his disciples at a table. And there's a lot of commotion going on. But look at the top. The angels are attending and watching, and heaven is breaking forth behind him. It's so much going on. I love the intensity of this scene here. And I think we have another one next. I love this one. This is great. Jacopo Bassano. So look, Jesus is standing behind there, and he's positioned behind a young disciple in front of him, but look at his feet. They're in front of him. It's a neat spatial detail.

And then I believe that's Judas down on the bottom right. And then you have the dog under the table, right? And we're all like, "Oh, it's a dog, right?" Maybe it represents loyalty. It's neat, right? Everyone's gathering around. Do we have another one? I think this is the one I really like, this one by Peter Paul Rubens. The thing I like about this one, I think that's actually Judas right here looking at the camera or looking at you, breaking the fourth wall. So you have Yeshua and he's holding the bread and the wine. And I love how chill Judas looks. Look at his legs. When you want to chill out and relax, or when you want to seem astute and thoughtful, you put your legs over like that—not like this, but knee to knee, right?

And look at him pondering, and he looks over at you as if to ask, "Am I going to betray the master? Would you betray the master? Would you take this deal that he has?" He's pondering. I love that.

Artistic Masterpieces

And then I found, I think, an anonymous piece of artwork. I really loved it. It was beautiful. I don't know who painted it. And you have this one, right? Who painted that? Was that Leonardo da Vinci? So many cool things about this. Books have been written about this. Fictional films, fictional books have been made about this. Really neat. And so we're going to take all these images that we've just seen of them sitting in nice furniture and tables. We're just going to set these images aside—put them in a box and throw it out in the ocean for a moment—and we're going to reimagine what it would have historically looked like.

Historical Context Over Artistic Imagination

And historically, there would have been a table that would have been low to the ground. It would have probably been three-sided or maybe circular. And the disciples would have reclined at tables similar to those in a Roman symposium, a formal feast. They would have been reclining on the ground.

So then, let's go ahead and start, and we're going to walk through this Seder, and I hope it's fun. And we're going to walk through this, overlaying the Last Supper. So I need my two volunteers to come up. We are going to encroach on the worship team. If they're not mad, I'll move it back, I promise. And so what we're going to do—my original vision was to have us all lying down and all kinds of stuff, but we can try. So I, of course, am going to be right here. And I got my notes here, my iPad, there we go. And you guys can go ahead and sit right here. Can you scooch around? And that's good. And we are going to open up to, let's see here, Matthew chapter 26.

The Seder Meal

And when we start the Passover, it begins with a feast known as what? Unleavened bread. We don't have any bread. We remove all of the leavening, the leavened bread from our homes. We get all the leavening out. Isn't that fun? Isn't that fun? So you get all the leavening out of your house and then, a couple days later, you try to make some really good unleavened brownies. You open up the oven and it's just all the bread burnt, bread crumbs in the bottom. I messed it up. I think my awesome aunt just tosses her toaster oven out every year because it's too hard to clean. Just throw it away. What's it cost, 30, 40 bucks? Just throw it away. And it's always a fun thing to have the kids go through the house. We cheated. We had someone come in who knew how to get all the leavening out, and they vacuumed it all up. It was worth it.

The Four Cups of Wine

And I'm going to boil this Seder down to the bare essentials of what we know, or believe, this Seder would have included in the first century. And it would have included three to four cups of wine, which represent different things—the "I will" statements that God makes in Egypt. We do four cups nowadays, but whether it was three or four in the first century is debatable. Either way, they definitely did this. And the first stands for, "I will bring you out from under the oppression of the Egyptians." And then another phrase from Exodus: "I will deliver you from slavery to them." The third cup we celebrate today: "I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and mighty acts of judgment." And then, of course, traditionally, we drink a fourth cup of wine. And if you can still talk, you will say, "I will take you to be my people."

Cups of wine were likely diluted, depending on your tradition. We're also going to go over a couple of other aspects like dipping the karpas and the cups of wine. And so, yeah, you guys ready to jump in? Fantastic.

The Karpas: Parsley and Salt Water

All right. So the first thing we're going to come to is we're going to each take a piece of parsley or you can use lettuce and greens. And we're going to take this. And you guys trust me. Okay, it's going to be great. Okay. And we're going to dip the parsley in the water. And we're going to dip it like so. And you can dribble. It's okay. And we're going to go ahead and eat the parsley. And go ahead. And how is that? Does it taste salty? It's very salty because it's salt water. Some people like it. Some people don't. And this is a very old tradition. And there are many explanations for what this tradition represents.

It's called the dipping of the carpas. And some people say it's because it's salty. It reminds us of the tears of slavery in Egypt. The oldest tradition that I could find says that it represents the betrayal of Joseph and the blood of the animal that was spilt on his coat. Well, you ever like tasted blood? No, I'm not saying some pagan vampire stuff. I'm talking about —guys, you cut your finger open, right? Or if you ever bit your lip, what's it taste like? It kind of tastes salty and like that. Like iron. Yeah, iron. And so you have the story of Joseph. Jacob has how many sons? Twelve sons. And one of them is a little punk, isn't he?

It's Joseph, right? He's in his dreams, he's showing them off. He's like, "I'm going to rule over you and you and you and you, and even a sun and a moon." He is not favored among his brothers, but his dad loves him. So his dad makes him this awesome coat of many colors, technicolor, all that. So his brothers are really ticked, and they're like, "You know what? Let's just kill him. Let's kill him." Anyone ever wanted to like kill your sibling? No, no, right? Like, I'm just ready to—kids, teenagers. Okay. Liars. So his brothers were like, "Let's kill him." And they thought it would be too cruel. So a less cruel thing would be what?

Sell him into lifelong slavery because that would be better. And so they sell him into slavery, but then they have a dilemma. What are we going to tell dad? And so they took his coat, and what did they do? They slit the throat of a little goat and dipped the coat in the blood, right? Just as we just dipped the greenery in the parsley.

The Significance of the Blood

Now, why is that so significant? The blood of that goat went on the coat that went to Jacob, making Jacob believe his son was dead, so he didn't search for him. And Joseph went to Egypt. If that never happened, if Joseph was never sold into slavery and no one ever looked for him, Joseph would have never interpreted the dreams about the famine. He never would have been put up to save up all the grain and save everybody. His family would have never gone to Egypt and received the grain to live through the famine. And this is how God provides salvation for his people. If that never happened, Israel never would have multiplied in the land of Goshen, the land of Israel.

And God's mighty acts of outstretched arm, I'm sure would have taken place, but not with Israel's story. All because this incident involving Joseph, his brothers, this coat and the goat, the blood. And so that's the oldest tradition for the greenery. Now, from what I know, you guys are excited about the first cup of wine. And we're going to say a blessing over the wine, and you guys get to say it with me. But don't worry, we won't say it in Hebrew—just in English. And so how much wine do you think you can handle? Just a little bit? You have a 21, right? This is grape juice. We're not playing with that.

Yeah. Do that. And here we go. Just a little bit. Okay. And I know some of you guys were taking the whole glass last night. And so we begin the first cup of wine. The blessing—and we'll just do that. So I'll do a blessing in Hebrew, and I think we have it up there. So we'll do, and then everybody said, "Good job."

Blessing Traditions

And I love it because someone pointed this out. So in Christian tradition, when we bless, like when we say a prayer over the food, what do we say? What are we blessing? Bless the food. God bless this food, right? And in Jewish tradition, it's always the food's already blessed because it came forth from the earth that God has already blessed. It's a blessing, so we thank God. And that's why Jewish blessings always start out with, "Blessed are you, O Lord, our God, King of the universe." And so if you want to join me in Matthew chapter 26, we are going to start with—let's see here. At the Lord's Last Supper in verse 26. Sorry, verse 19 is where we're going to start. And this is after the disciples go to the certain man and prepare the Passover. So verse 19: "So the disciples did as Jesus directed them and prepared the Passover."

Reclining at the Table

Now, a couple things there. First, here's how we know all of those fantastically beautiful symbolic paintings are just not historically accurate. Because what's the first thing he does when he gets to the table? He reclines at the table. And again, this is typical in Roman formal feasts, the Roman symposium, Roman culture. I know we have a tradition of saying, oh, we lean to the left because of freedom and we're at ease. And that was a later day. It had to do with culture. But regardless, it's still pretty cool. And it has to do with intimate table fellowship. So I was talking to Pete earlier, and when Yeshua reclines, Pete's the one who pointed this out— I'd never seen it—he says that he reclined with the sinners and the prostitutes and tax collectors.

Intimate table fellowship, which is just cool. And what does Yeshua say? He points out that one of you is going to betray me tonight. Which one's it going to be? Is it up? Is it up? And the irony here is they're all going to run away. Like, they're all going to run away. The one who dips in the bowl that we all dipped in. And of course, that's Judas, but they all, Peter—I mean, they all turned their backs on him. The shepherd was struck and they scattered. And so I just love the irony. Everyone's like, "Is it me? Is it me?" Yeah, it sure is. And so he goes on here. Thank you. I don't know why that setting is up.

The Four Questions

So another part of the Seder that we have is, again, it orbits the children. And how many questions did we read last night? Four questions. And so this seems to be a very ancient tradition because we ask the children. And traditionally, it's the youngest child at the table that can read. And again, I want to do something that's kind of fun. We could just have the younger of you two read in front of everyone. But I've also seen it done in this environment. Everybody reads. And I thought this would be fun. Do we have the four questions up on... Do I have a slide? Do I? I do. So I want you guys... Parents.

Who's a parent in here? Parents. It's time. So I want you guys to read these questions, all four of them. And I don't want you to do it as a 20, 30, 40-year-old, 50, 56-year-old, whatever-year-old parent. I want you to embody everything your 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8-year-old is. I want you to let loose. Be the children. Yes, so I want you to read these questions as if your kids were reading them right now. Can we do that? Can we try to be a little rambunctious? Okay, let's go. First question: Why do we eat only matzo tonight? Why do we eat bitter herbs tonight? Why do we dip our food twice tonight? Why do we recline tonight?

Here we go. That was fun. You guys did a good job—some better than others, by the way. And I'm glad you asked. Because during the Seder at this point, you would say, "I'm going to tell you," and you would read the story of the Passover Exodus.

The Story of the Exodus

And so we're not going to read the story of the Passover Exodus today, because, well, just like the children, you would get restless too. But we are going to kind of summarize it, reading from Deuteronomy 26, specifically verses 5 through 10 with a little bit of ad-lib. And I tried to read the Message translation, which is a beautiful translation—or not translation, it's a paraphrase. So it says: "We cried out to God, the God of our forefathers, and he listened to our voice. He looked and he saw our destitution. He saw how cruel and how oppressed we were. So God called us out, but Egypt would not let us go.

Pharaoh would not let us go, so he sent plagues—10 plagues. And finally, after the 10th plague, he took us out of Egypt with his strong arm, through terrible and great signs and miracles. And he brought us to this place, through the desert, through the wilderness, to Mount Sinai, and gave us the Torah, and he gave us the land of milk and honey. So here I am. I've brought the firstfruits of what I've grown on this ground to give to you, O God." So this is a section of what you say when you offer the firstfruits of God. This entire meal orbits the very last plague, the plague of the death of the firstborn.

And we're familiar with it. There's going to be one final plague, and it's going to almost mimic the injustice of Pharaoh in Egypt, because Pharaoh in Egypt killed all of the male children in Egypt. And here, in likened fashion, we have the turning in of itself. This plague is going to kill all of the firstborns in Egypt. And we're familiar with it. Unless what? Unless a lamb dies, the blood is painted on the door, the lamb is eaten. And when the destroyer comes, it says that God will pass over the houses or pass over the doorways, if you will. And some say that means pass over—the destroyer is gonna pass over the house.

The Destroyer Passes Over

And some people say that means God's going to pass through the doorway into the home and be with his families and keep the destroyer out. There's two ways you could teach that. I think one is a bit more poetic than the other, but it didn't really matter. And we know the destroyer came in, and it wasn't just the Israelites—it was whoever had the blood on the doorpost who were saved from the destroyer. And that's what this meal orbits.

And so we go from there. There is then a reading after you tell the story. Everybody good? We're good? I fall asleep? Good. There's then a reading of several Psalms. I think it's Psalms 113 through 118, and then also Psalm 136 is traditional. But we're going to read a couple of Psalms that ancient Israel would have read with their children after enduring this meal that is all about this famine. So join me as we read it together. Everybody good? So we're going to read bits and pieces starting in Psalm 114 and see if you can pick up on any familiar elements of this. Ready? The Jordan turned back. The cores of death entangled me.

The anguish of the grave came over me. I was overcome by distress and sorrow. Then I called the name of the Lord. Lord, save me! I will lift up the cups of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. When hard-pressed, I cried to the Lord. He brought me into a spacious place. The Lord is with me. I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? Yay! And so you can feel the intimacy going through this meal with your family, with the wine, with the parsley. Yeah, you see all those? Just click that. With the parsley and the symbolism. And then we move on, and we're going to now partake of the second cup of wine.

Last night, you guys didn't go this fast, did you? Nice and slow, yeah.

The Second Cup and Rabbi Gamaliel

So we're going to do a second cup of wine. Here we go. And once again, we're going to bless the wine. Blessed are you, Lord, ruler of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine. I almost said, wow, Zach, you did quite a commitment pouring your glass that full, and then I realized. And so... This moves us on to another tradition that was really cool. So we have lots of rabbis and sages in the first century, before the first century, after the first century, that give a lot of neat commentary and perspective on the Passover. And one of those is Gamaliel, Rabbi Gamaliel. You guys heard about Gamaliel? Very famous rabbi, right? Yeah. One of his disciples, if you've never heard of this rabbi, you probably have heard of one of his most famous disciples named Saul or Paul. What? Yeah, the Paul that's in the Bible that wrote the letters, the New Testament. He was a disciple of Gamaliel.

Now Gamaliel said... He says, for a Passover, this is recorded in the Mishnah, he says for Passover to be legitimate, everybody does Passover differently. You go to the temple, you get your lamb, you bring it back. Everybody does something differently in their home, as they should. But he says, listen, a Passover Seder is not legitimate unless you have three items. You have to have the matzah, the unleavened bread, right? You have to have the moror, the bitter herbs, and you have to have—what else? The lamb. We got a bone of a lamb. Okay, that's what it represents in the Passover Seder. The bone represents the lamb that is no longer on the Seder plate because there's no temple.

You can no longer sacrifice the Pesach, the peace offering known as the Passover offering. And you also usually have another symbol. Usually it's an egg, or some other piece of food that is totally in contrast, totally separate, totally like other side of the room in contrast to the bone because it represents the Hagigal, the festival offerings, that were also boiled and eaten at the Passover later in Israelite tradition in the Bible. And so you typically have an egg or some other piece of food that contrasts with the bone, if you're curious. And so these are the three items that would have to be on the Seder plate. Everything else, go for it, whatever you want.

Jesus Reframes the Passover Meal

And so we are going to get to those in a minute, but we're going to continue reading through Matthew chapter 26 and see what else happens when Yeshua has this Passover meal, according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John portrays the meal taking place like the day before Passover to kind of line Yeshua up with dying with the lambs on the same day of the lambs. And that's a deeper discussion, a lot of different theories about that, but that's fine. So we're going to go to chapter 26 of Matthew, continue in verse 26. As they were eating, Jesus took bread and he blessed it, right? And he broke it and he gave it to his disciples.

And so his disciples take this bread and they're eating it, and he says, what's he say? He kind of drops the showstopper, right? He says, guess what? This is my body. This is my body. And it's like, okay, what does that mean—this is my body? He says, this is my body, the bread that you're partaking of. Sorry, could you say that again? I cannot say that again. The devil can't have it. That's what the disciples said. Yes, exactly what the disciples said. Can you say that again, sir?

Watch went off—sorry. She had a problem with that. And so he held up the bread and he gave it to each of his disciples, and he broke it. I guess I'll be Yeshua. He broke that and he broke that. And as they were eating it, he says, this is my body. This is my body. Again, what's the meaning of this meal? This is going to be something to do with the meaning of my death. Now, this is radical because throughout your life—ever since you were a little baby —every single year when you did the Passover and your father broke the bread and passed it around the table, not once did your dad or granddad or great granddad or rabbi say, this is my body. This is radical. This is like, what? This is new. This is my body. This is what is going to happen to me in just a few hours.

The Bread of Life

How this bread is made is the harvest takes place. The sheaf slides through the wheat or the barley, slicing it up. It's then taken and refined into dough and crushed and beaten and kneaded together. Anyone ever kneaded dough? It's really easy to do, right? Very little effort. Anyone else punch the dough when they're kneading it? You're kneading the dough. You roll it. You knead it. Put it in the oven. It goes into a furnace. And there's something about Yeshua when he's speaking about this bread that says, just like bread gives you life, it is sustenance. Just as bread gives you life, so my body. Something about my body being beaten and sliced and thrown in its own version of a furnace of flames, something about that is also going to give you life. So unintuitive. Who is this guy to take the symbols of Passover and reframe them in such a dramatic way, evolving them into a whole new way, into a whole new story, right?

The Three Essential Elements

And so we have the leavened. And we have the lamb, kind of, kind of. You guys realize that none of the gospel accounts record a lamb being present at this Passover meal? A lot of theories about it. I like to think if this is a Steven Spielberg type, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and he's directing the film, okay? The film is meant to portray what they want you to know about this Yeshua. The lamb was at the table. The lamb was at the table and it was Yeshua. And so what's the next thing, the next element? We have the lamb, we did the unleavened bread. What's the next element according to Gamaliel? What do we got? The bitter herbs, that's great. We are ready. So we're going to partake of the bitter herbs and go ahead and dip. So this is very mild. Very much. So just get a little bit. It's fine.

The Bitterness of Slavery

And so the honorable thing to do at Passover is the idea of the bitter herbs. It represents what? The bitterness of slavery and oppression that we have in, oh my gosh. Wisdom. And so it's recorded that it's honorable or the pursuit of eating the bitter herbs and feeling all those needles up in your nose is to produce a tear—to represent the tears that were shed because of the life of slavery and oppression and cruelty and the life of an environment that's constantly pushing in on you and controlling what you do and having this impression in your heart and on your life that is leading you to death. And not just any death, but a downward spiral into Egypt, into the ground.

And so, yeah, let's produce that tear. Zach, you want to put some back? I don't want to. Last night I didn't get any tears. I'm going to turn off my mic because one year I ate it and it hit a gag. Anyway, I'm just going to just in case. So let's partake of the bitter herbs. More wine. More wine. Yeah. There it is. You okay? Yeah. Good. Okay. Not too many sound effects. That's always good when you don't have too many sound effects. You need some more? We need juice? We're good? You produced a tear? Yeah. Yeah, did you? I didn't see a tear. Do you need to? It was on the side. That's good. And so we have this bitterness of slavery.

And one of the most reflective things about the Passover that's been carried on for an ancient time is even though, like in the first century, if you were the disciples, you guys never experienced a life in Egypt. Like you were not there for that event. But when we partake of these elements, we're supposed to partake of them as if we were the generation that saw the mighty acts of God and brought us out of Egypt. And it's so interesting because like...

Internal Pharaohs and Slavery

We still experience at times, or at least the idea is that we still have oppression and slavery in our lives. And sometimes it's not from a physical Pharaoh that's over the country with us in chains, whipping us and so on. Many times it's a Pharaoh within us—it's ourselves who do the things, partake of the things, and pursue the things of building up our own kingdoms in our lives at our own expense and at the expense of others. It's our own Pharaoh that we find in our own hearts. And that's something that Yeshua addresses here. When we partake of the bitterness of slavery, we remember the things that we struggle with even in our own hearts, the things we feel like we're slaves to at times.

And sometimes we enjoy it because of the watermelons that are in Egypt and the fruits, right? So yeah, this is the bitter herbs. Now we're going to move on to Matthew chapter 26. The lamb, I believe, was at the table. Yeshua is sitting here and he's transforming every single element that you grew up with and experienced every single year. And every element he picks up, he's reframing to talk about himself. There's something about this bread being broken. There's something about this wine, this blood being spilled for a covenant, because that's what happened in Egypt. The blood of the lamb was spilled so that a covenant people could be birthed—so God could take them as his own.

The bitter herbs are about the bitterness of the constraints of our heart and the sin that God frees us from and Yeshua frees us from. Something about the blood of the lamb being spread over is what saved the people during this event.

The Third Cup

So we go to the third cup and we go to Matthew chapter 26. Let's go ahead and do the third cup. Give me a little bit less of that time. I'm sorry for the last time. I'm a fool. All right, here we go. Third cup. That's good. You good? You doing good? We've got food. We're good. Okay. All right. Starting in verse 27 of Matthew 26. So he gives you the bread, and you're eating it, and it's all good. He says, "This is my body." And then he does something radical. It says here that then he took a cup, and after giving thanks for it, he gave it to them. So he's giving you this cup, this third cup, if you will, that we just drank.

And you start to sip it. Yeah, it's time to. He gave thanks for it. He did the blessing. Let's drink it. And you can almost imagine, and I'm adding to the story, halfway through the cup, like Zach just going for it. Drink from it. All of it. All of you drink it up. "For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." This is bizarre. The wine—but what this is, it's celebration and it's the redemptive power of God. It's the "I will take you, you will see my judgment through mighty acts. I will bring you out of slavery. I will make you my own people." What's that have to do with blood?

Why would Yeshua associate this with the spilling of his blood? Yeah. Joy of salvation. Taking you out, marvelous works, freeing you from slavery, taking you as his own. And that's how the imagery is still the same, but it's being blended together in a new way. And that's incredible.

Reframing Past, Present, and Future

He continues. He says here in verse 29, "But I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until the day when I drink it anew with you in the Father's kingdom." And after singing a hymn, right, like Psalms, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Now, what's interesting here in verse 29—this meal is based around an event that took place in the past. And here Yeshua makes a new claim. He says, this event not only commemorates the past, but it's now going to be an event with this new symbolism that is in the present and the future. It doesn't just represent an event that took place a long, long time ago.

It now takes place and represents an event that is in the present and in the future. And in that future, I will drink of this cup with you. Can you imagine? Egypt, Egypt, Egypt—lamb in Egypt. And here the master is redefining the bread, redefining the wine, redefining everything. And he's saying, guess what? When you revisit this from now on and remember me, it's no longer going to point back to Egypt in the past. It's going to point toward freedom from oppression and slavery in the present and the future. And it's going to point back to me. So radical. Who does he think he is? Seriously, bizarre. The magnitude of the reframing of this meal.

Communion as Participation

And this is what we celebrate. And we don't just celebrate it once a year, if you will. I mean, we do in our tradition, but in Christian tradition, it has come to be celebrated around the two elements that he gave the most meaning to: the bread and the cup, the wine. And so that is where we get the tradition of communion or the Eucharist or the Last Supper moving forward. And many churches do it every single week. Some churches do it every single day. Some churches do it once a year. But all the same, when we come together and we partake of the bread and the cup, it is this reframed Passover. And it's not just a meal, right, that makes us think about the symbolism and the event.

It's also an invitation to participate in it. And that's what makes it so impactful for us today when we partake of the bread and the cup—it's not just knowing what it means and symbolizes, but participating in this Passover event that is in the present and in the coming future through Yeshua. So is that good? Yeah. Kind of the bare bones? Okay, let's give it up for Zach and Jacob here. Thank you. So that's the end of the Seder. And we're going to transition now. Let me get back in my zone here. Here we go.

The Reframed Passover

Again, for review: instead of Yeshua bringing together his disciples and giving a logical, wellthought-out bullet point with the PowerPoint articulation of the meaning of a death, he gives us a meal explaining the meaning behind his death. He takes this event that has already been woven into the life of his people, so familiar to all of them, and he reimages it. He takes the ancient story and the meal and reframes it along with all of the characters to focus on himself and his death and his resurrection. As I said, Jesus, Yeshua, does not want us to just remember. He wants us to participate in his death, burial, and resurrection.

Every generation sees itself coming out of Egypt, but for his followers, every generation sees itself as the generation that sits with him in his final meal. That's the impact of the bread and the cup. In this moment, you are participating in the same last supper as his disciples. "This is my body," and we partake and we consume. "This is my blood," and we partake and we consume. This is the blood of the new covenant. This is the blood that forgives sins. This is the body that is broken to give life through its participation. This is where, again, we get the concept of communion.

An Annual Grounding

And every year, Passover comes for the Jewish people, and always has. And it's a time of reset in the Jewish calendar, the religious calendar. Passover is what kicks it off, right? It's the thing that God said, "The first month is going to be right here, and the first feast day is going to be right here." And this is what is going to launch you forward in a rhythm of life that takes place every single year. And every single feast day is going to be about worship, but it's also about remembering something to ground yourself in—something about the covenant I have with you as my people.

And so every single year throughout Jewish history, you come together and revisit the Passover, revisiting the elements that identify you as the Jewish people who came out of Egypt, grounding yourself in the story. You remember, you once again root yourself in what it means to participate in the exodus from slavery.

Returning to the Table

And guys, that's what's so cool about what Yeshua does here, because it hasn't changed for those followers of Yeshua. When we go through life, sometimes we get distracted. Sometimes we stray. Sometimes we go back for the watermelons in Egypt, right? And whenever we come to the bread and the cup once again, to the last supper once again, to this re-imaged Passover once again, it's a time where we get the opportunity to ground ourselves, to root ourselves, to come back to this moment sitting at this table. You know, it's incredible because when we think about our Egypt, guys, where were you before Yeshua if you're a believer today? Where were you? What was your pursuit in life? What were you a slave to? This is how we participate in acknowledging where we've come from, but also where we might still be stuck in.

Rescued Through Participation

Through Yeshua taking in all of this death and sin and consequences of our evil hearts, he makes this claim that we are being rescued. This is what he's portraying when he offers the bread and the cup. Jesus very much believes in his story that our sin and selfishness and bitterness are the things that are truly killing us, killing all of mankind. And if you notice, when Yeshua talks in his ministry, he doesn't see the world in terms of us versus them. Now, I know that none of us here have ever encountered a scenario or environment where we instantly tribalize our own identity and put ourselves in a box, and we put other people in another tribe and another identity, and we put them in a box, and that box will never touch this box because this box is better or right or more special or more holy or whatever than that box over there.

No one has ever had an us versus them mentality, right? That is literally the ethic of this country we live in, by the way. Yeshua didn't see the world in those types of terms. Read through the gospel accounts. He is always going to the boxes over there, the outskirts of society, to the marginalized, to the outcasts. The people that others put in a class, put a label on and classify as them instead of us.

A World Enslaved to Darkness

Now, Yeshua sees the world in terms of humans that are trapped and oppressed by sin. He sees humanity who is enslaved in dark things inside of us. John speaks of Yeshua knowing what is within you without you even saying it. Mark, the same thing. Mark records Yeshua as saying an inescapable accusation that evil originates from inside your heart. So it's easy to blame the devil for everything, right? No, it's something that you're enslaved to. Evil thoughts, lust, pride, gossip, deception, envy, murder. These are the vomit of our hearts. But Yeshua also saw something else. This mysterious paradox of the human heart. He also saw goodness and beauty found in the hearts of humans. The back and forth, this fighting, this war that goes on within you. But slowly, we are ground down. Slowly, we're dying from the effects of this darkness, this evil within our own hearts, this pursuit of self-preservation at the expense of others, jealousy, unforgiveness, hatred, and evil, injustice guised as righteousness, something that we've never done. And the result is a world that looks like ours.

Freedom Through the Lamb

And the mission of Yeshua was to address that slavery. Yeshua was so focused on remedy to that slavery through his life, death, and resurrection. His life was offered to give us a glimpse of heaven, and his death was in place of you, taking on the biggest weapon that the slave master had. And his resurrection is also offered to us as we die to Egypt and are raised to life, entering into this eternal kingdom. The story of Passover, guys, is a battle of lamb. And through that lamb, Yahweh rescues the Israelites from slavery to Pharaoh. And here, the story is through Yeshua, though. And Yahweh rescues the world from slavery to sin and death. So guys, I don't know where you're at today, but please stand.

The Slavery We Know

There is a selfish desire when we come into this world. And we see it in our children the most, right? No one teaches their three-year-old to be completely selfish. Oh my gosh, we're envious. So last night, my kids hunted for the Alfie Komen, and I had a ring pop, and the smallest of them found it. And guess what happened to the other two? Envy, jealousy, bitterness. Oh, there was unforgiveness. There was murder in the heart. There was selfishness.

How many of you are slaves to that today, about making yourself feel better at the expense of others? Oh, man, I don't do that. I mean, okay. Gossip—that's at the expense of someone else. Theft? It's at the expense of someone else. Lust, adultery? Yeah, that breaks apart marriages. Yeah, but what about if I'm not actually physically lusting? No, you're objectifying an image of God. You're taking something away from them. Theft, bitterness in your heart, murder. These are the things that we as humans struggle with. And what Jesus says through this demonstration is that I have come to free you from that, somehow through my death, burial, and resurrection. And these are the symbols that I want you to take to participate in this message and in this meal that represents that. Because those things do not belong in the kingdom of this King. There is a lamb whose blood can free you from that.

The Choice Before Us

And so when Yeshua comes to the table and he offers us the bread and the cup, he confronts all of us with the choice: do you want to remain in Egypt or do you want to remain in chaos or do you want to remain in chains or do you want to be laboring to uplift the kingdom of another that is filled with self-righteousness, self-exaltation, selfishness and murder, the kingdom of darkness that is ruled by the principalities? Or do you want freedom through the Lamb? Do you want peace, shalom? Do you want to attach yourselves to another kingdom, not of this world, living out the embodiment of God's grace and love? The choice that Yeshua confronts us with here in the gospel accounts: will you participate in taking the bread and the cup that he offers?

Bread and Cup

And so guys, we know there's four cups of wine for Passover, and we didn't address the fourth one. And I thought it was only appropriate that we would offer the bread and the cup here today. So we have unleavened bread that is also gluten-free and we have grape juice, wine in a cup. And these are symbols, these are symbols, but they're symbols of something magnificent and something that we are called to participate in. And so the worship team's going to come up and I'm not going to distribute these among you. I'm going to give you the opportunity during this time of self-reflection to come up and take a cup and take a piece of the broken bread and go back to your seat and have that moment of participating in this last supper with Yeshua, just like his disciples did.

And the reason why I'm not just going to pass it out to you guys is because I don't want it to be casual. And some of you may not be ready to partake in this symbol. Some of you may not be in a place in your heart where you feel like you can because you want the things of Egypt. You have the things of Egypt. You're still shackled inside. You might like it.

A Time of Reflection

And during this time of reflection, I want you to have this time to meditate on those things. Is there something in your heart that you need to acknowledge today—that is Egypt? Something you need to say: I do want to be freed from this? You know what, this is not something that belongs in his kingdom. And yes, I want the bread that represents his body. And I want the cup that represents his blood and calling forth a new covenant, a new relationship with God, the forgiveness of sins, the forgiveness of the things that I've done and the bitterness in my own heart. And so maybe you're not prepared. You don't think you're worthy to take the bread and the cup.

That's not what I'm saying. I don't think any of us are worthy, but I do think that now is the time to have a moment of meditation on where your heart is at. And are you willing to sit at the table with Yeshua? And if you need prayer during this time, guys, we have a prayer team offstage over here. This can be something that you want to acknowledge in your life or it can be prayer for a situation that you're going through in your life. Guys, we've got some mighty prayer warriors that would love to lift you up and stand with you. But I want to invite you in this moment to come and join Yeshua at the table of the Passover that represents the present and the future.

The Prayer and Invitation

Avinu Mokenu, our Father, our King. Father, we thank you for the blood of the Lamb, Yeshua. We thank you for the bread that is unleavened of Yeshua. We thank you for the blood that is poured out, for forgiveness of sins, for a renewed type of relationship with you. But that today our hearts would acknowledge your forgiveness, mercy, and grace, but it would also acknowledge the things that are holding us back from you, that we would yearn more for the bread and the cup than the things of Egypt. And that at this moment in time, that would be the decision. That would be the decisive moment that we make that commitment once again to sit. We thank you, Father, in the name of Yeshua, our King, our Lamb, the Exalted One. Amen.

What an honor it is that like so many others in the stories that were given in the Bible, we too are invited to recline and dine with Yeshua. And what participation means when we do that is it doesn't just simply mean this re-imaged Passover around Yeshua, but it means our participation, which means that we're called to be the Passover people in the present and moving forward.

The Passover People

And that means we're called to be the people that have the testimony of being free from slavery by the mighty outstretched arm of our God. And we're the people that had the testimony of being redeemed by this lamb. And we are the people that have the testimony of being made his. And this is no small thing. It's no small thing. And many churches throughout history do this differently, but every single one of them, including the earliest documents we have of the first disciples, understood the weight of this simple practice. And so I want to tell you today that Yeshua loves you. And Yeshua wants you to be his. And his grace and mercy is endless. And the blood has already been shed for forgiveness of sins. And so if you're here today, and maybe you're not a follower or a fully committed follower of Yeshua, I encourage you to consider it. I encourage you to enter in. And you can speak to me or one of the prayer team afterwards, if that's you today. And maybe you were held back for whatever reason and you didn't want to partake of the cup and the bread.

Seated at the Table

We're going to leave it out. You're welcome to do so at your discretion. These are the symbols of being included at the table with Yeshua. But we have to sit at the table. We have to walk in and sit down and accept it. And so we're going to conclude services today. And again, I hope this was an impactful service for you. We, I believe, have an oneg or a potluck set up outside. Don't know what the food quantity status is, but if you notice there's not a ton of food, guys, take a little bit and maybe it'll be multiplied in your stomach so we can share. Well, it's fellowship. I didn't mean for that to be so casual, but now we get a chance to dine with each other. And so it's a big deal.

The Shema

And so I'm going to turn it over to Jason to lead us out in the Shema. So please stand as we sing the Shema together and declare our one God and one King, who is Yeshua.

Shema Yisrael Adonai Echad Baruch Shem Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Blessed is the name of his glorious kingdom for all eternity. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up his countenance toward you and give you peace. Hallelujah. Shabbat Shalom. Shabbat Shalom.

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