Passover and Communion

In the time of Jesus, there was no bigger Jewish holiday than the Passover. The regulations for Passover are given in Exodus 12, where the Lord said to both Moses and Aaron that on the tenth day of the first month every household was to take a one-year-old male lamb without any blemish. It could be from either the sheep or the goats, and it was to be kept until twilight of the fourteenth of the month, at which time they were to kill it. If there weren’t enough people in the house to eat a whole lamb, they would join in with another house in the selection of a lamb. It was important for them not to have meat left over after the Passover meal.

Now imagine that you get together every year to celebrate the killing of a lamb and the smearing of its blood in order to have the wrath of God pass over you. Well, actually, it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine. We call it Easter. In fact, in the early church, the imagery most used to describe Christ’s sacrifice was the Passover.

Passover and the associated Festival of Unleavened Bread was a seven day holiday. “You must remember this day forever. Each year you will celebrate it as a special festival to the LORD. For seven days, you may eat only bread made without yeast…. No work of any kind may be done on these days except in the preparation of food.” Those who failed to observe the seven day holiday were cut off from the Israelite people.

Also associated with the whole Passover event was the birth of the nation Israel. Immediately after leaving Egypt, the people made their way to Mt. Sinai, and it was there that God made a nation out of that rag-tag bunch of slaves. Prior to this, although there was the promise of a great nation, there technically was no nation Israel. Thus, Passover became for the Israelites what Independence Day is for Americans. Note that it was also to be the beginning of their year, so it was like our New Year’s Day as well.

The giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai was remembered by the nation as a very significant time in their history. So when the people are delivered from slavery and given Torah they are given the ability to function as a nation. Americans don’t usually think of our nation’s constitution as some sort of lame piece of boring legalism that has nothing to do with us. Rather, we think of it as a document that guarantees our freedom and liberty. The same was true of the ancient Israelites when they thought of the law. It was what gave them identity and set them apart in their world. It gave them a sense of unity and common purpose, and the fact that it was tied in with the Exodus only served to make them more proud of their identity because they were associated with the only God who was able to break the back of the mighty Egyptians, a nation who was at the height of its power at the time of the Exodus.

Now that you know a little about the celebration of Passover, it’s time to put yourself in the shoes of the disciples. You’ve been following this Rabbi named Jesus around for a while and he’s done some pretty crazy things that make you think he has to be the real deal, but he has also said some outlandish things. You are also aware that all your religious leaders, the men you’ve been conditioned to trust and respect, hate the Rabbi you are following and think he is a total nut case. Then, in the middle of your Passover celebration, that time when you are celebrating Christmas, Easter, Independence Day, New Year’s Day, and freedom from slavery all at the same time, Jesus takes some of the Unleavened Bread, meant to signify the haste with which the people would have to move as they fled their captors, and says, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Ouch. Have you ever heard someone say something that kind of makes you cringe in embarrassment for them because they’ve got it all wrong but they said it with such passion and conviction? I think that’s probably how the disciples felt when they heard Jesus say, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

It’s easy to see why the religious leaders wanted to kill Jesus. He, a mere man, was usurping the place of God, and the law clearly states that anyone who claims to be God is to be put to death. The Passover was meant to celebrate God, not some man.

I used to think the Pharisees and teachers of the law were total idiots, but now I ask myself how I would feel about a pastor telling his followers that Easter is really about him. I’d think he was crazy, call him a heretic, say hateful things about him, and wish he’d go away. And I’d probably want him killed the same way the religious leaders wanted Jesus killed, although I’d dress it up in pious talk like, “If only the Lord would take him from the earth.”