It’s not yet Passover, as this is one of the years that Easter and Passover are nearly a month apart. Still, a few friends and I were trying to coordinate a time to have dinner together. We landed on tonight, the Friday before Easter.
So I have decided to host a Seder dinner, leading them through a traditional Jewish celebration that Jesus would have eaten with his disciples at Passover. I know, a bit unorthodox (literally) to do it so early. But in a way its’ kind of perfect. As followers of Jesus we talk about the “last supper” as if Jesus and his disciples just went out to dinner and enjoyed a final meal. It was far from that.
I must admit, it has been humbling how closely Jesus has walked with me in this preparation. I want so much for my friends to have new meaning infused into their understanding of what everything this weekends means, and to experience it in a new way.
I want to invite them to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. To drink the wine (but maybe not 4 cups), to eat the unleavened bread, to remember all God has done for them. Yes, perhaps living in an empire they disagree with or feel oppressed by, but for just one night, to remember all God has done.
As followers of Yeshua Jesus, we look backwards and see the last Passover dinner Jesus celebrated as just the precursor to his arrest and crucifixion. Jesus’s disciples didn’t consider it the last one.
To them, it would have just been another year of a sacred meal they had celebrated all their lives. Granted, yes, Jesus had predicted his betrayal and death three times by now, but his conflict with religious leaders wasn’t new. They were used to it. Who would have come to the table thinking Jesus’ death was just around the corner?
As I have studied a Messianic Passover Seder a bit more closely, side by side with the narrative story in both Matthew and Luke, I am once again humbled and brought to a deep recognition of how things played out.
I’ll start by explaining that there are typically 4 cups of wine in a traditional Passover Seder:
1. The cup of blessing or sanctification – intended to sanctify the meal and remind us of YHWH’s goodness to his people
2. The cup of plagues – to remember the plagues brought upon Egypt leading up to the deliverance of the Israelites from bondage
3. The cup of redemption – remembering God’s promise to deliver the Israelites with his own arm
4. The cup of praise – the first taste of freedom beyond redemption and a reminder of the future beyond the current present trials.
Luke records the story of their Passover dinner where, at the beginning (thus over the first cup of wine), Jesus blesses it, and then adds “for I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes” (Luke 22:18 NIV)
I suspect they thought it was now that Jesus would take up his earthly reign, and to that they must have echoed a hearty ‘amen!’.
I encourage you to sit and think about this a minute. Jesus has not forgotten this statement, even thousands of years later. I imagine he sits at every Passover table, and in the hearts of those who long to see his return, and breathes deeply, knowing this promise has yet to be fulfilled. One day… we will get to share a glass of wine with our Yeshua Jesus! Oh… so much to discuss!
And of course Matzoh. How could we forget Matzoh! A blessing is traditionally spoken over the Matzoh:
“Blessed art though, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth”
I wonder if it is now or after dinner that he invites them to see something else, saying “This is my body given for you, do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19).
But the ceremony moves on: The story in Exodus is usually read, and then they go through the other symbolic foods eaten in a Passover meal, all of which invite participants to physically experience the deliverance story: A roasted shank bone to remember the roasted lamb they ate the night of their escape, parsley (to remember the wiping of the blood on their doorframes), dipped in salt water to remember also the tears shed; horseradish (bitter root) is eaten on matzoh to remember the bitterness of being enslaved; haroset (apples, honey, wine and walnuts) is eaten to remember the bricks they made, and a roasted egg for remembering sacrifices in the temple.
Then the meal. Roast lamb or a beef brisket (what we are having). They talk, enjoy the moment.. and then after dinner, Jesus changes the tone yet again, while everyone’s stomachs are full.
After dinner, everyone has the third cup of wine – the cup of redemption. It is here that Luke tells us that Jesus takes the cup and declares it as a new covenant, in his blood, being poured out.
Mike drop, if you will. Deep, deep significance. Not just this is what YHWH has done in your past.. but your YHWH is here right now, about to do something new. This cup will become real again, as real as the wine you are drinking.
WOAH.
Their conversation after that isn’t over the cup of Praise and looking forward. Instead, Luke tells us the conversation turns towards betrayal, of Peter being sifted as wheat and denying him, and Jesus giving them the clearance to get swords (not something he talks about before). Definitely a difference at this part of the evening. I can only imagine they think they are preparing for battle to help Jesus take his throne.
We know from history, this is the night he is betrayed, questioned, and beaten. The disciples are confused, bewildered, and hiding. We know he was crucified. There is grieving and questioning YHWH’s plan, everything they understood. I suspect hearts were pretty numb, if they could feel at all.
Not one of your best Passover weekends.
On this side of the story, all I want to do is sit at the Passover table and drink in the significance of all that he was doing and all that he knew. Cosmically, the card he was about to play.
A new deliverance was coming, because the world was still ruled by evil and power, oppression and evil.
By faith, we believe it has come, but in practice, this is still coming, still fleshing itself out across the world. We have a long way to go.
For those of you who follow Jesus, when you remember “Good Friday” – as some of you might be doing in contemplative services tonight, I’d encourage you to also remember that what was true then is still true now:
Jesus offers us the cup of blessing and sanctification, as well as the cup of redemption. He still is waiting to celebrate this with all of humanity, but tonight – he offers it to YOU. You have been blessed by his broken body, You have been sanctified. You have been redeemed out of the evil and selfish ways of the ‘not his kingdom’.
My prayer is that you are able to truly see the resurrection we will celebrate on Sunday as a triumph of life, a beginning, and know the truth of his kingdom of love, mercy, justice and forgiveness is offered to everyone who will dare to believe. A new start, for everyone.
That is something to ponder, no matter what faith you practice now.
Blessings, my friends!
Finding the Life 