Monday, July 07, 2008

Luke 22:14-20

The Passover is a celebration of God’s power to redeem. It is a festive time that commemorates God delivering His people from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light. The Passover celebration has a specific order to it that has been kept since before the time of Jesus. The order focuses on the affliction suffered by Israel at the hands of the Egyptians and on four promises God made to His people prior to their deliverance.

The suffering of God’s people is remembered with the central element of the feast. Bread baked without yeast is the only bread that can be eaten at this time and is called the poor bread of affliction. In eating it participants are told to reflect on the suffering, anguish, and abuse Israel experienced as slaves in Egypt. Before remembering their freedom they are asked to remember from what they have been freed.

This background is important as the events in Luke 22 unfold. God was going to bring about a new deliverance and Jesus expected his disciples to continue to celebrate God’s redemptive power. They would use the same bread to remember their affliction; however, from this point forward it would have new significance.

When he said that the bread was his body and that he should be remembered when they eat it, Jesus was telling his disciples that his body was going to become that which afflicted them and it was going to be put to death. He urged them to remember what had enslaved them because they were going to be freed from it. Sin had God’s people imprisoned and deliverance from that captor was at hand. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Every time we eat that bread we should make sure that we remember that which had us enslaved and know that it had control over us. If sin had been allowed to maintain its control, it would have destroyed us. We have to remember the power of sin so that we realize that we do in fact need to be saved. We do need deliverance from the devastation of sin. If we don’t truly believe that we need salvation, a Savior is of little use to us.

At the Lord’s table, remember the body of Jesus that became our sin so that our sin would be put to death. Our journey is like that of ancient Israel, one from darkness to light. Our journey begins in the bondage of sin and through the work of Jesus we are brought to freedom.

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