Today is Thursday, April 9, 2020, just four days since Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020. Historically the Thursday following Palm Sunday stands as one of the days which the bible gives us dramatic details, details which have informed the spiritual formation and traditions of the church for thousands of years. This day stands as the threshold into the prophecy fulfilling passion and willing sacrifice of the Son of God. All those who take part in The Lord’s Supper are remembering and reenacting the drama of this day. Yet of note is grace demonstrating actions Jesus took while serving this final Passover and first Lord’s supper.
Heretofore the feast Jesus that had sent eager followers to prepare recalled in detail the deliverance of the nation of Israel from the oppression of the Pharaoh of Egypt. This deliverance was accomplished in a manner that had never been imagined or experienced. The Passover is a communal meal depicting the night the children of Israel followed their leader, applied the blood of a pure and sacrificed lamb over their doors. That night as they shuttered themselves behind blood-stained doorposts and weight-bearing lintel beams, a Holy dispatch was given unleashing a deadly messenger from heaven. This decisive demonstration of the holiness of God and his unrelenting power and love for His people was made agonizingly clear to Pharaoh, the godless ruler of a calloused culture. That night death ushered in freedom...sacrifice birthed liberty. And hundreds of years later every single person gathered with Jesus around the table fully understood the importance of the meal. Or did they; could they?
Could the disciples comprehend the weight of the moment when Jesus went off script and offered his body and his blood as the eternally perfect and substitutionary elements of the meal? This was not the normal language or the traditional intent of the meal. This was new. This was revolutionary. This was their friend. This was the true and anointed Son of God offering himself through deeply symbolic elements, as the complete sacrifice, able to cover forever the sins of all people and restore the broken relationship between God and man. This meal may have been the tipping point of an avalanche of grace which still rages down to cover the sins and of mankind and sweeps people into freedom through Christ.
Rejoice and celebrate this day, for God is good and boldly demonstrated His goodness to all who would believe in the gift of His Son.
“For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16