Jesus the One and Only Author: Beth Moore Price: $19.99

On a fresh spring morning, the sun rose over the Mount of Olives and cast a spotlight on a city preparing for the most cherished celebration on the Jewish calendar. The Passover feast had arrived.

Scripture assures us Christ knew everything that would happen to Him. On this day the Son of righteousness began His walk to the cross.

Would God have allowed Him to forego the tightness of dreadful anticipation in His chest? Did God allow His Son’s hands to shake? Oh yes, I think Christ felt every bit of it. Dread is not sin. Disobedience is. I believe Christ’s humanity had never been more constricting or alarming. And it was only just beginning.

The people of Israel had observed the Passover for approximately 15 centuries. But that particular night, a change occurred. Christ not only observed the ancient memorial of the Passover, but also He instituted something new.

That Jesus had given much thought to the approaching feast is evident: “‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.’” Even if we never fully grasp the significance of the evening, our perception can be deeply marked by the fact that Jesus considered it to be enormously profound.

Nothing about the evening was trivial or accidental. I don’t believe Christ simply glanced up, saw Peter and John, and decided they’d be as good a choice as anyone to prepare for the Passover. Quite the contrary, this profound work was prepared in advance for them to do (see Eph. 2:10).

The Passover involved a fairly elaborate meal with a very specific setting. The bitter herbs symbolized the bitterness of the suffering memorialized in the Passover observance: the bitterness of slavery, the bitterness of death, and the bitterness of an innocent lamb’s substitution. The herbs, eaten intermittently during the meal, would intentionally bring tears to their eyes as a reminder of the associated grief.

While every part of the meal was highly symbolic, it had no meaning at all without the lamb. The most important preparation Peter and John made was the procuring and preparing of the Passover lamb. They had knowledge or understanding that the detailed preparation involving the lamb would soon be fulfilled in Jesus Christ. They may not have grasped the significance of it at the time, but eventually they “got it.”

Peter and John are the only two of the twelve who were recorded referring to Jesus as the Lamb. Coincidental? Not on your life. Christ’s ultimate goal in any work He assigns to us is to reveal Himself, either through or to us.

When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. The Passover was a celebration for families and those closest to them. Christ was surrounded by His closest family. They may have been weak, self-centered, and full of unfounded pride, but they were His.

Capture this meal with your imagination. I think we’ve inaccurately pictured the last meal as moments spent over the bread and the wine. Christ and His disciples observed the entire Passover meal together. Then He instituted the new covenant, represented by the bread and the wine.

As they gathered around the table at sundown, Christ took the father role in the observance. Soon after they gathered, He poured the first of four cups of wine and asked everyone to rise from the table. He then lifted His cup toward heaven and recited the Kiddush, or prayer of sanctification.

If Christ and His disciples followed tradition, they took the first cup of wine, asked the above prayer, observed a ceremonial washing, and broke the unleavened bread. These practices were immediately followed by a literal enactment of Exodus 12:26-27. The youngest child at the observance asks the traditional Passover questions, provoking the father to tell the story of the exodus.

The four cups of wine served at the Passover meal represented the four expressions, or “I wills” of God’s promised deliverance in Exodus 6:6-7. At this point in the meal, Christ poured the second cup of wine and narrated the story of Israel’s exodus in response to the questions. Christ, the Lamb of God, recounted the story as only He could have—and then, at the very next sundown—He fulfilled it!

The One sent “‘to proclaim freedom for the prisoners’” told the story of captives set free, spared from death by the blood of the Lamb. The creation of humankind would have been pointless without this awesome plan of redemption. Before we ever lived to see our first temptation, God procured a “way of escape” for all who would choose it.

They ate the meal between the second and third cups. The third cup was traditionally taken after the supper was eaten. This is the cup of redemption. I am convinced this cup is also the symbolic cup to which Christ referred only an hour or so later in the garden of Gethsemane when He asked God to “‘take this cup from me’” (Luke 22:42). This was a cup He could partake only with outstretched arms upon the cross.

We know Christ did not literally drink this third cup because He stated in Luke 22:18 that He would not drink of another cup until the coming of the kingdom of God. Instead of drinking the cup, He would do something of sin-shattering significance. He would, in essence, become the cup and pour out His life for the redemption of man.

That most holy weekend, the Passover was completely fulfilled. “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). God instructed the Hebrew people that they were to continue the Passover feast, celebrating it as an ordinance (see Ex. 12:14). As Gentile believers, we have much to learn and appreciate about the Passover, but we have been commanded to remember the death of Christ every time we observe the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:26).

Christ never took anything more seriously than the cup of redemption He faced that last Passover supper. His body would soon be broken so that the Bread of life could be distributed to all that would sit at His table. The wine of His blood would be poured into the new wineskins of all who would partake. It was time’s perfect night—a night when the last few stitches of a centuries-old Passover thread would be woven onto the canvas of earth in the shape of a cross. Sit and reflect.