The Far Superior New Testament Passover
Exodus 12:1-14; I Corinthians 11:23-32
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
I Corinthians 11:23-26 23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Once in a while someone will ask me if there is any benefit to holding a Passover Seder meal during this time of the year. I don’t believe I have been asked that here, but I have in the past. We see other Christian churches doing it, and even some Lutherans have tried it. It is certainly useful for us to understand what the Old Testament Passover was and what its meal signified; that Passover narrative is the very foundation of what we celebrate in the New Testament, our Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion. It wouldn’t be right to teach Holy Communion without studying Passover; it would be like trying to build a house without a foundation.
But you don’t have to participate in a Seder celebration in order to understand it, any more than you have to be circumcised to understand circumcision. To bring the Passover and its meal back up from the Old Testament and repeat it, especially when we have a New Testament replacement for it that is so vastly superior to it – well, I can’t think of a good reason ever to do it. It would not be right to celebrate and to stare at the shadow when we have in our midst the very body that casts the shadow. As Paul writes to the Colossians, the Old Testament festivals were all “a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ”(Col 2:17). A shadow has no substance; a body does.
For 1,500 years, from the days of Moses until Maundy Thursday of the first Holy Week, God’s people Israel were commanded to celebrate the Passover in commemoration of that night in Egypt when God’s angel of death passed over the houses of the Israelites who had painted the blood of the Passover lamb on their doorposts in faith. Jesus was eager to celebrate the Passover meal with His disciples, because He, the very Lamb of God, was about to fulfill it, bring it to completion, and replace it with something far better.
Now, even though Jews have continued to observe the Passover for the 2,000 years since that first Maundy Thursday, the truth is, the Passover that Jesus celebrated with His disciples was the very last legitimate and necessary Old Testament Passover in history. And it was also the beginning of the New Testament Passover that keeps going on and on and on until the end of the world.
So, let’s take a few minutes this evening to compare the Old Testament Passover with the New Testament Passover. And as we do, we will see just how far superior the New Testament Passover is.
Both Passovers were instituted by God. The Old Testament Passover was about deliverance from slavery in Egypt. That slavery was horrible, it was oppressive, it was painful, and sometimes it was lethal. But it was still only temporal, only a superficial slavery – a slavery of the body, but not of the soul.
The New Testament Passover is about deliverance from a slavery that is far worse, a slavery of both body and soul, a slavery to sin and to death and to the power of the devil, all of which are far worse taskmasters than the Egyptian Pharaoh ever was. And worst of all, slavery to sin cuts a person off from God and continues even after death; it continues for all eternity.
The Old Testament Passover involved a spotless young lamb. Actually, it involved thousands of spotless young lambs, one for each Israelite household in Egypt. To kill a lamb was nothing out of the ordinary. But the New Testament Passover involves a single Lamb, the Lamb of God, the only-begotten Son of God and Son of Man, the one, perfect, sinless life whose blood is infinitely precious. To slaughter a thousand lambs is nothing. But to slaughter the Lamb of God? That means everything.
At the Old Testament Passover, only the firstborn of the families and livestock in Egypt was at risk, so only the firstborn was actually saved by the lamb’s blood painted on the doorframes of the house. But all men are subject to death and condemnation, because all are sinners. So when the blood of the Lamb of God is applied to the heart through faith and Holy Baptism, it saves from death everyone to whom it is applied. It doesn’t just save the firstborn; it saves the whole family of believers by means of the death of the Firstborn – the Firstborn Son of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world – who takes away your sins.
The Old Testament Passover meal consisted chiefly of roasted lamb, unleavened bread, wine, and bitter herbs, as God had commanded Moses. The lamb had to be roasted in the fire, and no meat was to be leftover. The bread had to be unleavened, both because of the haste with which it had to be made on that first Passover in Egypt, and as a symbol of the sinlessness that was required to approach God. The bitter herbs reminded the Israelites of their bitter slavery in Egypt.
There are no bitter herbs in the New Testament Passover meal instituted by Christ. All the bitterness of sin and death was tasted fully by Christ for us on that very night and on the next day as He took into Himself all our sins and paid for them in His suffering and death. And there are no leftovers in the New Testament Passover either, because it is only proper to consume all of what is on the altar, as you see me do each time we have Communion. There are no Biblical provisions for any leftover elements, only pious opinions. Everything is consumed.
The New Testament Passover meal consists of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, and the wine of joy and celebration. And this New Testament Passover also consists of lamb – not the meat of an animal, but the very body and blood of Jesus. It is the Lamb of God, who was sacrificed for us on the cross – His body and blood that are truly present in, with, and under the bread and wine, so that the bread is His true body, and the wine is His true blood. It is the body and blood of the Lamb, a true communion with our Savior Jesus Christ in which He visits us here, in space and time, gives us Himself, delivers His forgiveness to us, and unites us to His death and resurrection. In this New Testament Passover, Jesus, the Lamb of God is not only the host, but also the main course.
The OT Passover happened only once at the time of Moses. All the Jewish Passovers after that first Passover were mere commemorations. There was no more destroying angel, nor was there any more blood on the doorframes of Jewish houses; just a remembrance of God’s great deliverance of their Israelite forefathers.
The NT Passover is also a remembrance: “This do in remembrance of Me,” Jesus said. But the NT Passover is so very much more than just a remembrance of something that happened in the past. It is an ongoing thing, an ongoing remembrance of Christ who not only died as the Passover Lamb but rose from the dead, lives to save His people, and is really present with us in His Supper. His blood is constantly being applied to us sinners through the Means of Grace. Our deliverance from sin and death is constantly being carried out by Him, and His body and blood are offered to His people “as often as you drink it,” as often as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. He continues to forgive us our sins by these Means, and by them He continues to preserve us in the faith and guard and protect us from sin, death, and Satan until He brings us safely into His heavenly kingdom.
Those confessions of faith that do not believe in Jesus’ real, bodily presence in the Supper miss out on so much; they only have the remembrance part. But there is much more: it is the true body and blood of Jesus under the bread and wine instituted by Christ Himself for us Christians to eat and to drink. And because Jesus is bodily present in a miraculous way, so is His forgiveness, life, and salvation. So, instead of the doctrine of the Real Presence, those who deny Christ’s real presence have the Real Absence. And if there’s no Jesus, there’s no forgiveness either, which is sad.
The Lord’s Supper is for those baptized Christians who have been rightly catechized as to what the Supper is, and have been confirmed in this confession. The Supper is a celebration of this confessed unity, and is only for those who believe and confess the same things particularly about the Lord’s Supper.
The Lord’s Supper is an actual participation – communion – in Christ’s body and blood. The Supper is for “worthy” communicants, in other words, those who are able to examine themselves and who understand what it is and why they desire it. So, yes, the New Testament Passover is a remembrance, but it is so very much more.
The OT Passover was part of the Old Covenant that was always destined to pass away and be replaced by the New Covenant, the New Testament in the blood of Jesus Christ. So we will never celebrate a Passover Seder at our church because it has already been fulfilled; it is obsolete. It has been replaced by something far, far superior.
Christ, our Passover Lamb, has given us His Holy Supper, the Eucharist, which replaces, fulfills, and surpasses all that came before it. This is the New Testament Passover, the Christian Passover, the Passover that we call “Easter” and the Passover meal that we call the Lord’s Supper. And we will continue to celebrate it, not only tonight, not only at the Great Vigil of Easter and on Easter, but every Sunday and other times for the rest of our earthly lives, proclaiming the Lord’s death until He comes.
This Lord’s Supper delivers to us what Christ bought and paid for on His cross when He died for your sins; it delivers forgiveness of sins which we all so desperately and continually need in order to live out our lives as God’s people until Jesus comes again.
God grant us all the ability, the hunger, and the thirst to receive this Sacrament – the New Testament Passover – as often as it is offered, so that we may be strengthened and kept in the one true faith unto life everlasting.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit
