Thoughts on the Passover

This week's passage is Exodus 11:1-12:32.  This is the most terrible plague, the death of the firstborn.  It is also the institution of the Passover, one of the most important Jewish festivals.  Passover commemorates God's freeing of His people from Egypt.  Those who attended the Maundy Thursday service at Howe Memorial experienced a Christianized version of the Passover meal.  Wikipedia has a good article on the Jewish holiday of Passover.

For Christians, the Passover reminds us of the Last Supper.  The meal that Jesus shared with His disciples was a celebration of the meal we read about here in Exodus.  It was on this night, the first night of Passover, that Jesus instituted communion.  Thus, communion is closely related to Passover.

What I have said about the Last Supper is consistent with what we read about in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  However, John is a different story.  In John, there is no Last Supper!  Jesus and His disciples do share a meal, including the well-known scene of Jesus washing the disciples' feet.  However, a close examination of the story reveals that this meal takes place the night before Passover, rather than the night of Passover as portrayed in the other Gospels.  Furthermore, in John Jesus is crucified on Thursday, rather than Friday.  This disagreement on a most basic element of the story may trouble us.  However, John did this intentionally.  He was writing 60-70 years after Jesus' death, and there is no doubt that he knew the chronology of Jesus' death and resurrection.

John intentionally altered the chronology of the story to make a theological point.  By having Jesus die on Thursday, He dies on the night on which the passover lambs were slaughtered.  Thus, John presents the death of Jesus as the true Passover and the fulfillment of the Old testament.  This theme runs throughout John's Gospel.  Way back in chapter one, when John the Baptist first sees Jesus, he cries out, "Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!"

Jesus is our Passover lamb who saves us from death.  This is the way in which we read Exodus.