Passover and Christ
The convergence of new and old, the new covenant and the Passover are fascinating in the few verses of Passover that we are given in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus’s reference to the body and blood of the covenant, as in Exodus 24:1-8, is a stunning example of the continual storyline – the one that starts in Genesis and follows through to Revelation. God planned our release from slavery, just as he faithfully shepherded the Israelites out of Egypt, creating the first Passover.
The Exodus passage also lays out the laws of the covenant and the people declare they will obey. How similar it is to our prayers of submitting to the One as our Lord and Savior, that we give him our lives and will ‘follow him’ always. They too said they would follow. And in our weakness, we fail. But God already had the solution for that, sending the ultimate sacrifice in Jesus Christ, God himself dying to take us back from sin and evil.
The blood of the covenant
The blood of the covenant had yet to be shed in Matthew 26, but certainly is within hours (see John 13:34). Interestingly, Jesus also mentions that he will not drink wine again until we are joined together in the Father’s kingdom (Matt 26:29). It is noted that the final glass of wine (the fourth!) drunk at Passover is consumed in the presence of Elijah the prophet who is invited to join the festivities by opening the door to him. Elijah and the accompanying readings for the Seder are said to represent the future redemption. In that case, why would Jesus partake of the fourth cup – since the redemption was not longer future, but indeed present!
The cups represent the redemption that God gives in verses of Exodus 6:6-8: God will bring out from under the yoke, rescue from slavery, redeem with mighty judgement, take you as my own. The yoke has been taken and replaced with Jesus’s light one (Matthew 11:28-30), we have been rescued from the slavery of sin (Leviticus 16, Hebrews 9:7-10:18), and he redeemed us himself by taking the judgement due us onto the cross and submitting to the punishment of death and conquering it (John 3:16, Isaiah 53:1-12). We await only being taken to his kingdom.
The bread of his body
The bread at Passover was a key remembrance of the swiftness of the instruction to leave and the need for obedience. The unleavened bread is so significant that it becomes a key not only before but also the seven days following Passover. First the Israelites had to get rid of any leavening in their homes, then they ate bread only if it was unleavened for the following week, as the festival of unleavened bread. The Seder meal at Passover carries out a number of traditions, beyond the four cups of wine. The bread too is interesting as the meal uses three loaves of bread. One is broken and one is consumed with the festive meal, the last is saved for a special remembrance later in the Seder.
You caught that it is three loaves, right? That one is broken? It gets better, the larger part of the broken one is also hidden … and eventually found and held for ransom before being added back to the end of the Seder. It is the last thing eaten at the meal. How the Jewish leaders that set out these steps for the Seder missed the significance of them in relation to Christ is beyond me. Surely God was nudging them to look around as they wrote out the evening’s guidelines, nudging them to see the parallels. Yet they missed it. The Seder includes the unleavened bread to remember the escape from slavery and the provision in the wilderness. How much more shall we remember it as we partake of the bread of his body during our own communions.
Most of the details about the rituals of Passover are found in multiple sources online, but in the interest of checking a Jewish source, I referred mostly to chabad.org. This page is of particular interest. https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/116793/jewish/Passover-Seder-Step-by-Step.htm
