“Ye know that after two days is the feast of the Passover,
and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified.”
(Matthew 26:2)
The unfolding of Christ’s passion demonstrated the divine precision and fulfillment of God’s plan. For example, the Lamb was not slain on just any day, nor in some remote corner of human history. His death occurred at Passover—the feast specifically celebrating Israel’s deliverance from slavery by the blood of a lamb. The true Lamb of God was presented, betrayed, and offered up just as the people gathered to remember the blood that once turned away God’s wrath. Indeed, the age-old observance of Jewish Passover was the Old Testament shadow cast by Christ before He came into the world.
The first observation of Passover occurred on the night the Israelites fled Egypt under the direction of Moses. Moses instructed them to take an unblemished lamb, slay it, and apply its blood to their doorposts. The application of that lamb’s blood protected them from death when the destroyer passed through. In the same way, sinners are spared from eternal death only by the applied righteousness of Christ’s shed blood by faith.
Those Jews who prepared their family’s Passover lamb that week in Jerusalem did so while plotting the death of the very Lamb to whom all their sacrifices pointed. They clung to the symbol while despising the substance. Yet, by their rejection, eternal redemption was secured. What they meant for evil, God used for grace. Out of the hardness of their hearts came the rock from which living waters now flow.
This Passover, unlike any before it, marked not a nation’s freedom from Egypt but the world’s freedom from sin. The feast became fulfillment. The shadow gave way to substance.[1] And the slain Lamb rose again in triumph, never to die again.
The Gospel continues to invite those who have heretofore rejected this Lamb of God to partake of Him, to apply His blood by faith that they may flee the bondage and barrenness of Egypt. For Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us that we may now live freed by grace.
Contemplations:
- Your Sovereign Timing and Sacrifice. O my blessed Lord and Savior, in Your hands alone are the times and seasons which man may not determine but must attend. When I now consider the events of that most significant of Passovers, the sacrifice of Your spotless Lamb on the cross, I am amazed anew at Your awesome power, infinite love, and ceaseless mercy. You are, indeed, King of kings and Lord of lords, and my soul shall yet praise You!
- Blood on the Door and a Guest at the Table. You, O Lord, are that true Lamb of God (1 Cor. 5:7) which still makes the destroying angel of Your Father’s wrath to pass by the doors of my soul without slaughter. And yet, You also stand at the door Yourself and knock for entrance into my heart (Rev. 3:20). As You are my Passover, Lord, be my guest too. Do not pass without knocking, without entering, that I may commune with You, and You with me.
- Lost at a Feast and Found in Sacrifice. Lord, Your parents lost You (Luke 2:43) at a feast, and here again it is at a feast that You lose Yourself in sacrifice for me. Let me never forget what You gave up that I might live and help me desire more every day to sacrifice my own selfishness to Your service and glory.
Prayer (Thanksgiving)
O Lamb of God, sacrificed not in symbol but in substance, not in shadow but in full light of fulfillment, we give You thanks. Before the world was, You were appointed to be slain. And in the fullness of time, You came, meek and holy, to fulfill all righteousness and to bear away our sin. At Passover You were betrayed, not by chance, but by decree. The blood that once shielded Israel was but a whisper of Your crimson stream that cleanses the guilty and silences wrath.
We thank You, O Christ, that while others prepared lambs, You prepared Yourself. You did not shrink from the cup of God’s wrath nor delay the hour. You, the sinless One, were treated as sin. The Angel of Death passed over our souls because it did not pass over You. We were spared because You were slain. We walked free because You were bound. We live because You died.
Receive our thanks, O Redeemer, for delivering us from the Egypt of our corruption, for breaking the bonds of iniquity, for leading us by Your Spirit into the freedom of grace. Help us keep this feast not with old leaven, but with sincerity and truth. Let the blood of Your cross be ever over our hearts and consciences, and may we walk as those purchased at so great a cost.
With grateful hearts we remember, rejoice, and rest in Your finished work.
In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Further Scripture References for Matthew 26:2:
Mark 14:1; Matthew 16:21; Matthew 20:19; Matthew 26:24.
[1] “And indeed no typical ceremonies are in their own nature, for the type or ceremony is to cease when the substance comes, as the shadow when the body appears. But this Commandment for the substance of it, continues in the time of the Gospel.” Lancelot Andrewes, The Pattern of Catechistical Doctrine at Large, (London: Imprinted by Roger Norton, and are to be sold by George Badger .., 1650), 266.
