Good morning. Welcome to Big Valley Grace Community Church. If you are here for the first time, you’re in for a treat today. We have a special guest with us. As a church, we have partnered with an organization called Jews for Jesus for many, many years. They’re doing an incredible work all around the world. I want to challenge you in this: as you see the presentation today, it’s going to be interesting. You’re going to learn a lot. There are going to be things that catch your attention. And I want to challenge you to do this — pick out one or two things that catch your attention from what you learn today that you might be able to use as a conversation piece to talk to somebody about Jesus this week. Big Valley Grace Community Church, let’s give a warm welcome to our special guest, David Brickner.

Thank you, Pastor Joel. Shalom. Shalom. It is great to be back here. This is probably my tenth time over the years. It’s been a blessing. Thank you for your partnership. We’re going to be looking today at Christ in the Passover.

Passover is the first of seven festivals on the Jewish calendar. And most of the Jewish festivals are like this: they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat. But of course, Passover is much more than just that. Passover is a feast of redemption. It’s a story of God’s deliverance of the Jewish people from bondage in Egypt thousands of years ago. But as we look more closely today at this ancient feast of redemption, you’re going to see that God, in delivering Israel from Egypt, wove into the very fabric of that story a picture of a far greater redemption — of all the world from the Egypt of sin — through our Passover Lamb who is Jesus the Messiah.

So travel back with me in time to that first Passover story, which we can read about in the book of Exodus, chapter 12, verses 5 through 8 and 11 through 15.

Now, if you remember, at this time Israel was in bondage. We were in slavery in Egypt, and God promised he was going to redeem us. So he raised up Moses, sent him to Pharaoh to say, “Let my people go.” But Pharaoh wouldn’t listen. So God had to persuade Pharaoh to listen to Moses. And God can be very persuasive. He persuaded Pharaoh by sending a series of plagues on the nation. You remember the story — there were ten plagues in all.

Now, the Jewish people were living in a section of Egypt called Goshen. And they were automatically exempt from the first nine of those ten plagues. For example, the Bible tells us when darkness fell across the land of Egypt as a plague, there was nevertheless light in Goshen where the Jewish people were. Or when God struck the cattle of the Egyptians with a plague, the cattle of the Israelites were spared. But not so with the tenth plague, which was the worst — the death of the firstborn. In order that that plague should not also fall on the Jewish people, God commanded they take a lamb, one for each family. So that’s where we pick up the story.

Exodus 12, beginning in verse five: “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male, a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.”

Verse eleven: “In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations as a statute forever. You shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.”

So that is the historical institution of Passover. We know that the first Passover was celebrated on the night of the tenth plague, way back in the land of Egypt. But as we just read, God commanded Israel to continue celebrating Passover as a statute forever. And so throughout history, as Israel celebrated the Passover, various symbols and traditions were added to the observance to remind the people of that first Passover back in Egypt. By the time Jesus and his disciples were celebrating Passover, all but two of the items you see here today were already incorporated into that observance.

Of course, the most important Passover Jesus and his disciples celebrated was the one in the upper room in Jerusalem. The Last Supper was a Passover. So how much more significant does this feast become for those of us who follow Jesus, in light of all that he said and all that he did on the night he was betrayed?

And of course we’re still celebrating Passover every year in Jewish homes all around the world. This year the first night of Passover is Wednesday evening. There’s a tremendous amount of preparation that goes into the celebration. You may recall from the Gospel accounts, Jesus even sent Peter and John ahead of him into the city of Jerusalem, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover that we may eat.”

This preparation involves many things, but most significantly doing what we read about in the very last verse from Exodus 12 — we are to cleanse our houses of all leaven, anything with yeast in it. So all your Wonder Bread, all your Hostess Twinkies, all your Dunkin’ Donuts have to go. But because Passover occurs in the spring, this has traditionally become a time for spring cleaning. In the religious Jewish home, mom begins weeks in advance — cleaning the floors, the walls, the ceilings. There’s even a whole different set of dishes put out for use at Passover.

But we have a problem. Although it is mom who does the cleaning of the house, the rabbis tell us only dad can certify the house has been properly cleaned. You can see what kind of problem we have. The rabbis knew the men would be hard-pressed to do the job themselves, and they wanted to ensure peace and harmony in the home at Passover. So they got together, thought about this problem, and came up with a solution which in Hebrew we call bedikat chametz — the searching out of the leaven.

Here’s how it works. The night before Passover, mom, who has already cleaned the house of all leaven, will take a little bit that’s left over — maybe crumbs from the toast they had for breakfast that morning — something with yeast in it. She takes that and hides it somewhere in the house. Then dad, coming home that evening, takes in his hand a feather, a wooden spoon, and a napkin, and he goes on a GI inspection to search out the leaven — looking high and looking low for those crumbs. And if his wife has been especially good to him, she’s hidden it in the same place she hid it last year and the year before. So when he finally finds those crumbs, he takes the feather and with a steady hand scrapes them into the spoon — this is what I call heavy house cleaning. He wraps the whole thing up in the napkin, marches off to the local synagogue where there’s a bonfire burning in the courtyard, takes the package, tosses it into the bonfire, recites a prayer, and so declares the house properly cleaned. An ingenious way for the men to get out of the house cleaning, right?

But you know, the Apostle Paul actually references this very custom of bedikat chametz. He brings it into the New Testament and applies it to us when he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, beginning with verse 6: “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

And so we see from that passage that leaven is not just something with yeast in it. In the Bible, it’s a symbol for sin. You take a piece of leavened dough and add it to a lump of unleavened dough — what happens? That leaven permeates that new lump and causes it to rise. And that’s what sin is like in our lives. Passed down from generation to generation, we’re born with it. The sin nature causes us all, if you will, to become utterly sinful — puffed up in our own estimation before God. Leaven is a symbol for sin. Likewise, Paul points out that the unleavened bread, the matzah that we eat at Passover, is a symbol of purity, a symbol of righteousness before God.

Now, ladies, I know you must be thinking it seems entirely unfair that you have to do all the hard work cleaning house and the man gets the ceremonial glory by declaring it clean. Well, ladies, you have your very own bit of ceremonial glory, which actually ushers in the celebration of Passover. At the very beginning of the celebration, mom takes this book which is called the Haggadah. Haggadah is a Hebrew word that means “the story” or “the telling.” Within this beautifully bound and illustrated book, you find all of the story, ceremony, and liturgy associated with the celebration of Passover.

Now, I don’t have a Haggadah for each and every one of you here today, but when you came in you should have received a brochure. If you take that out right now, there are some of the blessings in there that we can share together. If you didn’t get one, raise your hand and an usher will make sure that you do, because we all want to participate together in some of these great blessings.

The first one is mom’s job to recite — the blessing over the candles, in Hebrew, birkat haner. I’m going to say that blessing in Hebrew, and then I invite all of the ladies here to recite it with me in English.

Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who sanctifies us by his commandments and commands us to kindle the festival lights.

I think it’s appropriate that it is the woman who lights the candles and so brings light to the festival table, because in the same way, it was not through a man but through a woman and the will of God that the Light of the World came into the world. As the prophet Isaiah declared, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of my people Israel.” And at this time, our Passover celebration can begin.

Now, Passover occurs primarily in the home rather than the synagogue — around the family dinner table. We recline on pillows as we sit there, because as we read in Exodus 12, the first Passover was eaten standing up. We had to have our belt about our waist, our sandals on our feet, and our staff in hand, ready to take off at a moment’s notice. In ancient Near Eastern culture, free people could sit, but slaves always had to stand. And we were slaves, so we stood. But now we’ve been freed. And so we recline on pillows. One other thing — Passover can sometimes take anywhere from four to six hours. So having a pillow behind you is not a bad thing. Don’t worry, we’re going to go through it a lot quicker today.

Passover is a family celebration. Dads have a special role to play. That’s why the father of the house wears this ceremonial garment called a kittel — a white linen garment similar to the one that the priests would wear as they ministered in the temple, because dad is priest of his family. He wears the miter which symbolizes a crown in the ancient Near East. He’s king of his castle and he leads the family in worship.

The children have important roles to play as well. One of them is to ask questions. Four questions are asked, usually by the youngest child. And the answers to those questions actually serve as the basis for the retelling of the story of Passover, known as the maggid. Let’s recite them together in English.

Why is this night different from all other nights? On all other nights we eat leavened or unleavened bread. Why on this night do we eat only unleavened bread? On all other nights we eat vegetables and herbs of all kinds. Why on this night do we eat only bitter herbs? On all other nights we are not required to dip the herbs once. Why on this night do we dip them twice? On all other nights we eat sitting upright or reclining. Why on this night do we recline?

And after asking all four questions, the father explains, fulfilling the command to teach the next generation. There is a strong commitment in the story of Passover that we hand this down from generation to generation, for each one of us is to feel as though we had been personally delivered from bondage and slavery in Egypt. If God had not redeemed our forefathers, we wouldn’t be here today.

Just as there are four questions that unpack the story of Passover, there are also four cups which serve as the outline of the Passover meal itself. Now, as we sit at the table, we actually only have one cup in front of us. But each of us drinks from our one cup four different times during the Passover. Each time there’s a different name and symbolism given to the cup.

The first time we drink is called kiddush, which literally means sanctification, because with this cup we sanctify all that follows in the Passover celebration. There is a traditional Hebrew prayer we say over this cup — and certainly Jesus said that prayer in the upper room in Jerusalem. But then after saying the prayer, Jesus said something directly related to it. He said, “It is with great desire that I have desired to eat this Passover with you. But I tell you truly, I will not partake of the fruit of the vine again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom.” With those words, Jesus was signaling to his disciples then and now that this Passover in the upper room was unlike any other, because this Passover spoke to its fulfillment in the kingdom. And with this cup, Jesus sanctified all that was to follow in his special upper room Passover.

Everything has a particular order to it as well. Seder is the Hebrew word for order. Passover is referred to as a seder meal. And this is a seder plate. Despite its appearance, it’s not for deviled eggs. You notice the compartments on this seder plate — they correspond to the various food items. A little bit is placed in each of the compartments.

The first is karpas, which is the Hebrew word for greens — in this case, parsley. The rabbis tell us the greens represent life. And we will take some salt water, representing the tears of life, and dip the greens into the salt water. We are reminded that during our slavery in Egypt, our lives were immersed in tears. But we remember that God redeemed us with a mighty and outstretched arm — he brought us out of bondage through that salty Red Sea and into freedom. And so we eat the greens together to remind us that we are now partaking of life redeemed from the tears of slavery by the mercy and grace of God.

The next item on the seder plate — horseradish. We call it Jewish Dristain or Jewish Afrin — whatever you use to clear your sinuses, that’s what this stuff does automatically. Now, the horseradish, or maror as it’s called in Hebrew, is the very bitter herb that we read about in Exodus 12 that all the children of Israel ate during their time in Egypt. It reminds us of the bitterness of slavery. What we do is take some of this unleavened bread and say a blessing over it.

Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.

And then we take the unleavened bread and dip it into the horseradish, getting at least a teaspoon of it on there. And I’m not going to do it. You know what happens when you eat too much horseradish? You begin to cry. Exactly. And those tears we shed remind us of the tears our forefathers shed. There’s a tactile engagement in this experience so that we can feel the bitterness and the sense of need — and then the hope of redemption.

But you’ll remember when Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples in the upper room, he had said to them, “One of you is going to betray me.” The disciples were upset. They said, “Lord, is it I? Is it I?” And Jesus said, “The one who dips in the sop with me this night — that one will betray me.” Well, this is that sop — the maror, the bitter herb. And every one of the disciples would have dipped with Jesus that night. Think about that. Which one of them did not also betray him? They all left him. Even Peter, who said, “Oh, I’ll never leave you” — not only did he fail to stand up for him, but he denied him three times. And he followed him at a distance. The Bible tells us.

Have you ever felt like you’re doing that with Jesus? Following him, but following at a distance? We get ourselves in trouble when we follow at a distance. It was after he was following at a distance that Peter denied the Lord. But you know what? The grace of God is amazing. Remember that breakfast on the seashore afterwards? Jesus invited Peter to come and eat. He welcomed him back. And Peter came back and served the Lord with faithfulness, because God forgives when we come back. But there was one who did not come back. Later that evening in the upper room, Jesus took that bread, dipped it into the sop, handed it to Judas Iscariot, and said to him, “What you must do, go and do quickly.” And the Bible tells us that when Judas took the bread with the sop, Satan entered into him and he went out into the night. Maror is bitterness and tears.

The next item on the seder plate is called charoset. Charoset is a sweet mixture — chopped apples and nuts and honey and raisins and cinnamon. It’s delicious, like a fruit salad. But it represents the mortar that we used to make bricks for Pharaoh during our slavery. You might say, “Rabbi, wait a minute. If charoset is mortar for bricks, that was bitterness — why is this so sweet?” Because you see, even the bitterest of our slavery, our labor, our toils — even the bitterest of that grows sweet when we know our redemption is coming.

So we take that bread once again and dip it into the charoset, maybe getting a double portion on it. And you know what we find when we eat that mixture? The bitter taste from the horseradish just disappears in the sweetness of the charoset. So very tactilely, the bitterness of slavery is sweetened by the hope and promise of God’s redemption. That’s good news.

And this is hazeret — the bitter root, a horseradish root that is ground up to make the maror. But it sits on the seder plate to remind us: it’s not just our experiences in life that can be bitter. The very root of life is bitter. We are all born with that bitter and sinful nature which is at enmity — at war — against God. But the good news is that if anyone is in Messiah, he is a new creation. And that is good news indeed.

Now, the last two items on the seder plate are the only two items that were not present when Jesus celebrated Passover — and you’ll understand why in just a moment. This is called khagigah. As you can see, it’s a brown egg that has been hard-boiled. It is the same name given to the festival sacrifice made in the temple at Passover. So what we do is peel the egg and slice it. Before we eat it, we dip it into the salt water, which represents tears. Why? Because we are mourning the fact that this is a memorial to a sacrifice that no longer occurs. It can no longer occur because it only took place in the temple. When Jesus celebrated Passover, that temple was standing. But he said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” He was talking about his death, burial, and resurrection.

When Jesus died on the cross, the veil that separated us from the holy place in the temple was rent from top to bottom. Fellowship was established between God and all those who would trust in the sacrifice of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And yet for my Jewish people who have yet to receive him, there is no temple — there can be no sacrifice. And so we mourn that loss with the khagigah.

And also because of that, the rabbis tell us we can no longer eat lamb at Passover as the main course. We must have some other kind of meat. And this last item, the zeroa — the shankbone — sits on the seder plate to remind us of that lamb sacrificed in the temple. No longer able to be sacrificed. That lamb which was so central to that first Passover in Egypt. That lamb which we read about in Exodus 12 needed to be a yearling male lamb without spot, without blemish, without any broken bone. We were to take that lamb and sacrifice it. Which reminds us all of another perfect Passover Lamb who, contrary to Roman custom, did not have his legs broken when he hung on the cross. And so did Jesus fulfill messianic prophecy. Not a bone will be broken.

We come now to the second cup, which is called the cup of plagues. We don’t drink from this cup but rather dip our finger in the cup and drop one drop on the plate in front of us — one for each of the ten plagues God visited on the land of Egypt. We remember the blood, the frogs, the lice, the wild beasts, the darkness, the slaying of the firstborn.

Nine times Pharaoh hardened his heart, and each time God sent a plague on Egypt. But the tenth plague was the worst of all — the death of the firstborn. God told the children of Israel to take the blood of the sacrificed lamb in the basin, go outside of their homes, and apply it to the doorposts — putting that blood on the top lintel and the two side posts of their homes. Blood of the lamb on the top lintel and the two side posts, making the sign of a cross with the blood of the lamb on that doorpost.

That night, death flew through the land of Egypt. There was weeping and wailing as never before until Pharaoh cried out, “Let them go or I’ll die.” But everywhere that the blood of the lamb was on the top lintel and the two side posts, death passed over that house. And so redemption came that night to the children of Israel in the land of Egypt.

Now, because I believe in Jesus as my Messiah, and because I have by faith applied the blood of his sacrifice to the doorpost of my heart, when death comes to visit me, death is going to pass over me also — because I have eternal life. Oh, praise God for that. Amen.

Now, this is called a matzah tash. Matzah being the unleavened bread, tash meaning bag or pouch. This is a bag for three pieces of unleavened bread, each piece in its own compartment. The rabbis tell us that the matzah tash represents a unity — three pieces of bread, one bag, three in one. And yet there’s a bit of a disagreement among the rabbis as to which unity the matzah tash represents. One rabbi says it represents the unity of the patriarchs — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Another says it represents the unity of worship in Israel — the Levites, the priests, and the people of Israel. And so on.

Well, I believe the matzah tash represents a unity also, but I believe it represents the unity of our triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And here’s why. During a particular time of the Passover, we reach into the second or middle compartment of the matzah tash. And you can ask the rabbi, “Rabbi, why do we take the second piece by itself and leave the first and third pieces?” And the answer is — we don’t know.

But there are three things I want you to notice about this second piece, this matzah. First of all, this is a whole loaf of bread. But look at it. It’s flat, like a cracker, because it’s unleavened — there’s no rising in this bread. In fact, there’s such a concern about that that a special device is used to poke holes in the bread. You can see the flame of a candle through the bread because it is pierced. And then it’s baked on a rack at high temperature, so these brown stripes are baked right onto the bread. So it is unleavened, it is striped, it is pierced. Even as our sinless Messiah was striped by the Roman whips and pierced by the nails in his hands and feet and the spear in his side, as predicted some 700 years before Jesus was ever born, through the prophet Isaiah: “But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was pierced for our iniquities. And by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.”

We take this second piece from the middle compartment of the matzah tash and we break it. Taking this broken piece, we now wrap it in a linen cloth, calling it the afikoman — a word meaning “it comes later” — because that’s exactly what happens. This broken piece, wrapped in a linen cloth, is now carried outside of the room of celebration to be hidden for a time — buried, if you will. And this is such an important part of the Passover that the entire celebration cannot be completed without that second piece.

Now, if you’ve never been to a full Passover seder before — if you should ever have the opportunity, I encourage you to go. But let me warn you: eat lightly that day or not at all, because you are really in for a meal. Passover is much more than parsley and horseradish. We have six or seven main courses. We eat and we eat. Unfortunately, that’s the part I forgot to bring with me today.

In lieu of that sumptuous meal, I’m going to lead you through a little ceremony. Take that brochure and open it up all the way. You’ll notice the third panel has a perforation. What we do is fold it there. The name of this ancient ceremony is the tearing of the brochure together at the count of three. And just to show you how much Jewish culture you’ve absorbed, I’m going to count in Hebrew, and amazingly you’ll know when to rip. Ready? Echad, shtayim, shalosh.

That’s a great sound all throughout the sanctuary. Take one piece home with you to remember our time together. Fill out the other piece and drop it in the black box as you leave at the doors at the close of the service. We’d love to send you our free monthly newsletter from Jews for Jesus. It tells you more, number one, about the Jewish roots of your Christian faith in a way that I think will really enrich your understanding of God’s word. And I think you’ve already begun to see how that can happen with Passover. But secondly, the newsletter will tell you about what’s going on in the ministry of Jews for Jesus around the world, so you can pray for us — and really, that’s the most important way for you to be involved.

We are in 12 countries around the world. The largest number of our missionaries are in the land of Israel — over 80 full-time Israeli Jews for Jesus staff. The second largest are in the former Soviet Union, in Ukraine and Russia. If you think about it, more than half of our staff are in a war zone today. So when you pray for Jews for Jesus, remember God is at work even in the midst of the war. In fact, the fastest growing church in the world today is the underground church in Iran. And the second fastest growing church in the world today is in Israel. There are about 30,000 Israelis for every one Bible-believing congregation in the land of Israel. I think we have a job to do. And that’s what Jews for Jesus is doing — as your partners, reaching out with the gospel, sharing the good news, planting churches, and seeing God at work in a way you’re not going to hear about on CNN. Get the newsletter, find out what’s really going on in that part of the world, and pray with us for this abundant harvest that the Bible promises. And thus, all Israel will be saved. Amen. Hallelujah.

As you leave, there’s a literature table at the back. I encourage you to stop and help yourself to the free literature. There are also some books back there — here’s one that talks about what we’ve been talking about today: Christ in the Passover. We really appreciate your prayers and your partnership.

Now, we’ve come through the meal of Passover in about an hour. I hope you’ve all had enough to eat, because this last part of the celebration is the most important for us as followers of Jesus to understand.

Toward the end of the meal, the head of the house says to all the children, “Go and search for the afikoman.” That’s that second piece — the one that was broken, wrapped in a linen cloth, and hidden for a time. It’s a great time of fun for the kids. They didn’t see where it was hidden. They go running around the house looking for it. The child who finds it brings it back and receives a reward from the father. Then, having rewarded the child, the father stands, unwraps the bread from the linen cloth, and begins to break off small pieces for everyone seated at the table. Everyone now receives a piece of this bread. Does this remind you of something that happened in the upper room in the Gospel accounts?

Brothers and sisters, if the matzah tash represents the unity of the patriarchs — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — why is the middle piece broken, buried, and brought back? If the matzah tash represents the unity of worship — the priests, the Levites, and the people of Israel — why is that middle piece broken, buried, and brought back? But if the matzah tash represents the unity of our triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — then we know why. It’s because Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, was broken in death, wrapped in a linen cloth, buried in the tomb, and then brought back — resurrected by the power of God, conquering sin, conquering death. Hallelujah. That’s what we’re celebrating this week.

So it is no wonder that Jesus took this very bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Do you see the picture? What a picture. Hallelujah.

And then he took the cup. Now, you know we take the cup four times during Passover. So which time was it? Thankfully the Bible tells us — he took the cup after they had supped. That gets us past the first two cups and through the meal. Immediately after the afikoman, after that meal, this is the last morsel eaten in a Passover. This is the third cup, which is the cup of redemption — looking back to the redemption God brought our forefathers from Egypt, but looking forward to a redemption that is awaited.

Now Jesus, coming to this high point — the climax of the Passover — taking the bread, he raises the cup after supper, the cup of redemption, and says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” And those words in Hebrew — new covenant — are only mentioned once in all of the Hebrew scriptures, and that’s in Jeremiah 31, beginning with verse 31.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel — not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.” What covenant was that? The Mosaic covenant. “My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, says the Lord.” You see, that was the problem with the Mosaic covenant — they couldn’t keep it. We can’t keep it. Nobody can keep it except for Jesus. It was a broken covenant. So we needed a new covenant.

But this shall be the covenant, Jeremiah tells us, that I will make after those days, declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their inward parts and on their hearts I will write it.” The Mosaic covenant was written on tablets of stone. This would be written on the tablet of our hearts. “And I will be their God and they shall be my people, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their sin and remember their iniquity no more.” That was the ultimate condition upon which this new covenant rested. No longer would sin be atoned for through daily offerings of animals in the temple, soon to be destroyed. But once and for all, God would deal with this most difficult of human problems.

And now Jesus, coming to this very climax of this ancient festival, after supper says: that which you’ve been waiting for, that which has been promised — that new covenant has now come, in my blood. Imagine how the disciples must have felt, having celebrated this Passover year after year after year, and then one day in that upper room in Jerusalem, seeing its very fulfillment. To imagine that God, in delivering Israel from bondage and slavery in Egypt, had woven into the very fabric of that story this picture of the greatest redemption of all. And of that redemption you and I partake if we know Christ as our Savior, if we have by faith applied the blood of his sacrifice to the doorpost of our hearts. Jesus is our Passover Lamb. Hallelujah. Thank the Lord.

And what can we say? How can we respond? Well, the Bible says, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” And that’s exactly how Passover comes to a conclusion. We have a big say-so celebration — singing hymns from the Jewish hymnal. You have copies, don’t you? It’s the Psalms. Psalms 113 through 118 are the concluding songs. You’ll remember from the Gospels, it tells us that Jesus and the disciples sang the hymn and then went out to the Mount of Olives. What hymn? Psalm 118, the great Hallel. The psalm says, “The stone which the builders rejected has now become the chief cornerstone.” Imagine Jesus, knowing what was about to happen, knowing about his fulfillment of all of this, singing these words with his disciples who still hadn’t figured it out. They sang that hymn.

One of the lines is “Baruch haba b’shem Adonai” — “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” You remember — that’s what they were singing on Palm Sunday as Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem. He was welcomed, he was loved — but then he was crucified. He knew all of that. And yet he sings that song. Wow. And then they went out to the Mount of Olives.

We know that before they left, they would have had that opportunity to sing that song. And with that song comes the fourth cup. The songs are called hallel songs, the songs of praise. And this cup is called hallel — the cup of praise. Taken together, they are the way we conclude our Passover. Praise to God. And all over the world on Wednesday night this year, Jewish people will sing that and raise this cup and declare, “L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim” — next year in Jerusalem. Because you see, this Passover is not just about a redemption that occurred back in Egypt, but it bears with it the hope and promise of a redemption that they are still waiting for.

And therein lies the burden of my heart and of Jews for Jesus. For so many of my people, they’ve not seen what you’ve seen here today. They don’t understand. They don’t know. They don’t read the New Testament. They have the Passover from Egypt, but not the one from the upper room. And my hope and prayer is that in our being together today, you might not only be enriched in your understanding of God’s word and of your Passover that you have now inherited in Jesus — my prayer is that you’ll join us in carrying this burden for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. For we are not like those of my people who do not know and so wait. Because we know him, we can wait with great expectation and assurance. For the scriptures tell us, “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show forth the Lord’s death until he comes again.” Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Let’s pray. Whatever God has spoken to you today, my encouragement is to listen and obey. And now receive a blessing that God gave to the children of Israel and those who follow him. The priests were to pronounce this in Hebrew, and God said, “And so you shall put my name on my people.” So I put his name on you, in Hebrew and in English.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and grant you his peace. In the name of Jesus our Messiah, the Prince of Peace. Shalom. Amen.

Let’s appreciate him again — he did such a great job. Thank you, David. Church family, you have my full blessing to be in partnership and support with Jews for Jesus. They’re doing an incredible work all over the world. Today we have our kids in the service. If you’re a kid, I want you to stand up and wave your hands — show us where you are. Let’s appreciate these kids. Let’s pray for them.

Father God, Lord, thank you for these kids. May these children be the next generation of our church. May they grow up to be godly men and godly women who know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And would you use these kids to reach the people they are in relationship with for Jesus Christ. God, may you be glorified in the children of our church. We pray this in the name of Jesus. And all God’s family said, Amen.

Church family, if you want to meet David, he’ll be out in the lobby. Church family, we love you and we’ll see you again real soon.