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Passover

Prologue

We examined the well-being sacrifices last week, and mentioned that they are designed to be sacred meals between the offerer(s) and God.

We also mentioned that the well-being sacrifices can be private (for a family clan or unit), or public (for all the people). Today, we’ll focus on the Passover and Covenant inauguration/reenactment ceremonies which are public ceremonies that incorporate well-being sacrifices.

More on well-being sacrifices

Well-being offerings were to be eaten with joy

And you shall sacrifice peace offerings and shall eat there, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God. Deuteronomy 27:7

Thanksgiving offerings required unleavened bread

If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the thanksgiving sacrifice unleavened loaves mixed with oil, unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and loaves of fine flour well mixed with oil. Leviticus 7:12

Thanksgiving offerings had a 1-day expiry

And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it until the morning. Leviticus 7:15

Passover

The Passover is generally speaking, a well-being sacrifice, but specifically speaking, it seems like a very unique kind of thanksgiving offerings.

The Passover also has a 1-day expiry

They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. Exodus 12: 8-10

It also needs to be accompanied with unleavened bread

They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Exodus 12:8

The Passover was therefore a thanksgiving well-being sacrifice that was aimed at thanking God for their deliverance from Egypt

Covenant inauguration/renewal ceremonies

God’s covenant with Israel was inaugurated with burnt offerings and well-being offerings

Too long, please open your Bible Exodus 24: 1-11

A crucial part of the covenant inauguration ceremony is the application of the blood. The essence of dashing the blood both on the altar and on the people is to show a covenant bond between both parties (God & the people). This application of the blood does not happen in any future covenant renewal ceremony.

Future ceremonies of covenant renewal also incorporated burnt offerings and well-being sacrifices

Too long, please open your Bible Deuteronomy 27: 4-8
Too long, please open your Bible Joshua 8: 30-35
Too long, please open your Bible 2 Chronicles 30: 21-23

The Lord’s Supper

Too long, please open your Bible Luke 22: 1-23

Passover undertones

It is no coincidence that Jesus chose to explain His death while eating a Passover meal.

Too long, please open your Bible Luke 22: 7-13

Jesus isolates two elements from the Passover - wine and the unleavened bread - as links them to his murder as a way of memoralizing the new Exodus; the salvation His death & resurrection will obtain.

Covenant inauguration undertones

Jesus Himself says that He is inaugurating the promised renewed covenant in explaining His death

And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. Luke 22:20

It is also interesting to note that from the phrase “new covenant in my blood”, Jesus alludes to the covenant inauguration ceremony in Exodus

And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.” Exodus 24:8

Paul’s understanding of The Passover

Moral purity

Too long, please open your Bible 1 Corinthians 5: 6-13

Apostle Paul indexes on the requirement to put away leaven, and analogises it in terms of moral purity

Too long, please open your Bible Deuteronomy 16: 1-4

The Lord’s Supper

Too long, please open your Bible 1 Corinthians 11: 17-33

Feasting & corporate well-being sacrifices

Another thing to note is that they observed the Lord’s Supper feasting as well, retaining the understanding of how the corporate well-being sacrifices were sacred meals of feasting before God.

Eating unworthily?

It is important to note that from the context, Apostle Paul isn’t saying that people shouldn’t partake of the Lord’s supper if they are not worthy because of a past sin. It is because he knows the Lord’s Supper is a sacrificialization of the corporate well-being sacrifices that he plays on the warnings in Leviticus about eating these in the wrong manner and being “cut off” as a result.

But the person who eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of the LORD’s peace offerings while an uncleanness is on him, that person shall be cut off from his people. And if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether human uncleanness or an unclean beast or any unclean detestable creature, and then eats some flesh from the sacrifice of the LORD’s peace offerings, that person shall be cut off from his people.” Leviticus 7: 20-21

But Paul’s appeal is not to intimate ritual purity before eating, but rather to ensure that everyone is looking out for the interests and nutritional needs of their neighbor.

Do this…in remembrance of me

It is noteworthy that the Church continued the practices of the Lord’s Supper. Some say that it is unnecessary to observe the Lord’s Supper because the purpose of it was already fulfilled in Jesus’ death. However, Paul and the Corinthian church did not seem to have this understanding.

If they were not to continue, Paul had the perfect opportunity to tell them here. But we see that he only emphasized that they do it correctly.

The same way every Israelite partook of the Passover, re-living the experience and considering themselves as part of the generation that left Egypt, we are also to consider ourselves as part of those people at the table with Jesus at The Lord’s Supper.

Jesus not only wants us to understand what He did, He wants us to participate in what He did.

We have to root ourselves in this reminder.