WHAT CHRISTIANS CALL COMMUNION IS ACTUALLY PASSOVER

Glory to God! I trust you’re well and enjoying your Inheritance in Christ Jesus.

Tomorrow is the beginning of Passover. It begins on the evening of the 8th until the evening of the 16th of April.

What is Passover? Do we need to celebrate it? Isn’t Passover a Jewish thing? Those are all legitimate questions that I’ll endeavour to answer today.

After raining down 9 plagues over the land of Egypt, God commanded that each Israelite family should slaughter a lamb, roast it and eat. More than that, they must take its blood and apply it to their doorposts and lintels.

That’s because God was about to release the last plague which was the death of the first born male child. An Angel of Death would come, and where God saw the blood, the Angel would pass them over and they would live. In other words, the blood of the lamb would cause Death to pass them over.

Exodus 12:23 says, ‘For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come unto your houses to smite you.’

Indeed when the Angel of Death came, the Israelites were passed over and lived, but the Egyptians were destroyed.

God also commanded the Israelites to celebrate the Passover each year as a memorial of their miraculous liberation from bondage.

However, Passover is not just a memorial of what happened to the Israelites many centuries ago, it’s also about something far more significant. The first Passover in Egypt was a Promise of something much greater.

Matthew 26:2 says, ‘Ye know that after two days is the feast of passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.’ The Lord Jesus Christ here was telling His Disciples that He would be crucified on Passover.

After His Death, Burial and Resurrection, the Apostle Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 5:7b, ‘…Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.’

When the Lord Jesus Christ died on the Cross, He died on Passover as our Passover Lamb, not the Passover Lamb of the Jews only but ours as well. Not just the Passover Lamb of the Jews only but of the Gentiles as well.

The first Passover was a shadow of the one to come. The Passover celebration that the Jews celebrated for centuries before then was a prophetic look forward to the reality to come.

When the Lord Jesus Christ died on the Cross, He took the Penalty of Death because of our sins. His Blood was shed for our sins and when God saw the Blood, He relented of His Anger and didn’t kill us. He died so that we could live. Instead of killing us, God passed us over because of the Blood of the Lamb.

Passover is therefore a powerful celebration that shows God’s Love and Mercy towards us.

1 Corinthians 11:23-25 says, ‘For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:

And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.’

What Christians call Communion is actually Passover. The Apostle Paul taught the Church at Corinth to observe the Passover. He taught them that the Lord Jesus Christ was their Passover Lamb who was sacrificed for them.

What is Passover? It’s a Celebration of the Death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross for the Forgiveness of our sins so that the Judgment and Penalty of Death would pass us over.

Isn’t Passover just for the Jews? Clearly not since the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Paul taught the Gentile Church in Corinth to keep the Passover in 1 Corinthians 5:7

Do we need to keep the Passover? Yes! The Lord Jesus Christ said we should eat the Bread and Drink the Cup in remembrance of Him.

Tomorrow we’ll look at how to keep the Passover and enjoy this glorious celebration.

Glory to God!