Nate Jameson
10/16/2024
Jesus Feasts - Session Two
Coastal Family Church Podcast
Jesus Feasts - Session 2
(soft music) - Thank you for choosing to listen to this message. At Coastal, we believe in changing and enriching lives through the power of the word. We pray that this message would be a blessing to you. (soft music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (laughing) Right? Or like, if I go to, you know, Whitney and we're just in the moment of chaos in our life and I say, well, we're not in Kansas anymore, right? It's like, there's a whole context of what I'm saying, but I said it in just one sentence. So that's Remes, and that's how Jesus taught, that's how the Rabbi still teach today, right? Yeah. I just talked about the woman in the well and describing Samaria and the Good Samaritan, they're both from Samaria, how about that? So I was correct to myself when I didn't need to. And then I accidentally said astrology and I meant astronomy. So, yeah, you know, for those of you who know, you know, sometimes you get tongue tied a little bit, which is all right. So, we talked about some of the housekeeping, so the slides, the live stream will be available after each session on YouTube on Spotify on the website. We have summary handouts here for you. And then we actually have the handouts, I think, for the first session, if you want those, we can get those to you as well. But I just want to encourage you guys, like, focus on, like, one to three things that really stand out, because there's tonight's going to be, there's a fire hose of content. And, like I said, this is probably going to be, should be two nights of Passover and then on left and bread, but we're going to compile it into one. And I also apologize in the sense that the kind of disclaimers, the whole feast series, I was talking to my wife, I'm like, I don't think it's quite graduate level, but I think it's definitely like 3000 4000 level, like course content. And so just to kind of like, let's get you, like, so you know what you're signing up for, just to make that clear. So, for those who are new, this is for you, right? So this is for you if you know you want to know the meta narrative of the Bible better. You want to know the culture of Jesus and the apostles better. You're looking for like a consistent way to express your faith in the rhythm of family and the rhythm of life. And then can also hold truth intention with one another. That's going to be something that we do pretty frequently. And then this is not for those who, I'm sorry to say, don't like critical thinking, you're going to have a hard time. It's okay. Don't worry about it. There's no judgment. It's actually, you know, you don't really care about the cultural ruffle and subscription, right? And if you're offended by anything that doesn't align with our preconceived paradigms, right? That's kind of like a archaic word paradigm of how I view and how I see the world. But, you know, there's, there might be things that are said tonight or in future sessions where it's like, oh, that's maybe not how I was brought up or like, oh my gosh, my whole world. I'm not trying to do that. That's not my intention, right? So like, for example, like last week we talked about, you know, there's some things in like early church that maybe aren't so sanctified. And the intention is not to kind of like come at it with a cancel culture type mentality or spirit. It's more to like, hey, we want to illuminate this so that we can understand it. And we can actually make our stance firmer, stronger in what we know and know to be true. Okay, so tonight's agenda is a big one. Here we go. So we're going to go over some overview and key ideas. We're going to talk about the first Passover, modern traditions of the Passover, how Jesus fulfilled the Passover and unleavened bread. We're going to talk about Jesus, how he's a better sacrifice. And then we're going to get into Passover in the marriage process, as well as Passover and unleavened bread as discipleship. So to set the stage, why take a deeper look at these things? Well, 22% of the gospels in the New Testament is recorded during this time period between Passover and Pentecost. Just call it like a fourth of the gospels that we know to be true about Jesus and are the illumination of Jesus's life on earth, about a quarter of it is all around this time from Passover to Pentecost. So, did I count the verses I did, I'm a nerd, but that is true. If you're wondering, yes, Pastor, I have a whole spreadsheet about all of the commands in the Old Testament, so we also kind of anchored on this picture here last week, saying, you know, here's, here's the visual representation of like the concordance of all the times that scripture is referenced and quoted by scripture in other places, over 63,000 references, right, we call it as like the Bible's the first hyper linked book. And so it's constantly referring to itself. And if you weren't here last week, the lines on the bottom are the frequency that that verse is quoted. So that's Isaiah, the big line, all about Jesus and his his coming. So, pretty fun, huh? All right, well, we're going to get into Passover and Unleavened Bread. So you can find Passover and Unleavened Bread in Leviticus 23, this is what it says in the ESV, it says, these are the appointed feasts, the Moed, right, we won over that term Moed appointed feasts appointed time of the Lord. The holy convocation, that's the word Micra, we won over that, that's like the dress rehearsal, the assembly, which you will proclaim at the appointed time for them, right, the appointed times at the appointed times, which is kind of fun. And it says about the Passover, it says in the first month, on the 14th day of the month at Twilight, we talked a little bit about the Hebrew calendar, right, they don't have the same calendar that we have, we have the Gregorian calendar, which is based on the Julian calendar, which is based on the Roman calendar. And then we have the Hebrew calendar, and we talked about how most times the calendar used is based upon whoever won the war last, right, that's kind of the reality of it. So when they're talking about months and days, remember, this is, they're talking about Hebrew months and days, they're not talking about Gregorian calendar, months and days, so on the first month, month of Nissan, on the 14th day of the month at Twilight is the Lord's Passover. On the 15th day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord, you shall eat for seven days, you shall eat on leavened bread. On the first day, you shall have a holy convocation, you should do no ordinary work, it was called a high Sabbath, but you shall present a food offering to the Lord for seven days. Seven days in a row, I can't even do something, seven days in a row, right. On the seventh day is a holy convocation, you shall do no ordinary work. So you have the Passover at Twilight, then it goes into the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we'll get into like a picture for those of you who are like visual, where's this line up. We've got a high Sabbath to start to kind of kick off the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we've got seven days of offerings, and then we've got a high Sabbath to end it. So, right, we talked about the calendar, so here's the Hebrew calendar, so we're talking about Nissan, right up there in the top, about right in the middle, 14th, 15th of the month, right after the vernal Enko Nox, which is the Enko Nox. I actually had to remind myself, I remember this from like college times, but it's like it's when the days are equal, right. Some things, yeah, so the equal days of the spring and the fall. Yeah, so yeah, so yeah, chat GTP guys. This whole thing was made noise. So here's a visual diagram of how to maybe think about this, so we've got eight days total for the Passover and Unleavened Bread, so it might be a little bit hard to see in the back, but we've got eight total days we're talking about tonight. Eight, by the way, is the number for new beginnings in Scripture, so let's kind of keep that in context. So we've got the first is Passover of Nissan on the 14th, and then we've got the 15th of Nissan for Unleavened Bread that lasts seven days, and it's anchored by those two high Sabbaths. Now, somewhere in between is the weekly Sabbath, right, because they go Sunday through, they don't even call it Saturday, they call it Shabbat. So there's a weekly Sabbath in there somewhere, and then there's first fruits. We'll talk about first fruits next week, but first fruits always comes, sorry, Adam, running the camera, first fruits always comes after the weekly Sabbath during Unleavened Bread. We'll dive into that a lot more next week, because that is purely fascinating. So that's kind of the date framework of Passover on Unleavened Bread. Passover is also one of three feasts that are all hands on deck. So if you're a male, raise your hand if you're a male, or anyone confused about. So if you're a male, you are required by law to scurry on up to Jerusalem. Three times a year, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles were the three feasts that all the males were required to go up to Jerusalem. So it's a big deal, big anchor point in Israel, in the Hebrew culture. So one of the key things right in that Leviticus 23 passage that we read is the word twilight. You're supposed to sacrifice the Passover lamb at twilight. So that's our new term, right? We won over a couple key terms last week. This is our new term for this week is the word twilight. And twilight is the word Arab, which means evening, night, sunset. The root of twilight in Hebrew is actually the word Arab, which is becoming evening, growing dark. And the root of that, right, is a pledge, a certainty, or an exchange. And the context of the word is actually bartering, making a deal. If your synapses are kind of kicking off of maybe what Christ did on the cross at twilight, you'd be correct. So twilight is not necessarily word we use, we might use a word like dusk. But so here's, we got a picture of what twilight actually is. Who loves twilight, right? This is the best hour. So we've got the golden hour when the sun is setting towards zero degrees horizon. As soon as the sun sets below that zero degree right there across the top plane there, you can kind of see the little dot of the sun for that four degrees. That's when twilight begins. So twilight is not when the sun is still visible. Twilight is that moment when the sun is gone over the horizon, but it's still light out. That is twilight. And then you have all these different nautical astronomical twilight, but twilight commences upon when you don't see the sun, but it's still light out. So we'll keep that in mind for into the Passover. So any questions on that? We'll get into the first Passover. All right, buckle up because we, that was the preamble. All right. So here we go. The first Passover, we can't talk about the last Passover without talking about the first Passover. So leading up to the first Passover, there's a couple really important things that happen leading up the first Passover. Like if I just started explaining the first Passover, it'd be like coming into the middle of a movie and you're like, what is going on? Who's who? What is this? Why is that person standing there? Like what's happening, right? Why are lambs dying? What's going on? So we have to kind of back up a little and make a running start at it. Sound good? So we're going to back up to Genesis 15 to a promise and a prophecy that God gave Abraham. He said this, "Then the Lord said to Abraham, 'Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years, but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve.'" And afterward, they shall come out with a great possession. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age, and they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." We take another step forward, right? So there's a promise to Abraham, hey, this is your land, right? The promised land, he went up and went through Heron and Terra with Terra. Terra died, he kept going, he's in the land of Canaan. God said, "Hey, this is your land, stars the seashore." Then he says that, right? It's like, "Oh, man, what a promise." And he had to tell that to someone so that they knew, which is even worse, right? So leading up to the first Passover in Exodus, 3, 7, and 8, I think it was Exodus. But the people of the Lord were fruitful and increasingly great. They multiplied and grew extremely strong so that the land was filled with them, right? So the promise to Abraham's coming true. Now there rose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph, if you remember kind of Joseph in the story there. And he said to his people, "Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come let us deal shrewdly with them, at least they multiply, and if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." Kind of interesting that their fears came true when it came to dealing with Israel. So new Pharaohs up said, "Hey, let's deal shrewdly with them." Exodus 3, 7, and 8, God's promise to bring Israel out. Then the Lord said, "I've surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I've heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings and I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey to the place of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizites, Hivites and Jebusites." So starting in the back there was a promise that the Passover and essentially the Exodus was going to happen. That's kind of how God does it, right? It relates and it kind of circles on each other. So leading up to the first Passover, right? Now, okay, raise your hand if Prince of Egypt is your favorite Passover movie, my wife. Raise your hand if the OG 10 Commandments Charleston-Heston version is your favorite, right? So real quick recap of the story of Moses. Here's the story of Moses in four points. Moses was born. He was exiled. Now he's back and he said, "Hey, let him go, pal." So a lot more there, but that's the quick version of it. And I think we're probably all familiar with the theatrical version of the story of the 10 Commandments. There's a lot of wonderful detail. I encourage you to study that on your own. But for our purposes, we're going to catch up with the story when it comes to the judgments that God initiates on Egypt and on Pharaoh. And so when we're looking at Passover, particularly through the lens of Christians and through the lens of discipleship, we have to understand that the 10 plagues, right? It's like, why 10 plagues? What's that about? Why not just open the door and just walk out? Why 10 plagues? Why was that important? Well, the 10 plagues were actually judgments on the false gods of Egypt. And each plague had a specific god that Yahweh was dismantling and he did it systematically. We're going to go through them right now. So here we go. Don't worry about writing all this down. Like I said, the slides will be provided because this one's going to go quick. So the first one, the first judgment was water into blood with the Nile. And it was the judgment on the God Haptai, who is the Nile God who is considered the source of life. The next god that the next judgment was the frogs. And this was the god Heket, who is the fertility god, kind of viewed as the mama god of the bunch. And guess what? Her head is a frog. I mean, how do you write that, right? And then, yeah, then you have lice. And lice was a judgment on the false god Ged, who is the god of the earth, the dirt. And so the dust of Adam is now a curse to the Egyptians. Then you have flies, which is in the false god, Capri, who actually has a little scab beetle as his head. As the god of the morning sun, right? He was seen as like a transformational power in the Egyptian framework. And what's interesting, right, after this transformational power is destroyed, Pharaoh decides to negotiate for the first time. And so you see the sequential destruction of the false Egyptian gods by Yahweh in the 10 plagues. Then you got livestock after this, where the livestock were struck, and that's on the god Hathor, right? The goddess of love protection. And guess what? Her head is a cow, right? She's literally got cattle horns, like Texas Longhorns coming from her head. So if you see a woman with Texas Longhorns run away. Yes, yeah. And literally it's you're killing the cash cow, right? And you're in an agricultural farming society. It's like I'm putting the kabosh on your business activities. Then you got ashes and boils, and this was a judgment on the god, this Isis, who is the goddess of medicine and peace. And the people are now unclean. And then you have hail as fire, this is a judgment on the goddess Nut, the Egyptian goddess of the sky. And so you have this partially destroyed food crop as a result of this judgment. Then you have the judgment of the locus, Seth, who is the god of storms and disorder, and now you have a completely destroyed food supply after this judgment. And Pharaoh was given time to repent during each one, like it's not like, but he, you know, he did it, and so I was like, okay, I'm going to step up the ante. And then you got three days of darkness, right? Then that's on the judgment on the raw, the sun god is probably the most famous Egyptian god and popular and shows like Stargate or stuff like that. But this is, you know, the sun god and though you just lose control over life, like your god is no longer shining for three days, Yahweh is bigger. And then you have the death of the firstborn, which was a judgment on Pharaoh himself, which was seen as raw incarnate to the Egyptians. But guess what? There is actually another god that is part of the judgment, and it's not listed in the ten plagues, but the final judgment is actually on a judgment of a false god called Knum, who is the creator god in the Egyptian worldview. He is the king of the gods, and he actually has the head of a ram, and he was seen and he was believed to have created humans on the potters wheel. And so when we look at the first Passover and the Passover lamb, what literally happened was the Passover lamb was the literal slain of Egypt's chief false god by each family. Moses said, Hey guys, this is what's going to happen. We're going to leave, and we're going to go serve Yahweh. Here's what you need to do. You need to prepare the Passover, you know, kill the lamb, put the blood lentils on your doorposts. It was a decision that said, Choose Yahweh, or choose Kanum. And it's the same command that Joshua gives, right? Choose this day who you will serve. It's the same thing. So each family had to choose to give up their false gods and to follow Yahweh. And it sounds a little bit like what Jesus said, right? When Jesus said this to the disciples, he said, "Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone wants to follow, wants to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul, or what can man give in exchange for his soul?" I can almost see Jesus saying that to the Israelites about to prepare the Passover, it's like choose me, do not choose this false god of Egypt, choose me. And if you're wondering, yes, a lamb is a baby ram, by the way. I had to look it up. So if you had to look it up, I had to look it up. That's just fascinating to me. So we're going to gloss over the institution of the Passover, it's a really long chapter in Exodus 12. But the simple flow of it is Exodus 12, on the 10th of Nisan, four days before the lamb was to bring in with no blemish, on the 14th, it was to be killed at twilight. Eat it, let none remain until the morning, and then apply the blood to the doorposts. It was a judgment on the gods of Egypt, which we talked about, and part of the process is you're removing the leaven from the household in preparation for the Passover. And scripture actually says that there was a mixed multitude that left with Israel, that left with the blessing, and with assets, as they actually they plundered the Egyptians, fulfilling the promise of Abraham. But God said, a foreigner shall not eat of it, but a sojourner might partake. So if you're not part of Israel, how does that make sense? So if you're so journeying with Israel, and you're like part of the tribe, but you're maybe not yet circumcised, and you're starting to quite assimilate, but you associate with versus like, "Oh, I'm just dropping by your house for a meal," to kind of different things and how God describes it. So it's unique to the people of God in that sense. All right, so we're going to get into some modern traditions next. So as we get into modern traditions, I just want to bring this next slide back up, just to remind us all, that there are a wide variety of opinions about the feasts and how we should do them or not do them and celebrate them or not celebrate them. And I've loosely categorized them into eight different stages of you have anathema on the left, which is like, "Don't associate at all," and on the right you actually, there's groups out there that say, "No, you have to do this to be saved," which is, in my opinion, false. Then you have, so starting on the left, we've got historical nothing more, symbolic of heavenly truths, relevant, but only if you're Jewish or Israel, if you can prove that somehow. And then you've got prophetic of past and future events, blessing if you do, and then you've got a whole other group, and this is actually a pretty loud group, I would be honest with you, it's kind of the beyond biblical, which is like more about adopting customs and rituals that might have been developed in the mid-centuries, might have been developed in the Talmud, they're not necessarily in Scripture, they might have references to Scripture, but it's not scriptural, as we would call it. So I'm trying to encourage us, kind of stay in the prophetic of past and future events, and then, hey, there's a blessing if you do, right? I was just talking to this, like, if there's the command of honor your father and mother, and it's like, "Well, I'm going to be blessed if I do that." Yes, it's the law of God, but it's like, there's a blessing in my life if I do that, and I can partake in that if I want. So modern traditions, many of us are probably familiar with the Seder, if you're not familiar with the Seder, the Seder is like the pinnacle of Passover for Jews around the world today. The Seder is the main celebration, it's the retelling, it's a liturgical meal with 15 steps that is retelling the story of Exodus based upon the four eye wills of Exodus chapter 6. If you want more information on that, you can look up Habad, which is like the Orthodox Bible, but that is like all Judaism. I just want to make that clear, that is Judaism, that's not Christianity, but they give a lot of detail about what it is. So the passage that the Seder is based on is this passage in Exodus chapter 6. It says, "Say therefore to the people of Israel, 'I am the Lord your God, I will bring you out from under, so I will one, bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will two deliver you from slavery to them, I will three redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment, and four I will take you to be my people and I will be your God and you shall know that I am the Lord who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians." So the modern tradition of the Seder, today we're not going to participate in the Seder, I don't have a Seder dish, right? Because it's like I said last week we were kind of like Bible out, not necessarily culture in, but we will talk about it a little bit. The foundations of the Seder today are found in what's called the Haggadah Liturgy, which is how many grew up in the Church of the Church? They actually had prayer books and hymnals and all that kind of stuff. So same kind of thing, just Jewish, right? So it's the Haggadah Liturgy, it just means the telling, and the Haggadah was actually created in the generation before Jesus by Gamleo, who was actually cited by Paul in Acts 22. So Paul, just quick backstory of Paul's life, like where did Paul come from? Paul was like the equivalent of what you could say would be like a Yale or Ivy League scholar. He was studying under the best rabbi whose name was Gamleo, who was the grandson of the great Hillel, which if you've ever been on like a college campus and you have like Hillel, which is like a student group for Jews, that's who it's named after. And so Paul writes like he studied under the feet of Gamleol in Acts 22. And so Gamleol, the rabbi stated in 90 BC, so before Christ, whoever does not discuss the following three things on Passover has not fulfilled his obligation. The Passover offering, the lamb, the matzah, unleavened bread, and the mayor, the bitter herbs. So we know that the Passover, the modern traditions of the Passover in the Jewish context, started around 90 BC. So it's safe to assume that Jesus, the foundations of the Seder, were actually present in the Jewish community during Jesus's day. And while we can make assumptions and illusions and connections to it, we can't fully prove it, but there's a lot of evidence that would suggest that it's highly likely that Jesus and the Apostles celebrated some version of the Seder tradition as they were growing up. And as they were going about their ministry. So the Seder is all based upon the Seder plate and the telling, kind of hard to read, but there's essentially six elements to a Seder plate. If you ever get a chance to go to one, they're really fun, it is a fun time, there's food, there's singing, there's song, it is like, it's not like a boring, I love your mom. I thought all days and thanksgivings and Christmases, but sometimes you get in the, I always send my stuff to my mom afterwards. It's like a plow kid moment, but you know, you kind of ever been around like a Thanksgiving where it's like, all right, you know, someone is slaving all day to make the food and then the food goes on the table and everyone goes, okay, one of the packers playing. Like, that's kind of my house, right. That's kind of what I grew up with. And like the Seder is this like, it kind of pulls you into this experience where it's like, I'm from like a German Irish family, I'm not from like an Italian family, like with Frank, but it's kind of like, you get the family around and it's kind of like a middle, you know, whether it's like Italian or Middle Eastern, there's a whole cultural rhythm to the Seder that is very different. It's wonderful, it's blessing if you can participate. So, we got the six elements, the egg, the keroset, so maybe we'll start at the shank bone, we'll start back at the shank bone. So, you got the lamb, which represents the lamb of God that was slain for the Passover, you got the bitter herbs of celery and parsley, which were meant to like, you remember the dust of the earth from which we came. We got the egg, which is kind of like the new life, which, you know, some people go down a way dark rabbit hole with that one. The keroset, which is the sweetness of redemption, and you got the horseradish, which is the bitterness of sin. Surprisingly enough, the horseradish is like one of my favorite elements when we do our Passover. I just love spice, I'm like the guy giving me some hot sauce. So, the horseradish is like dates, apples, red wine, walnuts, it's a delicious side dish. Yeah, so, and then as far as unleavened bread, what Jews will do still today is they will actually search through the home and kind of clean out all the leaven. So, you either put it away in like an airtight container, or you like sweep it out, and the tradition is whatever used to sweep out the leaven is, you burn it. And so there's, they still practice that as far as sweeping out the leaven. So, is Jesus's fulfillment? All right, that's the backstory. Enough backstory on historical exodus. There's tons of information that you can read about that. Let's get into Jesus's fulfillment. One of the things that Whitney and I, we kind of do this, this kind of some of these like scenarios of like, what would you do if, right? And the scenario came up with like, what would you do if you got captured by ISIS, and you had kids, and you had like to give say one word to them before they execute is kind of dark, right? People are like, whoa, that got dark really quick. But it's like, if you had one, if you had one wish as a parent before your kids died, and obviously we'd all probably want our kids to know the Lord. But assuming you can't make them, the thing that I would want for our kids is someone to teach them how the feasts fulfill, or Jesus fulfilled the feasts. Because I really believe if you can kind of start to make some of those connections, like everything else just kind of falls into place. So we'll look at Jesus's fulfillment of the Passover. Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 5, 7, and 8. He says, cleanse out the leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed, let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So we see this all over in the New Testament of Jesus being alluded to and in the Old Testament and the prophecies about Jesus, Jesus being alluded to as the lamb of God, right? Well, Jesus is a, you know, as far as Jesus and him being a sacrifice, what's very interesting Jesus was born in a little town called Bethlehem, which in Hebrew is Bethlehem, which is house of bread. And what's interesting about Bethlehem is where the Passover lambs were raised for the festival of the Passover. So all the Passover lambs that were sacrificed on Passover were raised in Bethlehem. Bethlehem also means the house of bread. Interesting, very interesting. Mater, I should have brought some Mater, but it's pierced and bruised in it. And what's really interesting leading up to the Passover is that Jesus, there is three resurrections that Jesus performed leading up to the Passover, kind of bleeding into first fruits a little bit, but there is the son of the widow. If you remember this, the daughter of Jarius and then Lazarus, the day before, the Shabbat before, the triumphal entry. And one of the things about the biblical language is, you know, when we text someone, if we're really excited, we use exclamation exclamation exclamation, right? And it's like really funny because if you talk to someone from America, everything is an exclamation point. If you talk to someone from another country, everything's a period. And it's just a funny thing to notice. But the way that the biblical language does exclamation is repetition. So when Jesus says like truly, truly, he's like, focus, pay attention. This one's important. When you see holy, holy, holy, like in Revelation, it is like this is the upmost of importance. So even leading up to Passover, Jesus raises people three times leading up. So we've got the preparation period that's found in Exodus 12, leading up to on the 10th of this month there to take one lamb for themselves. Your lamb shall be male without blemish, a year old. You may take it from the sheep, from the goats, right, goats, over the false God of Egypt. You shall keep it until the 14th day of the same month, and then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. So we'll get into some timelines, but when they're bringing in from the preparation elements, so there's, if we can get this map of the old city, so this is like a really small map. This is why you have the slides later. But you have the temple area on the top, and then you have what's called the sheep gate on the kind of the northeast corner. So all the lambs that were coming into the temple to be slaughtered for Passover were coming in the sheep gate. So on the very same day, which we call the triumphal entry Palm Sunday, you have Jesus coming in the east gate from the Mount of Olives, coming down from the Mount of Olives. It's really interesting as you have this preparation period where they're bringing lambs in, and they're literally declaring Hosanna, glory to God in the highest, like he who saves. You have that coming in on the north side, you have Jesus coming in on the east side, and this was a big deal. We won't get into all the scriptures, but Jesus coming to Jerusalem for Passover on the week of his death was an uproar. This city was wild. I lived in Minneapolis when the Super Bowl was in Minneapolis. It was an uproar. You couldn't go anywhere without knowing something about the Super Bowl. Same kind of thing. All right. We're going to make... I present this part, this next part because people get interested, but it's maybe not... You can get really hung up on it. I'll just say that. You can get really hung up on it, but I think we should address it. Which day did Jesus die? People got opinions. I'll make a quick comment. Paul writes, he's like, "One person seems one day, that person seems another day." But have unity of mind, love each other. That's the spirit of as we're going through this. You can get to a lot of deep, dark blogs that are vicious. If you go to Habad or any of these Orthodox Jewish websites, they will tell you that Passover can only happen on a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday. Which kind of eliminates one day that the Christian celebrate. But the important thing is that Jesus fulfilled the Passover. We're just going to quickly touch through it on the timeline. There's essentially 80, 30, and 80, 33 that people believe that Jesus died. There's kind of two options. We're going to look at the timeline of fulfillment of 80, 30, which would place Passover on a Wednesday. Where you have on Saturdays, actually, Nissan 10, for this inspection period of four days, you have Passover. And then you have, remember when Jesus said, "For three days and three nights, I'll be in the belly of the whale," just like Jonah. And then, remember, our days are different. So this is where the slides will be helpful to see all this in detail. And then you have three days and three nights. So you've got the high Sabbath of Unleavened Bread right after Passover. You've got a gap day for Friday, which is like, "Hey, go. It's like recess. Go do what you want." And then you've got the weekly Sabbath and then Resurrection Sunday. So some people hold that view. The next one is the timeline of fulfillment for 80, 33. And if you're wondering, "Yes, people way smarter than me have actually made clocks based on astronomy." You have to go back to different days. These are people that work at NASA kind of thing. So the timeline of fulfillment of 80, 33, which would be kind of the traditional view of Passover happening on a Friday, where you have Nissan 14 on a Friday. You have the inspection period for four days leading up to it. And then you have Jesus coming into Jerusalem leading up to the inspection period. And then this position holds that the three days, three nights is more related to Jesus was constrained for three days and three nights. He was in handcuffs. He was in prison. He was constrained on Friday. Then you have the Saturday, which would have been a dual Sabbath because it's the feast of unleavened bread with the weekly Sabbath on top of it. And then Resurrection Sunday as we know. The one that I'm curious about is this next one. And again, this is nothing to ruin friendships over. This is just more to like educate, which would be this one where you have Passover happens on a Thursday. So the last supper would happen on a Wednesday night, like tonight. And because if we were living by the biblical Hebrew day, we'd already be on Thursday right now, but we're on Wednesday. So you have Passover on Thursday. You've got the high Sabbath on Friday, which is the first Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days. Then you have the weekly Sabbath, and then you have the Resurrection Day. What's really interesting about this one, at least to me, is if you line up the three days and three nights, it goes day, night, day, night, day, night, day. And there's three days and three nights. Now that spans different days. So why the case for Thursday? Well, we already talked about Orthodox Judaism says that Passover can only happen on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday. But also, in John, 1931, it says, "Since it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath." So Jesus is on the cross and he's died. For that Sabbath was a high day. The next day was a high day, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was the high Sabbath. And the Jews asked Pilate to break the legs that they might be broken and might be taken away. They don't have people up on the cross. It's the high Sabbath, tomorrow. It's the first Sabbath of Unleavened Bread. Then in Luke 24 on the road to Emmaus, it says, "But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel." The guys are complaining. They're kind of mopey. They just followed the latest revivalists who just had a scandal. And they're kind of mopey. And it says, "Yes, and besides this is now the third day since." So three days since then, it's worked backwards. It was really interesting. Now, I'll probably get corrected by some Greek scholar, which is, I welcome it. And I love that. It is Matthew 28.1. It says, "Now after the Sabbath toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary want to see the tomb." And that Sabbath, you can actually look it up on blueletterbible.com or anywhere you can find the Greek original language. The Sabbath is actually plural. If it was singular, it would end in O-V, but it ends in W-V, which is interesting, which would give kind of maybe some credence to there's a high Sabbath and a Sabbath and then the resurrection day. Once again, nothing to get all out of whack for, but it's just kind of like what I find that is interesting about that is it means that Jesus fulfilled it perfectly, right? And that's the point, as Jesus fulfilled the Passover. Now, remind you, keep in mind history is messy. The calendars that we have, so if you're like, "Well, how do they know this?" It's like, "Well, they kind of know." The calendars that we have are from like 111582. So you're trying to like reconcile things 1500 years ago from things that are like made now. And we'll get into this a little bit more during trumpets of the timings and how we can have confidence in some of that. So what time did Jesus die? The previous night, we know this for a certain, this timeline for a certain. The previous night was the Last Supper, the start of Passover. You can actually search this as what's called the First Seder tradition. I'm of the opinion that Jesus and his apostles were celebrating was called the First Seder tradition. Other people don't hold that position. I think that's totally fine. At 3am, we do know that Jesus was betrayed in the garden. At 4am, he was before the council. At 6.30am, he was before a pilot. At 12pm noon, there was darkness, side note. There was an eclipse in AD 33. And then at 3pm, Jesus dies as the first lamb. Why do we say the first lamb? So we're going to actually skip ahead here a couple slides. Shannon to the lamb at sunset. So the remembers slain at twilight. Well, question Nate, Jerusalem is maybe like 1.5 million people at the time. How do you slay all these lambs at the temple? You have a big production cycle, right? This puts like, you know, Tyson meets the shame. And you've got a lot. So Josephus said in 4BC, over 250,000 lambs were sacrificed for the Passover. However, given the limited space, like they actually had a law that said needs to take place between 3pm and 5pm. Interesting that Jesus died at 3pm. So Jesus' fulfillment, right? They, you know, during the Passover, you celebrate the Seder and actually sing. Part of the Seder tradition is you sing what's called the Songs of Ascent, which is Psalms 113 to 118. And in Psalm 118, it actually talks about how the stone, the famous verse, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Now, just imagine you're Jesus with the disciples, you're celebrating this last Passover, and you're going out, and it says in Matthew, they went out to the garden to sing a hymn. They're talking about the Psalms of Ascent 113 to 116. And so read the Psalms, like, you know, if there's no homework, but if you're going to do homework, read the Psalms and put yourself in the position of, I'm Jesus, I'm about to go to the cross. I was like, I need this, like, I can't make it through without tearing up because of what those mean every time. And Jesus actually quotes this in Mark 12 right before he's about to go to the cross. Remes, right? Coming back. So how Jesus fulfilled the Passover real quick. The Passover, the lamb was brought in four days prior. Jesus was brought in four days prior, the lamb was spotless Jesus was declared pure by pilot and first, you know, Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6. The lambs bones were not to be broken. They did not break Jesus's bones. He was already passed away. He was already gone. Graduated. I love that. We stole that term, by the way. Graduated to be the Lord with the Lord. Nothing was left, so they didn't leave him up overnight. Paul writes this in Hebrews 10, he says, "But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet by a single offering. He's perfected all time, those who were being sanctified." Jesus was also the unleavened bread of God, right? In 2 Corinthians it says, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God." Jesus said in John 6, "I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." Jesus fulfilled the unleavened bread in Luke 22.9. He said he took the bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, "This is my body given for you, do this in remembrance of me." He was breaking unleavened bread when he was doing that. And secondly, during the timeline, so if you remember that timeline we had, during the timeline of the feast of unleavened bread, of fulfilling the unleavened bread part, Jesus was also getting the leaven out of the disciples. We don't think about that. But Peter's denial was after the last supper. Doubting Thomas was during the feast of unleavened bread. And then John ends, and I've always wondered this, I'm like, "Lord, why do you end with..." Like Peter's going fishing again, you know, in the Gospel of John. Jesus is getting the leaven out of it. He's purging the leaven from the disciples as well. So Jesus was a better sacrifice. Titus, right? Paul writes this. Paul is serving of God, was kind of skipped forward in the sake of time. In hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began at the proper time, has manifested at the proper time. Peter writes this in 1 Peter 1, he says, knowing that you were ransomed from the brutal ways you've inherited from your forefathers, not with that perishable things of silver gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world. Remember last week we quoted from Isaiah how he knows the end from the beginning. He declares the end from the beginning, and he will accomplish his purposes. We all know, or most of us have probably heard Isaiah 53. He was oppressed and afflicted. He did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and a sheep before the shears is silent. He did not open his mouth. We all know right when Jesus is, or most of us, probably know I don't assume, when Jesus is being baptized, he sees John the Baptist, and John the Baptist says, "Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sins before." So one other thing that we'll kind of get into about how Jesus fulfilled the Passover. I have to make a disclaimer on this. Again, this is probably not one to separate fellowship over. It's probably not one to get, like, all wound it up. Not one to get, you know, to be distracted, but I find it interesting. You know, in Christian, we have like a wide variety of personalities and people in Christian, well, guess what? There's people who live in Judaism as well, and there's a wide variety of people who practice Judaism. There's like the Orthodox restrict, and then there's these people called mystics, mystical Judaism, and they have this belief that each Hebrew letter has a pictorial significance to it. And this is the word Yahweh, and their interpretation is the Yod, is the hand, behold, nail, behold, that even in the very name of God is prophetic of what Jesus did on the cross. Now you can go down some crazy rabbit trails with that, I'll be honest. That's okay. But just to be aware, right? It's like, it's amazing how God is so precise. So we'll kind of go over quick here. It's okay if I have like five more minutes. Is that all right? Thank you. There was 99 slides, so we're trying to get through it. So the in the past over in the marriage, the Jewish bridal process we talked about this so the process of a Jewish marriage had certain steps to it and the first step was the Ketuba, which they still practice this today. Ten commandments, by the way, with God giving them to Moses was a Ketuba. There was a commandment for the people and there's a commandment placed in the ark. There's on two separate sides on the two sets of stones it says. You can read it, check me out on that. It says two sets of stones were written. The Ketuba was negotiated by the two fathers, so I use the example with Whitney. If I want to marry Whitney, my dad negotiates with Whitney's dad for Whitney as my wife. And they negotiate the terms of the deal. So hopefully your dad's a good deal maker. And each family received a copy of the covenant, so Whitney's covenant might be different than yours, might be different than yours, right? So it's all kind of different for each family. And it was signed at Twilight. It was signed that when you make a pledge, a certainty, a making of the deal. And the father of the groom extended the bridal price, so my dad would pay Whitney's dad for Whitney to be my wife. And our father paid Jesus for us to be Jesus's bride at Twilight when a deal was made, when a pledge was made, when a certainty was made. On time. The Ketuba on our hearts and minds will get into more of this in Pentecost, right? In Hebrews 10 it says, you know, I will put my laws upon their heart and write it on their mind. And in the bridal process, so we talked about the bridal price was paid by the groom's father in the terms of the covenant were established. Afterwards, the couple would wash their hands to cleanse themselves. Now, if you remember Jesus washing the disciples feet. And he says, right, the word I've spoken, you know, as cleanseer, you don't need me to wash your head, Peter. Take a bath, man. Right. And they would seal seal the covenant. So we do this kind of ceremony at the gates of the city. And then I offer Whitney was called the cup of joy. Now I take a drink. And I pass actually need that. And I pass it to Whitney and she takes a drink. And once she takes a drink, it's the acceptance of the marriage covenant is called the cup of joy. And they would say, I will not drink of this cup of the covenant until I do so again with you in my father's house. Because they had a very different, you know, element of marriage. So we got engaged, but we weren't married. Right. That's our culture. We get engaged and then we get married and then you consummate and then you grow in life together. They get married. So you're legally married and you have a waiting period of a year. And then during that waiting period for those of you who weren't here last year. Yeah, right. Tell that to Whitney. You have a waiting period of a year. And meanwhile, the groom is going to build on to his father's house to be able to take his bride back. And they consummate the marriage with a seven day festival. If you're thinking about the Last Supper and Jesus says, like, I have many mansions and my father's house are many mansions and I will come and I will take you. Like he's he's eluding his remedies to this bridal process, which is very much like the Passover. We see this in Isaiah 61. It says, I rejoice greatly in the Lord. My soul will exalt. He has clothed me with garments of salvation. Notice he takes salvation and he ties it with. He's wrapped me with the robe of righteousness. He takes that and ties it with as a bride groom decks himself with Garland as a bride adorns her with jewels. Isaiah takes the concept of salvation and righteousness and merges it with this concept of marriage and a marriage ceremony. John 3 29, the one who this is the John the Baptist, the one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase and I must decrease. You know, I was always taught that verse had to be like, you know, like just like think lowly of yourself. Like I must decrease and God must increase and it's like, well, when you look at it in the context of what he's talking about. He's talking about is making a remnant as a illusion to this Jewish marriage, you know, process, not that we should think highly of ourselves. We shouldn't. We should think rightly and but he's saying, he Jesus must increase because he's the groom and I'm the bride or I'm the, the, the friend of the bridegroom. Two Corinthians 11 says, Paul writes, for I feel divine jealousy for you since I betros you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. So Paul, even in this ministry is thinking through this lens of this marriage covenant. So what about discipleship and Passover? Well, I think there's a few things that we'll talk that we need to know as we wrap up tonight. The first one is salvation is initiated by God. As very like, you need to know this Paul or God said in Exodus, like I will. I've seen the affliction and I'm going to do this. He didn't ask the Israel if they wanted to. He didn't ask the Hebrews if they wanted to. He said, I'm going to do this salvation is initiated by God to Timothy one nine says this who saved us and called us a holy calling not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and his grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. So kind of tying that back to the previous one where that was referenced, which God appointed Jesus to die before the ages began tying it into Passover, which now made manifest through the appearing of our Savior Lord Jesus Christ who abolished death and brought life immortality and life that light through the gospel. Anyone thankful for the gospel. Amen, right? Passover to the discipleship. So one next thing I think we need to know is that we have to apply the blood of the lamb to our own hearts door. Matthew 26, right? Jesus says, this is the blood of the new covenant when he's talking about the wine. It's like, this is the blood that's being spilled in the first shadow of his death. Revelation 3 20 says, behold, I stand at the door and knock anyone, you know, who that opens up, I will come in and eat and dine with him. Right? Like there's an invitation to each person to open up that door. And I think. I think you did a sermon on that of like the door only opens from the inside, you know, in that sense. And Hebrews 9, 14, right? How much more Jesus is a better sacrifice? How much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish as the Passover lamb to God to pure fire conscious from dead works to serve the living God? I think the next thing that we need to know and is kind of like sometimes an uncomfortable thing is just like the Hebrews, God is also in the business of slain other gods in our life. So he hasn't changed. He still wants to get the gods out of our life. You may have heard it said he got Israel out of Egypt and then 40 years was getting Egypt out of Israel. And it's the same thing, right? So he's delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of his son, his love in whom we've redemption through the blood. Think lamb, the forgiveness of sins. So just like they had to put away all the false Egypt's gods part of our call as disciples as we come to have Jesus as our Lord and Savior is to put away the false gods in our life. And then Passover was eaten hastily. And so we also have to be ready to act quickly. First Peter 13 says this, "Therefore preparing your minds for action. Have a bias towards action." That's actually in our company when we look at hiring people, we actually say bias towards action. We want people who take action. My wife is like the chief of action taking. We want bunny, bunny speed fast, right? Being sober minds set your hope on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Christ. Colossians 2, 13, 15, right? And you who are dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made a life together with him, having forgiven us our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it's the cross. He disarmed the rulers and the authorities, putting them to open shame, triumphing over him. So that's Passover as discipleship. Well, what about unleavened bread? Well, Jesus is the original unleavened bread, right? Bread without leaven. We too are to stay unleavened. I won't go through all the scriptures, but there's a lot of them, particularly in the pistols. We're called to get the leaven out of our lives and homes, as Passover I would say, like get the yuck yuck out, right? Get the yuck yuck out. There's a ton of scriptures in there. We won't go through all of them for a second time, but to Timothy 2, 19, it says, "But God's firm foundation stands bearing this seal." Like this is formal. This is fact. The Lord knows who's our his and let everyone who names the Lord depart from iniquity. So there's a part of it where we have to get the leaven out of our life. 1 Peter 2, 24, 25, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, right, during Passover, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds we've been healed for you are strain like sheep. Now you've returned to the shepherd, the overseer of your soul. Then maybe the last one I'll quote here for tonight, Titus 2, 11 through 12, this is one of my favorite verses in scripture. It says, "For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all people." How many people is all? So who can come to Jesus? Everyone, right? Who had the opportunity to leave with Israel as they left Egypt? Everyone, what did you have to do? Take the Passover, kill the false gods, like join the, you know, join the assembly, right? Train us, so grace trains us. Not my flesh, not my self-effort grace trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passion and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in present age. It is not, it is not, God saved you, now work hard. It's God saved you by his grace. I was going to give you grace to keep going, right? So why is this important? We're going to kind of skip through, you can look at the rest of the verses and the slides that will be sent out. But why is this important? I think we need to highlight, this is like one of those verses in Jude 1, 5, this is, I think, the second to last slide, Chen. It says this, "Now I want to remind you," this is Jude, New Testament guy, "I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved a people out of the land of Egypt." So wait, wait, wait, I thought Moses saved the people out of the land of Jesus? No, it's Jesus. Jesus did it. Jesus was the cloud of smoke. Jesus was the pillar fire, right? Jesus was the Lord's angel in the Exodus story delivering them and says, "Jesus who saved a people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe." First Thessalonians says this, "And to wait," so New Testament epistle encouraging us, "to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come." And I mentioned the movie Before the Wrath last week, it's great on Amazon. Anyone watch that from last week? Isn't it interesting? Kevin Sorbo narrates it, which is kind of cool, he's got a great voice. And so I think this is like one of those, we want to get ahold of this because it's like, I want us to think about this as we think about Easter, as we think about Passover, as we think about the season that's upon us, of put yourself in the position of you're a Hebrew in Egypt. And God just said, "Hey, this is going to happen. I'm going to deliver you out." And it's like, all you got to do is take the lamb, put the lamb on the doorpost through your house, and you just got to follow God, you got to trust God that he's going to deliver you. And we're leaving Egypt, we're going to the Promised Land, and just imagine you're there and imagine your friend is in the next door. And you're like, "Hey, man, we got to do this. This is what Moses said. This is how it's going to happen." And you're like cutting the lamb and whatnot, and your friend's over there and just like, what are you doing, man? Like, what's going on? Like, why would you do that? And it's like, dude, like, if you don't do this, your oldest son's going to die tonight. Like, that's what happened. If you don't do that, like, that's what's going to happen. Like, there's severe consequence if we don't trust in Jesus, if we don't put our faith and our hope in Him. So as we look, the stakes are high, and there were stakes were high for the Hebrews as they were leaving Egypt, and the stakes are high for our family members and our friends who don't know Jesus. There's high stakes. It's like, "Hey, the Exodus is about to happen tomorrow. Look, we got a choice. We can put the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of our heart. We can slay the false gods in our lives, and you can join us, and we're going to go to the Promised Land." I have to assume not everyone did it. You know, now it says all Israel did it, but the invite was open. The invite was open to the Egyptians who wanted to slay the false gods in their lives. And not everyone did it. And we have to know, like, there's things at stake when it comes to the free grace of God. Like, God's done it. It's kind of like, "Hey, this has been accomplished, right? Jesus paid the penalty for sin past, present, future for all generations, for past, for future generations, and the offer is there." You know, the offer is there. It's like, I've heard it explained, it's kind of like, you know, we all get those, like, credit cards in the mail, right? And it's like, you're pre-approved, right? It's like, the pre-approvals happen. Like, it's been paid for. Your debt has been paid for. You just got to go recorded in the county recorder's office. That's all you got to do. And it's the same thing with Passover. All they had to do was slay the lamp, put the blood on their doorposts of their house, bring their friends, bring their neighbors, and go to the Promised Land. And that's the same thing that's available for us. It's like, all we have to do is come repent of our sin, repent of our ways, say, "Jesus, I need you, and I want you to be the Lord and Savior of my life, and I want to follow you." And that opportunity is available all day, every day for everyone, no matter who they are, no matter if they're white, if they're black, if they're male, female, right? This is the one new man in Christ. Like, everything Christ is the pinnacle. And I think Passover to me reminds me every year that Jesus paid a really high price for our freedom and for what He's done in our life. And, you know, we're going to talk more about it next week of First Fruits and the Grace of God and how do we walk in that in the new resurrection of life and the prophecy of that. But let me pray as we head out. Jesus, thank you so much for this group of people, people who are hungry for your word, people who want to know you. Jesus, this was a lot of information tonight. And I pray that just the seeds that you want to germinate in people's hearts would produce fruit. God, that the things that just aren't necessary, aren't relevant, aren't too much, would just kind of fade to the back and the things that you want us to focus on would just come to the forefront. Give us grace to walk with you. God, thank you for being our Passover lamb as we celebrate a good Friday upcoming and we celebrate your resurrection Sunday that we would have new eyes and thankful hearts in Jesus name. (audience applauds) [BLANK_AUDIO]