When you enter the land which the LORD will give you, as He has promised, you shall observe this rite. And when your children say to you, ‘What does this rite mean to you?’ you shall say, ‘It is a Passover sacrifice to the LORD who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but spared our homes.’” Exodus 12:25-27.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
I know the end from the beginning. I see all and know all. Conceived deep in Me as the remedy for the fall of man, the Lamb was slain since before the foundation of the world. He is the cornerstone. The foundation of the earth is laid on Him, as also the edifice of the Church is built upon Him. With respect to all things to do with earth, things are conceived in Me from everlasting but there is a time when each of My plans, the plans that outnumber the sand, unfold. And that is why I am always doing something new. Do you not perceive it?
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which is for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2:10-11.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. Ephesians 1:7-10.
Everything is summed up in Him, everything that was made was made by, through, and for Him, and He is the head of His Body, the Church. And He and I are One.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. Colossians 1:15-20.
And that Oneness includes the Spirit that proceeds, as Jesus does as well, from within Me.
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.” John 8:42.
No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. John 1:18.
When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me. John 15:26.
Jesus came forth to dwell among you according to the flesh from His place of oneness with Me deep within My heart (bosom, the nurturing place) and by His work of redemption He has prepared that place for you as well and in Him I pull you back into My deepest self to rest as one with us in everlasting fruitfulness. And deep within Me you will find your true self and unite with all who have answered the call as I drew them back to Me in My Son. And that is the Kingdom of Heaven, the very center of all that encompasses all and fills all. And at the end of time as you know it, the Kingdom will be all in all.
But the court will sit for judgment, and Satan’s dominion will be taken away, annihilated and destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the sanctified people of the Highest One; His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him. Daniel 7:26-27.
Do you remember when Nebuchadnezzar demanded an interpretation of his dream? My servant Daniel asked Me to show him the dream and its meaning and I did. And it was a prophetic word of wisdom about the things to come and about Jesus, the everlasting rock and chief cornerstone of all that cannot be shaken. But it will smash all the evil work of the enemy upon which it falls. “And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.” Matthew 21:44.
“In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces. Daniel 2:44-45.
In Christ you will find unfathomable riches of grace and glory and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He is My gift to you, planned since before time began.
All that I do for you in Christ is beyond what you can understand now, just as I told Moses, if you were to see the fullness of the glory that is in Me towards you it would draw your spirit and soul right out of your earthly body and translate you to My Kingdom and, like Enoch, you would walk across the light line with Me and be in the earth no longer.
And that is the wonder of Communion, you can partake of divinity clothed in humanity so that you can receive nourishment at its source without breaking asunder the earthen vessel in which you are presently housed so that you will continue to bear the fruit of the Spirit upon the earth. Hidden under the earthly elements, as My Son was according to the flesh upon earth, at the Words of consecration, by the power of the Spirit, the earthly is changed to the heavenly in substance but remains in appearance that of which you can partake and live.
And beginning with Melchizedek to the Passover to the Tabernacle of Moses and the priesthood of Aaron and his sons, to the temple of Solomon, to Jesus your great High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek at the fulfilment and confirmation of an eternal memorial, I chose the bread and the wine. The bread and wine are both grown in the earth but must be crushed and beaten to form the food and drink, and then broken and poured to be consumed.
But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being (shalom) fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. . . But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief . . . Because He poured out Himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sins of many, and interceded for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:5, 10, 12.
And I gave Moses the grain offering as one of the five offerings to be done for atonement and covering of the people’s sins to keep divine justice from falling on the camp. And the unleavened bread was broken into fragments. It was part of the other offerings as well. The unleavened bread of the grain offering could be prepared in various ways, including baking, cooking on a griddle, or frying in a pan, but regardless of the cooking method, the instruction to break it into pieces remained consistent. Leviticus 2:6. This breaking of the offering was part of the ritual that made it acceptable as a sacrifice to Me as a pleasing aroma, the fragrance of My Son.
The morning and evening offering of the unblemished lamb as a burnt offering was accompanied by unleavened bread and the drink offering of wine. The drink offering accompanied other sacrifices, particularly the burnt offerings and grain offerings. It was not offered alone. The drink offering consisted of wine. Numbers 28:7. The amount of wine varied depending on the animal being sacrificed, for a lamb: One-quarter hin (about one quart) of wine (Numbers 15:4-5), for a ram: One-third of a hin (Numbers 15:6), and For a bull: One-half of a hin (Numbers 15:10). The entire drink offering was poured out before Me.
During the actual Passover memorial meal at the time of the Last Supper, there were four cups of wine partaken of during the meal as follows to enact My promise to the Israelites: “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the LORD.” Exodus 6:6-8.
The first cup taken at the opening of the Passover meal with the opening blessing is the Cup of Sanctification (Kiddush): represents My promise “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,” the next cup that is taken is the Cup of Plagues and it is taken during Maggid, which is the telling of the Passover story and it represents My promise, “I will deliver you from their bondage.” The next cup, the third one, is the Cup of Redemption, and is taken after the meal (which is also known as the “Cup of Blessing” since it is taken at the blessing at the end of the meal), representing My promise “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.” And at the end of the ceremony when the final psalms (Psalms 115–118, and to close Psalm 136 (the Great Hallel)) are sung, just before leaving, the Cup of Praise (during Hallel), is taken at that time representing My promise “Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God.”
You will find in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, that it was the Cup of Redemption (also known as the Cup of Blessing), after the meal, before the singing of the Psalms, that Jesus spoke the words of consecration over to become His blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. Ephesians 1:7-8.
And with respect to the unleavened bread, matzah in Hebrew, there are three matzot stacked on the seder plate. The middle matzah is broken in two. The larger piece becomes what was later known as the Afikomen, which is set aside, wrapped in a cloth, and hidden to be found later and it is eaten at the end of the meal just before the Cup of Redemption. After the destruction of the temple by the Romans, this piece of the second matzah eaten at the end of the meal became the substitute for the flesh of the Passover lamb, since there was no longer any temple to sacrifice the Passover lamb in, in the traditional Jewish seder. Do you see why Jesus consecrated that broken second matzah as His body? He knew and spoke of the destruction of the temple and He knew His body wrapped in a cloth and hidden in the tomb, would come forth when Christ your Passover had been sacrificed! The Lamb of old was no longer needed. Just the bread of His body and the wine of His blood in the New Covenant meal of Passover fulfilled and a new and living way had opened to all who believed and received. He was sacrificed once for all, His flesh for the life of the world.
We will look more at this wondrous Covenant meal that heals and redeems in our next Life Lesson of conversations at the table with the disciples.
I love you. Do not neglect so great (and carefully planned) a salvation. I am always doing something new though it was conceived from everlasting. Watch for it.