Tag Archive for 'Passover'

Jesus Breaking Bread with the Devil

Published on 1/26/2010 in Bible Study. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

“What you are going to do, do quickly.”
These are pretty disturbing words from Jesus. Satan himself has just entered into Judas and Jesus doesn’t say, “Come out of him!” or any of the things He ever said to demons. There was a time and a place for casting out evil and liberating individuals, but now the Father wanted Him to liberate people in a different way. If it was hard for Jesus to keep it together as He washed their feet, it must have been 100x more difficult when Satan was now there at the table, in their midst.

Even a bigger deal than His words, Jesus’ actions are amazing.
v. 30 “So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night. “
To share bread with someone was fellowship, communion. Communion was a precious thing. To share in a piece of bread with someone else was fellowship, acceptance, and peace. That’s why the Pharisees got so mad about Jesus BREAKING BREAD with sinners and tax collectors. It was like wearing the same gang colors, or wearing orange in Lexington.
Jesus, in all of His trust in the Father and compassion towards Judas, is not affected by the ultimate leader of all enemies sitting with Him at the table. He knows what is to be done, and He knows that it must come via betrayal by a friend.

Jesus is the Ultimate Untopper/Topper

Published on 12/27/2009 in Bible Study. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

All of the disciples are sitting around arguing about who is the best and who Jesus loves the most, all the time getting ready to eat the passover with dirty feet.

Jesus alone gets up to wash the feet, and surely nobody noticed what he was doing until He started, because no one questioned or protested until His activity was already in progress.

“How could they have not even noticed what He was doing if He undressed and wrapped Himself in a towel!?” you may ask. All I know is we miss a lot of what Jesus is doing when we are focused on ourselves.

Then Jesus begins to wash their feet, every one of them, and tells Peter, “Afterward, you will understand.” Jesus had told them that the greatest among them would be the servant of all, but they still hadn’t gotten it. They were still thinking like their contemporary rabbis–serving themselves. Life, today too, is so much about prestige and position and authority levels, that they still hadn’t gotten out of thinking about others as greater than themselves. They had to be shown how to do it.

Once you’ve washed a person’s feet, I’m speaking literally here, you have pretty much degraded yourself to them as far as you can go. Even in today’s culture. It’s a pretty humiliating thing.

While the disciples were racing to the top, Jesus, their teacher and rabbi, was racing to the bottom. And not an overly pious, condescending ‘least of these’ position, but the real, tangible, scandalous low position.

The flipping irony of this whole thing, though, is that I’m sure the disciples, just like me, would then say, “ok, that means if I want to be the greatest, I need to outserve everyone else!” and then there would be a fight over the basin and towel to wash feet. Jesus was racing for the bottom, but His eyes were on the goal of loving the Father above. He wasn’t racing against others, he was just rushing to get to the Father.

The Father draws us, and attracts us to Him, but always desires to remain the goal, the destination, the end. He does not take pleasure in activity for the activity’s sake. Peter’s clean feet didn’t change anything, and Jesus’ washing activity or exact method of washing didn’t make anything magical or mysterious happen. It was Jesus, following the Father’s lead to show the disciples that they should serve each other and love each other, that taught and transformed the start of that final Passover meal.

John 13:15-17 (ESV) I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

A Great Good Friday Passover Night

Published on 4/11/2009 in Bible Study and Family Life. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Last night we had our little Friday night get together and it was a really good time. We set up the sitting room with no furniture in it and covered the floor with korpatchas, sort of like sleeping bags that don’t open from Central Asia, to sit on. Five families all sat around in our cramped little room (we closed the pocket doors for an extra wall to lean on) and talked about the Passover meal. Everyone had a little something to share, which was cool.

Some of us had been to a sedar before, other people had read books, and everyone knew their Bible and was looking to learn a lot and have a lot of meaning in it all.

The biggest part for me was hiding the Afikomen. The afikomen is the center piece of the bread in the 3 pieces that are called “the Unity” it is taken out, broken, and half of it is hidden somewhere in the house. I hid it behind the couch while all of the kids were in the sitting room. We enjoyed our snacks of cheese, grapes, almond windmill cookies, and talked about all kinds of things, spiritual and unspiritual.

We ate some horseradish to taste the bitterness of sin, and drank down some wine to wash it away. Cindy said she thought her nose was going to fall off. Eric Youngblood took a huge chunk down in two bites. Isaac cried and cried to me that he wanted to taste the wine, but I told him he could only do it if he at the horseradish. I could tell that was an impasse, and he was just getting sad so I let him have a little taste. It blew him away. He hated it and seemed a little disappointed that he cried for it so, but was happy to get some grape juice after that.

At the end of the party, I told the kids that it couldn’t be over until they found the Afikomen. They took off in a mad race, running up and down the stairs, all over the place looking for it. I was so moved that I went in to the parents and we prayed that our kids would grow up to hunger and run after Jesus with such zeal passion hunger joy as they had seeking after the symbol of Jesus at Passover.

While we were praying, David came in and asked me if he could have a hint. I was so moved then that I told him it was downstairs and then prayed that they would ask the Father for help as they seek out the Son. David told everyone it was downstairs and they all came down to look for it.

As they were getting closer, I went back to the parents and said, “Watch and see what joy there is then they find it.” and just then I could hear shouts from the next room. “I found it! I found it! I got it! It’s here behind the couch!” and sure enough David came in jumping and stomping with the cloth napkin and bread held as high as he could over his head.

We haggled for the redemption of the afikomen, He asked $8 at first, I got him down to 50¢ and then told him I’d give him $5 because Jesus more than paid for us, and then all the kids got PEZ. it was a really good time.

May we all seek after Jesus with such chaotic, driven fervor. May we not fear tripping down stairs while we run or banging our heads together, but run after the hidden and waiting to be found Savior of the world, and when we find Him, hold Him up as high as we can with a cheer of victory, knowing deep down that the Father designed this gift to be found from the beginning.

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Hospitality to His Rejectors

Published on 9/1/2008 in Bible Study. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

(if this is a little scattered, I was retrieving Levi a couple times during this writing)

There has to be something up with John 6.4

There are a lot of similarities between Jesus feeding the 5000 and the “Last Supper.”

Jesus broke the bread and gave thanks and passed it out to people that would thank him for it and then turn on him. The disciples passed it out as he gave thanks, and then, maybe for the first time, compared himself to that bread. He was the bread that came out of nowhere, and the bread that was in such abundance that there were always leftovers.

Bread is serious business all over the middle eastern world. Bread/ with salt/ is a symbol of hospitality. Jesus could have fed them many things, but bread says, “you are welcome here with me.” When Melchizadec showed up in Abraham’s life, it was bread and wine. When the Passover was celebrated, the meal hinged on specialized bread.

Jesus welcomes us into his presence, and provides for our needs, knowing full well that we are fickle, moody sheep. He is not a fiery fearful terror that causes the people to beg for a moderator. The 5000 people were there because they had seen Him heal the sick. I can just see that many of them may have been the ones healed, and weren’t sure what to do now that they were well except follow Jesus (ie. The Pool Guy and others…)

Thoughts on John 1:35-39

Published on 2/12/2008 in Bible Study. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

John 1:35  The next day John was there again with two of his disciples.
John 1:36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
John 1:37  When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.
John 1:38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”
John 1:39  “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”  So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.

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I was just thinking about this as I went to bed last night and this morning. It is so great that Jesus was free to invite these guys to his house and spend the day with him. He was available. He didn’t put them off or say, I need to finish this up… or I’m busy.

He also didn’t tell them “I live at 851 Riverside.” He said, “Come and see.” He walked with them and took them to where they were going, instead of just telling them. It sound a little passive, but I just read on google books that the Greek grammar implies that He is saying, “If you come with me, and I want you to, I’ll show you.”

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So what if it’s true? What if God WANTS to spend time with me? What if God WANTS me to come with Him to where he is going, and then sit around and waste a lot of time being together (for lack of a better phrase).

That makes me think of dating. How when you are new in the relationship, you have to do things- go to a movie, play putt putt, the typical, silly date activities. But then when you get closer, and I guess this is summed up perfect in marriage, you can be together and enjoy DOING NOTHING.

The availability of God and the desire to keep me around blows me away. Yesterday Cindy was talking about some friends of ours that invited us over for the super bowl and are now inviting us along with them to a 2/14 banquet. She said, “I can’t believe that they want to be around us. Of all their other friends, why do they like us?” That is so funny. Cindy can’t believe that someone would desire to be around our family. As she said that all I could think about was this passage. Jesus wanted to be with these guys- a lot.

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So I’ve scoured and looked all over because I’m about to make a blanket statement and I didn’t want to be off. If I’m off, tell me. John the Baptist says “the Lamb of God”

Which Lamb? There are lambs all over the OT, and it’s a common sacrifice. So I looked at all of the sacrifices, every one of the regular sacrifices is a lamb, or a ram, or a bull, etc etc. Ok, what about the daily sacrifice? Every time it’s mentioned there are two, one in the morning and one in the evening, so for a while I was wondering how Jesus was THE Lamb (even though there were two) and where does that fit?

Then I found it. <prepare for blanket statement> The only place where there is a lamb sacrificed, and it’s not with drink offerings, and it’s not with grain offerings, is at the PASSOVER. If you’re poor, get with another family and share a lamb. If you’re rich, get one big lamb. It has to be a lamb. Because someday, God’s Son is going to show up, and He’s going to show you all what a real Passover is all about.