Jesus in the Feasts
Mark 14:12
Series: In the Steps of the Rabbi # 8

     How could they have fallen asleep when their beloved rabbi had implored them to stay awake and remain alert? How could they have nodded off when the climax of salvation history was about to take place? Why were the crowds in Jerusalem so fickle, adoring Jesus one week and then hating him the next? And why did Jesus choose a Passover Seder to celebrate the last meal of his life?

I. Traditional Passover Celebrations started at sunset, included a large meal, and didn't end until around midnight.

A. Passover evening was the perfect choice to arrest Jesus because every Jewish family would be celebrating the feast that started at sundown.
B. Jesus was crucified at nine in the morning - the time of the first temple services of the day- before the crowds reentered the city to come to worship.
C. Jesus' supporters never changed their minds. How could they have when the entire plot unfolded after the Passover festivities, while most people were sound asleep.

II. Learning about Passover: a sacred celebration commanded by God commemorating the exodus of the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt.

A. The focus of the Passover is to retell the story of how God brought his people out of Egypt and to contemplate how God will redeem Israel by sending the Messiah.
B. Passover was laden with messianic expectations and filled with prophetic significance.

1. Just as God had saved his people from the Egyptians, it was believed that God would come again at Passover to save his people.
2. For thousands of years, the Jewish people have believed that God would again send the redemption of the Messiah on Passover.
3. On the first Passover, God freed his people by taking the life of the firstborn sons of Egypt. On this Passover, God made salvation possible for all who would accept it by giving the life of his firstborn Son.

III. Passover coincides with two other spring feasts, Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits.

A. The Passover lamb was sacrificed on the afternoon of the 14th day of the month but eaten after sunset, at the beginning of the 15th. This began the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread.

B. The Jews were required to eat the Passover meal using only unleavened bread (Deut. 16:2-8). Leavening of any kind was forbidden for the entire seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, starting with the Passover meal.

C. The Jews saw leavening as a picture of sin and contamination, something God didn't want in his burnt offerings (Lev. 2:11;; 6:17).

D. When Jesus held up the bread and said, "This is my body," on the night before his death, he was using bread made without leaven, unadulterated by decay.

1. (I Corinthians 5:6-8):
"Don't you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."

E. Jesus held up a piece of unleavened bread and broke off a special piece, this piece of unleavened bread referred to "the coming one," meaning the longed-for-Messiah.