Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
JOH 5:5 where TLJC said to the man in JOH 5:8 Jesus said to him, “Arise, take up your pallet, and walk.”
After we are through you are going to wonder why the Jewish people cannot “see” that what they are celebrating points to the person of Jesus Christ.
Passover began on the first month of the Jewish calendar, April 14, 1441 BC According to EXO 12:1‑14; LEV 23:5.
God told the Jews that April should the first month because spring represents the beginning of life.
It is the oldest celebration that we have today, 3,500 years old. And this feast portrayed the work of Christ on the cross with emphasis on redemption.
In preparation for the passover, the house must be cleaned and sterilized in honor of this great occasion.
The house must be free of all leaven. Leaven is simply yeast used to make bread rise and is found in bread, cakes, cookies etc.
Leaven is symbolic of sin or evil. This is why the Lord said, MAT 16:6 “watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
GAL 5:9, a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.
In preparation for the passover, the Jews had to get rid of all the leaven from their home.
There could be no yeast and the leaven would be burnt in the fire representing the judgment of sin.
1CO 5:7-8, Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our passover also has been sacrificed. let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Sincerity and truth is needed to celebrate this feast.
After the leaven is cleaned out, the next procedure in the preparation of the passover is to get out the special white linen cloths that go with the meal.
White linen is symbolic of perfect righteousness in the Bible, REV 1:14; REV 3:5; REV 19:7-8.
In an orthodox Jewish home that follows the precise correct procedure, the table is set with a white tablecloth and white candles, and the father of the house wears a white robe called a kittel and a white crown.
The Lord Jesus Christ who glowed white after his resurrection.
There are white dishes used which were not used throughout the rest of the year.
The white linen, white plates, and white candles are used to create an atmosphere of purity.
Once the table is set and the father is ready, the candles are lit as the preparation continues.
A woman lights the candles because it was a woman who brought us Christ, the light of the world.
God chose a woman, Mary, to bring us Christ our passover, therefore a woman still brings the light to the passover celebration.
After the woman lights the candle she sings a certain song. What she said was, “Blessed art Thou O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has exalted us among all people and bade us to kindle the passover lights.”
Four cups of wine will be drunk as part of the passover ceremony.
The cups should be filled by one of the servants representing mastery and freedom.
The first cup is called the cup of sanctification and it simply sanctifies the table and all of the preparations.
After the first cup, the father takes three loaves of the unleavened bread and places them in a special white linen envelope which has three compartments.
In a special ceremony of his own, the father removes the middle loaf from its compartment, breaks it, and then wraps it in a separate piece of white linen and hides it away or “buries” it somewhere.
1. The first question, why is this night distinguished from all other nights? On this night we eat only unleavened bread.
The father begins to chant what the whole of the Haggadah and as the story unravels the questions are all answered.
The first question why is this night distinguished from all other nights? On this night we eat only unleavened bread. The answer is that unleavened bread symbolizes purity from sin.
2. On all other nights we may eat any kind of herbs, but on this night only bitter herbs. Why?
The bitter herbs remind the Jews of the bitterness of slavery in Egypt.
3. The third question – On all other nights we do not dip in the bowl, but tonight we dip twice. Why?
This is the dipping, by which the Lord Jesus Christ identified His betrayer, Judas, when he said the “The one who dips with me shall betray Me”, and this has several meanings.
The first dip represents Israel going into the Red Sea and coming out unharmed.
The second dip is for the Egyptian army who tried to follow them, the parsley is dipped and then immediately.
4. The fourth question; On this night we all recline in our chairs at the table. Why?
The reclining in the chairs has to do with freedom. The Jews are no longer slaves and so they can relax.
As the father is telling about the bitterness of slavery, he serves each person horseradish from the center plate and they take the bread and take a bite of the horseradish.
As he talks about the lamb, he gestures to the unbroken shank bone of the lamb which is on the plate. Then there is the charose (harosis) which was like a paste made thick to symbolize the clay or representing the mortar than Pharaoh made them make.
It’s made of figs, dates, nuts and was to symbolize the sweetness or the pleasures of sin in the world. The Bible teaches that sin will give you pleasure for a season.
HEB 11:25 “choosing rather to endure ill‑treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin;”
The second cup is spilled into the individual plates in front of each person, a drop at a time.
Each drop remembers a plague God visited upon Egypt while the implacable Pharaoh hardened his heart.
The ten red drops fall into the empty white plate in front of each person and they are clearly representative of those ten great plagues in Egypt.
The father chants the name of each plague, blood, frogs, gnats, insects, boils, locust, darkness, death etc. It is a very melancholy moment but it is dispelled quickly as the main meal comes out.