Thursday, March 20, 2008
Maundy Thursday
Exodus 12:5-7 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it.
John 19:33, 36 But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, "Not one of His bones shall be broken."
MAUNDY THURSDAY
On Maundy Thursday, Jesus and His disciples celebrated the Passover. They ate roasted lamb, bitter herbs, and unleavened bread. They remembered how God had delivered the Israelites from Egypt through the blood of the Passover Lamb painted on the door posts of their houses.
The Passover Lamb was to be without blemish or spot or any physical defect, nor were any of its bones to be broken (Exodus 12:46). This is important to us because Jesus is called our Passover Lamb in 1 Corinthians 5:7. It should give us pause to hear that none of His bones were broken, that the Scripture was fulfilled.
Instead, one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear. And the resulting flow of blood and water proved that Jesus was indeed dead. This too was done, in fulfillment of the Scriptures: "They shall look on Him whom they pierced."
These remarkable testimonies are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus really died, that He shed His blood -- and that to pay for your sins. These things, seemingly unimportant to many, serve to strengthen our faith in the Word of God.
Many will come to the altar of the Lord this evening to receive unleavened bread and grape wine. In this seemingly unremarkable meal Jesus also gives us His body and blood, the very body and blood which He gave and shed on the cross.
Jesus didn't have to do this. He doesn't have to confirm our faith by coming to us in the Words of Institution to tell us: "This is my body which is given for you . . . this is my blood of the new covenant, shed for you for the remission of sins" -- but He does. Jesus didn't have to promise to give us that body and blood in a miraculous way along with the bread and wine, but this is indeed what happens.
So Jesus again lays His Sacrifice before our eyes and makes it personal to each of us. He confirms that He did all of this for you and for me.
