Sermon for Ash Wednesday, March 2, 2022
Mercy, peace,
and love be multiplied to you. Amen.
Matthew 26:18 18He said, “Go into the city to
a certain man and tell him the Teacher says, ‘My time is near. I will observe the Passover with my disciples
at your house.’” (EHV)
Dear redeemed by the blood of the Lamb,
If you
follow a master procrastinator like me, you might get the idea that when you do
something isn’t all that critical. You
might even begin to wonder whether doing a job is all that important. Granted, some things can wait, and I have
discovered over the years that if I let certain things sit on my desk, at some
point, I can just throw them away because they don’t matter anymore.
On the other hand, and there is always another
hand, there are things that simply must be done at the proper time, and some things
must be done perfectly in order to achieve the desired success. If your wife is in the middle of labor, she
will consider it crucial that you get her to the hospital on time. A surgeon operating on the human brain must
be as close to perfect in his work as is humanly possible. When there is an accident or someone has a
stroke or heart attack, it is crucial to get help as soon as possible to give
the victim the best chance to survive.
This Lenten season, we will review the crucial
nature of Jesus’ work on our behalf. We
will see how critical it is that He did everything demanded of Him, and always
at exactly the right time to fulfill His Father’s will. Tonight, as we begin our look at the Crucial
Hours, we remember Jesus’ statement, “I will keep [observe] the Passover.”
Now, many might guess that Jesus would want to
observe the Passover simply out of tradition.
After all, the Jews had been celebrating that festival for over fourteen
hundred years. It was the highlight of
their worship year. Sad to say, however,
there were many times that Jewish worship life fell along the wayside. And you have to wonder, how often did their
celebration of the Passover end up more like a Christmas celebration in
times—where the reason for the season is often lost in pursuit of our tumultuous,
complicated lives. Where you have to
compromise on when to gather to satisfy everyone’s busy schedule. Where foods are chosen more by personal
tastes than by God’s command.
Now, I grant you there is no command about what
we must eat in our Christmas celebrations, or where we should gather, or even
how or when to celebrate. Yet, how often
do our Christmas gatherings become more focused on earthly gifts than on the
divine gift of a Savior? How often do
our worship lives neglect God’s command to remember the Sabbath? And how often do we forget that our Sabbath,
our Rest, is Jesus? Or how often do we
think, “I don’t have time to spend with the Lord, today, but I will get to it
soon.”? How often do all our intentions
to obey any of God’s commands go out the window when our minds wander, or
temptation comes our way?
I promise you; Jesus never neglected any detail
of God’s instruction. Jesus was intent
on observing this Passover, because fourteen hundred years of observing that
event were pointing toward this very moment when the Lamb of God would shed His
blood to rescue slaves to sin from their terrible masters. The whole biblical history was leading up to
this point in time. God had promised
this confrontation in the Garden of Eden: “He will crush your head, and you
will crush his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)
As we remember that original Passover, remember
that the reason for it was that the Egyptians enslaving God’s people refused to
let the Israelites go. Do you think the
devil would willingly give up his hold over us?
That’s right, all people, including us, were under the devil’s slavish
grip, and that serpent is a greedy taskmaster.
He controls everyone who is not walking with the Lord. The only escape is for our God to wrest us
from Satan’s control, and that starts with the Blood of the Lamb.
Back in Egypt, God gave expressly detailed
instructions for how to commemorate the Passover. That first night in Egypt, it was critical
that the Israelites obey God’s instructions to the last detail because anyone
who failed to obey, or failed to follow the instructions exactly, would have
lost the firstborn of his house. That
too pointed forward to God giving His firstborn Son to be the Lamb of God whose
blood would preserve you and me.
Jesus told His disciples, “I have eagerly
desired to eat this Passover with you.” (Luke 22:15) When you consider that Jesus knew exactly
what was coming immediately following this meal, you have to wonder how He
could say that. He was eagerly looking
forward to this last supper knowing that His blood was going to be shed the
very next day, even that night, for sins He didn’t commit. We grow so used to taking short cuts, and
doing the best we can knowing we will never be perfect, that we might assume
that Jesus would do the same. But, Jesus
is not us though He was living for us.
God has declared, “You shall be holy, because
I, the Lord your God, am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2) God would not
settle for anything less than perfect righteousness in His people. Therefore, Jesus told His disciples, “Do
not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy them but to fulfill
them. Amen I tell you: Until heaven and
earth pass away, not even the smallest letter, or even part of a letter, will
in any way pass away from the Law until everything is fulfilled.” (Matthew
5:17-18) As we compare Jesus’ life next
to the Ten Commandments, we see that He obeyed them perfectly. There was never a moment when Jesus did not
honor His Father in heaven or his mother and stepfather on earth. Not only did Jesus not kill, but He also
worked tirelessly to help and befriend those who came to Him. Name the commandment and you will see the ways
Jesus loved God with all His heart and soul and mind and His neighbor as
Himself.
That was Jesus living out His active obedience
to His Father’s will for you and me. Next
would come His passive obedience. The
Bible says, “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” (Ezekiel 18:20) The psalmist wrote, “God looks down from heaven
on all the children of Adam to see if there is anyone
who understands, anyone who seeks God. Every single one has
turned back. Altogether they have become rotten. There is no one who does
good. There is not even one.” (Psalm 53:2-3) Yet, the Lord gives us hope. Finally, “The Lord looked and saw
something evil—there was no
justice. He saw that there was no
one. He was appalled that there was no
one who could intervene. So his own arm
worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness supported him.” (Isaiah 59:15-16)
No person who has even lived, except Jesus, could live in the holiness
God demands. Yet, God loves us, so He
made plans to save us, and Jesus came into this world to make it all
happen. Therefore, to complete His life
of perfect obedience to His Father’s will on our behalf, Jesus had to die
exactly as foretold.
“The Teacher says, ‘My time is near. I will observe the Passover with my disciples
at your house.’” We are not told the name of the man who owned
the home, but it is clear that Jesus knew him
Many details are left out of the gospel accounts concerning the
preparations the apostles made on Jesus’ behalf. However, there is no doubt that Jesus was
doing exactly as His Father had planned.
The final celebration of the Passover festival is not the meal Jesus ate
with His disciples. It is the Lamb of
God shedding His blood on the cross to cover the sins of the world. Yes, Jesus and His disciples ate lamb at the
meal, but Jesus provided His own body to be our Passover Lamb.
As pre-shown in all those Old Testament
sacrifices, God took all our sins, the sins of the whole world, and placed them
on the head of His perfect, precious Lamb, His own beloved Son, and the Lamb of
God carried our sins to a certain death and the wilderness of hell, so that you
and I would stand clean and holy before God.
At that Crucial Hour in history, nothing less would do. If Jesus missed any one detail, or if He was even
one moment late, you and I would be consigned to hell for eternity. Thus, “God made him, who did not know sin,
to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.”
(2 Corinthians 5:21)
Dear friends, this evening as you come forward
to partake of the Lord’s Supper, you will be eating the flesh of the Lamb of
God who is the real, final, eternal Passover Lamb. In the wine, you will drink His blood, given
and shed for your sins, so that will know that God has removed your sins as far
from you as east is from the west. (Psalm 103:12) Each time you partake of this holy meal is a
reminder that Jesus willingly gave Himself into a torturous death so that your
enslavement by the serpent is ended, and Satan can no longer control or accuse
you. Because of Jesus, your sins are
wiped away forever.
The blood of the Lamb rescued you from the
devil’s control, and from death’s prison, so that you may live in God’s
presence in heaven forever as a beloved child and member of His family washed
perfectly clean and holy in the water of baptism made holy by the Good News of
all that Jesus did for you in His life and sacrifice. Forever after, this holy meal will also
empower you for your journey through this wilderness land to the home God has
promised you forever. Let His Word of
promise be your food unto life everlasting.
Keep God’s instruction as your guide for living. Walk with your perfectly obedient Savior who,
risen from the grave and ascended to God’s side in heaven, has promised He will
never leave you nor forsake you. (Hebrews 13:5)
All glory be to Jesus, your personal, Passover Lamb. Amen.
Now to the King eternal, to the immortal, invisible, only God, be honor
and glory forever and ever. Amen.
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