Passover Meal

The Passover meal commemorates the Israelites exodus from Egypt. A lamb is eaten with bitter herbs symbolizing the bitterness of slavery in Egypt, while unleavened bread symbolizes their hasty departure. Jesus, however, shockingly altered the Passover meal ceremony, indicating that this particular meal was a covenant-making one in which God’s covenant with humanity would be renewed through Jesus’ sacrificial death. In this way the Passover would find “fulfillment in the kingdom of God” (Luke 22:16).

The transformation of the Passover meal’s significance occurs through Jesus’ decision to become the Passover lamb in order to deliver the world from sin, evil, and death. The fulfillment of the Passover is the messianic banquet (14:15–24) celebrating God’s deliverance of all creation. At Jesus’ second coming, this banquet will celebrate the complete fulfillment of this deliverance, though Christ’s victory is already won and celebrated now.

Monica La Rose