The Passover.
The Passover was by far the most important of the Jewish feasts. The disciples of our Lord were sure that he, who ever fulfilled the righteousness of the Law, would not fail to observe it. Their reminder of what they supposed he had forgotten, but which really was the subject of far profounder thought with him than they could fathom, immediately led to the remarkable incidents which are here recorded—the strange provision of the feast by a secret disciple, and the spiritual institution which Christ founded on the ancient rite. There were truths set forth by the Mosaic festival of which the Jews were never to lose sight, and which are full of significance to us. A few of these we will recall.
I. THE PASSOVER REQUIRED A SPOTLESS VICTIM. In this, as in many other Jewish ordinances, the spiritual was represented by the visible. The victim might be chosen from the goats or from the sheep. (Kids were offered as late as Josiah's reign (2 Chronicles 35:7), although in our Lord's time only lambs were sacrificed.) This was of less consequence than the rule that the victim chosen should be "without blemish." Not deformed, sickly, or injured.
1. Doubtless this taught the worshippers to offer their best, and do so cheerfully, with humble acknowledgment of the Divine right. The Jews learnt the lesson. Their religion cost them something, and they nobly responded to its claims, as we see when the tabernacle was erected and when the temple was built. Christians, in their gifts and in services, too often act as the Israelites would have done had they chosen their blemished and sickly lambs for sacrifice.
2. Besides, this provision was significant of the sacred purpose to which the victim was devoted, and symbolical of the moral integrity of the person it represented. The male of the first year, in the fullness of its life, stood for the firstborn sons of Israel, who were spared, while it died.
3. Nor does this exhaust the meaning. The spotless lamb points to him of whom John Baptist said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" to him who "offered up himself;" to him of whom we read, "Ye are not redeemed with corruptible things … but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish, and without spot."
II. THE PASSOVER REQUIRED PERSONAL PARTICIPATION. It might have seemed to human wisdom hardly reasonable that deliverance from a pestilence should be the result of sprinkling the blood of a slaughtered lamb on the two side posts and lintel of the door; but he would have suffered the penalty of his rashness who had run the risk of his incredulity. Every saved household had its own lamb, and every saved one in that household was compelled to remain, for his safety, in the blood-sprinkled house. This arrangement, on the basis of family relationship, was not made so much for convenience as it was to sanction and sanctify home life, and to teach all who were united by earthly love to find their center in the Paschal lamb. The Israelites were not saved because they were descended from Abraham, but because of the blood sprinkled in faith and obedience.
III. THE PASSOVER WAS TO BE ACCOMPANIED BY PENITENCE AND SINCERITY.
1. The use of unleavened bread was ordained. Leaven, the presence of which was strictly forbidden, was a symbol of moral corruption, which the people were to put away from their hearts. Christ Jesus warned his disciples against "the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." St. Paul (1 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Corinthians 5:8), referring to evil in the Church, said, "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." More than anything else our Lord rebuked insincerity. As the King of truth he still says, "He that is of the truth heareth my voice."
2. Bitter herbs were also to be eaten at the Passover. Not because ahoy would give flavor to sweeter food, nor as a mere accompaniment to it, but as an essential part of the feast. The bitter bondage of Egypt was thereby represented, which was overpowered by the sweetness of the lamb. It may symbolize the bitter sorrow with which we should mourn our guilt.
IV. THE PASSOVER WAS A SOURCE OF PEACE, A PLEDGE OF PROGRESS.
1. The Israelites in Egypt knew that judgment was falling around them, and in that ominous dreadful night the peace of each one was proportioned to his trust in the appointed means of deliverance.
2. Those who partook of the feast were prepared for the march through the Red Sea and the wilderness, until Canaan was reached and won.—A.R.