“The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, your proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Recently, we celebrated another Easter season. Leading up to Easter, a number of people will take part in Lent, sacrificing something of value for forty days so that we can focus more on God. Lent makes ready the groundwork of our heart and soul for Easter: to hear from God and to be reminded of the depth and gravity of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The Sunday before Easter we celebrate Palm Sunday and then ready ourselves to lead into an entire week of remembering – Holy Week. Holy week consists of a Passover celebration where a Seder and meal are fashioned together and eaten to remember God’s faithfulness and power. On Good Friday we gather together to remember Christ’s death and to partake in the bread and the juice of communion. Lastly, Easter Sunday is meant for church, family time, chocolate eggs, company and a spread of delicious food to celebrate our Risen King. For Christians, Easter is a forty day preparation.
The preparation for the first Easter began long ago, before time began and before the Earth began to spin. It originated with God’s plan to send Christ to save. The thread of this plan is seen throughout Scripture, weaving God’s infinite grace and mercy around the failures and shortcomings of humans. Being able to look back from the twentieth century and see that God’s plan had all along been Jesus, shows us the mark of His fingerprint on each of us. God had been preparing for this for a long time. Long before the first nail was driven through Jesus’ hand into the wood of the cross, He was putting the necessary pieces in place for His perfect plan. God had prepared for Easter.
Humans, on the other hand, began to prepare for Easter by following God’s commands at the original Passover (Exodus 12). The Israelites were living in Egypt as slaves to Pharaoh. They were told what they could and couldn’t do. One of the things they were told they could not do was to worship God properly. This weighed heavily on the people’s heart. God sent Moses, a redeemer, to speak on God’s behalf to Pharaoh to ask that the people could be able to leave to go and worship God properly. What did Pharaoh say? If you have ever taught this story to kids, now would be the perfect time to yell (all together at the top of our lungs): “NO!” Pharaoh said no. God brought plagues down on Egypt to show Pharaoh that He is God and He is commanding that he let His people go worship. Pharaoh’s prideful heart saw his own people suffering through famine, plagues of boils, locusts, crops and cattle dying, and yet still refused to let his slaves go. God sent the final plague – the angel of death – into the city to kill all the first born sons. God wanted to protect His people from this final and horribly disastrous plague and so He gave them instructions on how to prepare to leave and to keep their family safe. He told them to sacrifice a year old male lamb, to paint the blood on their doorposts, to roast the lamb in bitter herbs, to make bread without yeast, and to eat the food with their shoes on, staff in hand and ready to go as a sign of faith and anticipation for what was to come . . . their mass exodus from Egypt. God’s instructions allowed the Israelites to celebrate the first Passover meal in faith before they witnessed God’s protection. They prepared their celebration and celebrated together before they had something to celebrate. They celebrated their deliverance while still under the yoke of slavery in anticipation and faith for God to do what He said. And, like He has always done, God followed through with what He said, leading His people out of Egypt and eventually into a land that He had promised for them.
Each year afterwards (besides a few disobedient ones!) the Israelites would celebrate Passover and they would remember how God used Moses to lead them out of Egypt into freedom. And, each time as they gathered with their families and community to celebrate, they prepared their tables as God had commanded, all while God prepared their hearts for the great and wonderful redemptive plan of Jesus. The Exodus foreshadows an even greater deliverance: the ultimate deliverance of our souls through the death of Christ on the cross.
In the Gospels we read of Jesus celebrating this same Passover with his own friends. Jesus tells his disciples to go and make the necessary preparations so they can, once again as they have been for thousands of years, celebrate the Passover together. This particular Passover being recalled in the New Testament, happens to be the very night that Jesus is arrested. Jesus knew this was one of the final moments that He would have with His friends and so they reclined at the table and they ate and drank together, clinking their glasses and toasting the goodness and faithfulness of God. Unbeknownst to the disciples, they had prepared a table to celebrate the greatest deliverance in the history of the world, just a few days in advance.
You see, each year as Christians, we gather to celebrate Easter. We make the necessary preparations and we celebrate the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus and His wonderful victory over sin and death. We leave our tables thankful and full. But, what if we saw our Easter celebration as God continuing to prepare our hearts in advance for yet another celebration? In Matthew 25, we read about ten virgins who are awaiting a bridegroom. Half of them have prepared and have put oil in their lamps in expectation. They don’t want to have nothing ready when the bridegroom arrives to take them away! The other half of them are lazy and unbelieving . . . or they believe they will have time later! The bridegroom shows up unexpectedly and takes with him only the women that have prepared – the others are left alone, in the dark. As God’s people, this parable holds a warning and a good word for us. That is warning is: be prepared for what’s to come. Throughout the book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament, the disciples constantly talk about the return of Christ. They talked about it as if it was happening today. Their oil was in their lamps and they were ready to celebrate their King coming on the clouds as He promised He would. They were prepared.
Each year, as we gather to celebrate Easter and to thank God for His wonderful sacrifice and ultimate victory, let’s remember what we are preparing for. Let’s gather in anticipation and celebration of His final return.
Lord, prepare our hearts and make us ready for You.
Written by: Justine Joy
Refined Joy 