Bible Passage: Matthew 26:18
Pastor: Michael Willitz
Sermon Date: Ash Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Bulletin Ash Wednesday 2022

Note, in the video recording, the camera froze at 48:50. Our apologies for this.

Matthew 26:18

He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’”

“I Will Keep the Passover”

Dear fellow redeemed in Jesus, our Righteousness,

This Lenten season, the theme for our midweek services is The Crucial Hours, and that theme comes from the name of a book. The Crucial Hours is a commentary that was written by a Lutheran pastor several decades ago, focusing in on the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. As a title, The Crucial Hours is actually a pun. It has two meanings: for one thing the word “crucial” is derived from the Latin word for “cross”, and for another thing we use the word “crucial” in modern English to mean that something is decisive or critical. So, in our midweek Lenten services this year, we will survey those hours, those crucial hours, which led to Jesus’ cross, and we will consider how those crucial hours were decisive and critical hours for Jesus, for those around Him, and for us.

We begin in the middle of the day on Maundy Thursday, when Jesus said to his disciples “I will keep the Passover.”

That evening, Jesus and His disciples would gather in an upper room, and they would recline beside a table, and they would eat a special meal. This meal was not merely a tradition like Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas ham. The Jews had been commanded to eat the Passover meal as a yearly remembrance of God’s deliverance from Egypt. On the night of the first Passover, centuries before, the angel of death travelled through the land of Egypt, putting to death every first Egyptian male as a judgment on Pharaoh for his refusal to let the Israelites go. However, the name for the festival did not come from what the angel of death did at each Egyptian home. The name came from what the angel of death did when he came to a Hebrew house marked on the doorpost with the blood of the Passover lamb. The angel harmed no one at those homes, and, instead, he passed over them, hence the name of the festival: the Passover.

So Jesus was going to fulfill God’s command. It was the time for the Passover, and He was going to keep it. And isn’t that an interesting wording, that Jesus would keep the Passover. He was not going to lose it or drop it or let go of it, not one bit of it. Instead, He would hold onto the festival as God had intended it. He would keep it, intact, complete, and whole.

That is what God intends for all of His commands. We are to keep them. Nothing is to be left out. Nothing is to be lacking. When it comes to the law, 90% doesn’t cut it, just like it’s not good enough to have a clock with 90% of its gears, and it’s not good enough to have a white shirt that’s 90% stain free. There is no partial keeping of the law. When God says, “You shall not murder,” He requires not only that our hands support the life and welfare of others, but also that our hearts do as well. When God says, “You shall not commit adultery,” He requires not only that our bodies respect the boundaries of marriage, but also that our eyes and our minds do as well. To truly keep the law requires 100% compliance with 100% of yourself 100% of the time. Anything less than that 100% is not good enough.

Writing about the requirement of the law, the Apostle Paul paraphrases a passage from Deuteronomy, and he writes, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law,” [Galatians 3:10]. With that being the case, you and I have to admit that we deserve God’s curse, don’t we? We have not completed His commands with the commitment and the integrity and the perfection that He requires. And it has not even been close.

Yet in that crucial hour on that important Maundy Thursday, our Lord was preparing to keep the Passover. Our Lord would truly keep the Passover. He would keep it down to the last detail with every fiber of His being. He sent Peter and John to secure the room, a room that would accommodate Jesus and twelve disciples. He would ensure that the lamb was prepared, a male lamb of one year that fit all the requirements. No blind lamb would do. No maimed lamb would do. Only an unblemished and undefiled lamb without defect would be suitable to slaughter and to set on the table. This lamb would be stretched out on a stake and roasted whole over the fire. Just as God had commanded, not one of its bones would be broken. Along with the lamb, Jesus and the disciples would not eat regular bread. They would eat unleavened bread, bread without a trace of yeast. Jesus would cut no corners. He would keep the Passover down to the last detail, and He would keep it from the heart. This would not be an example of someone going through the motions. At the outset of the meal, He even said to His disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer,” [Luke 22:15]. Jesus truly kept the Passover.

While that kind of perfection is certainly beyond what we can reach, for Jesus it was par for the course. In fact, in His famous sermon on the mount, Jesus said this about Himself,

Do not think that I came to destroy the Law of 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].

No requirement, no demand, no obligation in the law was insignificant to our Savior. He kept the law to the letter, even to the smallest letter. When you take out your phone and you text other people, do you ever leave letters out or shorten words to save time and space? Maybe you send the letters “brb” instead of “Be right back”. Or maybe instead of “Ok” you just send the letter “k”. Isn’t our observance of the law kind of similar? We neglect this part here, we ignore that requirement there. But that’s not how it was with Jesus. He constantly did everything written in the book of the law. He dotted every “i”, and He crossed every “t” by an unblemished and undefiled life of perfect obedience. That Passover meal on Maundy Thursday was but one example.

Then after the meal, Jesus kept the Passover by fulfilling what the festival had been foreshadowing all along. With the deliverance of his people from Egypt through the blood of the lamb, God foreshadowed the deliverance of His people from their sins by the blood of the true Lamb, the Messiah. All those unblemished male lambs slaughtered year after year served as an image of our Savior, the holy Lamb of God. He was without the blemish of sin, 100% righteous, 100% pure, 100% in accord with the law, and 100% pleasing to God.

In the crucial hours of Good Friday, this Lamb went to the slaughter. Much like the lamb that Jesus and His disciples had eaten the evening before, Jesus was stretched out on a cross. Not a single bone of His body was broken. There on the cross, He died instead of us, the innocent for the guilty. There He suffered the curse for us, the law keeper for law breakers. As the Apostle Paul writes, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree,’” [Galatians 3:13]. The curse from God which we deserve for breaking His Law was placed on Christ instead of us. And now, since He has suffered that curse in our place, the curse passes over all who believe in Him.

The Lamb has been slaughtered. The sacrifice has been made. The price has been paid. Nothing is lacking, and we can be sure of this because Jesus our Passover Lamb has been raised to life. No longer do lambs need to be slaughtered year after year, because Jesus kept the Passover. He fulfilled everything that all of those sacrificed lambs foreshadowed. Yet, while we need not kill a lamb and observe the Passover meal, Christ has left us with a special meal to celebrate again and again. With unleavened bread, He gives us His body, and with a cup of wine, He gives us His blood. With this holy meal, Jesus delivers the forgiveness that He has won for our sins, and He clothes us with His complete and unstained righteousness, like a pure and spotless white robe without a wrinkle or a stain.

How will we want to remember the deliverance our God has given us? We will hear His Word and we will receive this meal regularly with trusting and thankful hearts.

And how will we want to show our love to Him? In 1 John we read, “This is love for God: that we keep His commands,” [5:3]. As those redeemed by Jesus, we have the privilege of pursuing what God’s law requires, not out of fear of being punished, but out of love because we have been saved. Even the things that seem like small things can be beautiful ways to show our love for God and for our neighbor. Christ consciously and actively fulfilled even the smallest letter of the law. When you do the smallest thing like returning change when you’ve received too much or making your ear a rumor’s grave rather than repeating it, or obeying your parent’s command without being asked twice, you show your love and your thankfulness for what God has done.

Your righteousness remains in Jesus, who kept all God’s commands in your place. He kept the Passover, and in Him you are delivered. To Him be glory both now and forevermore.

Amen.

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