In this episode, we look at how Jesus is the fulfillment of passover and helps us walk from spiritual slavery into a new life that He has for us. No matter where you are in your journey the offer for a life of freedom is on offer from Jesus. 

  Hey everybody, welcome back to the Pine Hills Church Podcast. My name is Aaron. So grateful you are gathering with us today. Excited to bring you the conversation. We're giving you the video or audio, depending on if you're podcasting or YouTubing. Uh, the conversation that happened within our gathering this past Sunday.

So grateful you can catch up with what we're talking about in Mark chapter 14. A lot of different things that are happening in that, but the main theme is what is the Passover and how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Passover as he sets us free from spiritual slavery, invites us into a new kind of life.

And so with that, I can't wait for you just to enjoy the teaching and the conversation today. I hope it's a blessing to you. Enjoy.  In getting to our series, we're in our 30th week of this I Believe series. The end is on the horizon because we're starting Advent at the end of this series and I'm pumped because we started this series at the end of Easter, remember?

We, we ended Easter and like we wanted to go into, if we're talking about the resurrection, we want to just pull back a bit and talk about the life of Jesus and go through the Gospel of Mark together because Mark teaches us what was Jesus like and why that matters for our lives.  And so we've been going through this bit by bit by bit for 30 weeks, just a few weeks left.

We're in Mark chapter 14 this week, and as we get into the chapter, I just wonder how do you respond to people when they reject you?  How do you respond to people when they reject you?  Do you forgive and continue to extend the offer of relationship? Or do you sever the relationship?  And if I'm honest  I have far more examples of severing the relationship instead of extending grace.

I just kind of wonder what, what the world would look like if Jesus responded to rejection more like me,  instead of how he chooses to respond to rejection. And so with that, let's get into Mark chapter 14 verse 1, it says it was now two days before Passover and the festival unleavened bread.  The leading priest and the teachers of religious law were still looking for an opportunity to capture Jesus secretly and to what?

To kill him.  But not during Passover celebration, they agreed, or the people may write, which is a big concern in the day, they wanted to keep the peace, if not, the government would step in and make sure that peace was held. But Jesus had traveled into Jerusalem to celebrate the religious festival of Passover.

I don't know if you've caught that as we've been reading through the past couple of stories. And today we're going to look at how Jesus celebrates the Passover meal with his friends as his final meal before his arrest and his ultimate death.  And there's an interesting connection point to Passover with Jesus that we see fully fulfilled through his life.

But to capture more of what is happening, we need to fill in some backstory of what Passover is so that we can see that Jesus actually, what he's fulfilling in the Passover is no coincidence at all. And so you might be thinking, well what in the world is Passover, and he's gonna, as you've read through Mark, what, what is Passover?

What is that? And I wanted to answer this because if you go on Google  And you type that in, you're gonna get a, a pretty black and white answer of what that is. But it might bring a lot of questions. And Google doesn't tend to want to fill out those questions for you. And so I wanted to make sure, like I addressed that, we had a bit of a pastoral response to what Passover was and what that meant in the life of Israel and how Jesus ultimately fulfills this and points us to a greater hope.

And so to get to it, it goes all the way back to the Old Testament. If you've read your Bible, it's broken into two different sections, right? The Old Testament and the New Testament.  And so, the Passover happened in the Old Testament, and to briefly catch you up on a hyperlink, the people of Israel were historically enslaved as a workforce for Egypt.

And Israel had grown from one family to a massive group that had threatened Pharaoh  with the idea of just sheer numbers could simply overthrow one of the strongest military powers in the world.  Isn't that incredible? And so he begins to get nervous. I mean, what am I gonna do? Like, how am I gonna keep them in check?

And so Pharaoh has this idea, let's just increase the back breaking work to the point that they would just limit their numbers, right? If I just simply exhaust them, like, when they go home, they're just crashing on the couch, right? Having more kids is not an option in his mind. He's trying to decrease their numbers in this way to deflate them, to discourage them.

And it didn't work.  So then he gave an order to have the midwives  Kill all Hebrew male children that were born.  But the midwives couldn't bring themselves to do this because they feared God more than Pharaoh.  And when that didn't work, Pharaoh gave an order that all male children were to be thrown into the river.

Killing off a whole generation of males. You feel the weight of that. You feel the weight of the evil. corrupt, like, form of government that would allow this and demand that this happen.  And what's interesting is that this guy named Moses, who would ultimately be the one that God would use to deliver his people from slavery, was actually being hidden by his mother because he was born during this time.

And she tried to conceal him and tried to hide him until she could conceal him no longer, and as she finally placed him in a water sealed basket, and she hid him among the reeds along the riverbank, praying that God would somehow intervene and not allow her baby to die. And he was discovered by Pharaoh's daughter who brought Moses to be raised in the palace, to be raised in the same household as the evil Pharaoh who had given the order to have him killed.

Isn't that ironic?  And as Moses grew into his adult years, he had to ultimately flee from Egypt, fearing for his life after killing an Egyptian for beating an Israelite.  He was raised as an Egyptian, but he's an Israelite. That's a weird dynamic that he had a grow up feeling.  And what's interesting  is that,  man, he, he took in his own hands this call that God had on his life.

You ever know that you can know the call of God on your life, but then you try to complete it in the wrong way? And that's not the right thing.  And this is what Moses was trying to do. He knew that he was called by God to be a leader of God's people, but he stepped in and tried to do it according to his own power, and he made a mess of it.

And he had to flee the country, which ultimately he goes to live in obscurity as a shepherd for 40 years.  Can you imagine? 40 years.  I've not even lived 40 years yet. Like, I can't even imagine what that feels like. I can't. Like if it's just like two years of obscurity, oh my god, why have you forsaken me?

Like what's happening here, right? Forty years, I can't imagine. Day after day of having just sand in your face, trying to care for a bunch of stinky stupid sheep. Can you imagine?  He was being raised in the palace to have a position of power.  And now he's on the backside of a desert as a shepherd.  And all of a sudden, God comes across his path, and he unveils his plan.

I want you to go back to Egypt to help my people to be freed from slavery.  And Moses is like, I'm a murderer. Like, how, how can that happen?  And God's like, I'm with you, and I'm forgiving that, and I'm, I'm gonna use you.  Which brings an interesting question. If a former murderer could, Be used by God to deliver God's people in a pretty dramatic way.

I'm pretty sure that he can use you despite the things that you think hold you back in your life.  Moses goes to Pharaoh. He buys in on this dream, right? Probably because it's 40 years. I'm sick of being a shepherd. This sounds like a better offer. Let's go try it out, right? And so he goes to Pharaoh and he tells him that God wants him to release the entire workforce.

How do you think that goes?  Like there's a new pharaoh on the scene, they don't know who Moses is, they don't know nothing about Moses, all of a sudden he rolls in and is like, God has told me to let all of your workforce go, today, right now.  How's that going to work? I don't know, you figure it out, God just wants them to go.

And Pharaoh ultimately responds by saying, who's this God? Like what are you talking about? Who's this God? Remember they had their own list of gods, they didn't believe in Yahweh, they didn't believe in God. They're like, who is this? And as the story plays out, God starts to send like, plague after plague after plague on the people of Egypt, attempting to move the heart of Pharaoh, to get him to let the people go.

And even when Pharaoh asked Moses to have God remove one of the plagues, it gets uncomfortable and hard. Would you tell God to make it relenting? Moses would go before God and say, God, would you make it relented? And it would relent, and Pharaoh would change his mind.  And not let the people go. Nine times this happens, time after time after time.

Nine times God gives Pharaoh the opportunity to release his captives. And nine times Pharaoh refuses. So God sends judgment on an evil and corrupt world power. I want you to remember, it's the same type of world power that was throwing babies into the river.  Oppressing an entire people group.  If they weren't working hard enough, they would murder them.

This is the type of power that was in place at the time.  And so, judgment was coming on this power. But God was gonna differentiate His people from evil people, and that judgment was, was gonna fall on the land, but He was gonna keep His people safe. And He tells His people, this is how it's gonna happen.

By preparing a meal. By sacrificing a lamb. Which is weird in our culture, but not weird in their culture, right? You  And so he wants them to sacrifice this lamb, that they would roast and they would eat that night, but on the doorframe of their home, outside of their door, right on that outside frame, that they would paint the blood.

Because this judgment passed over Egypt, the blood of the lamb would cover that home and they would be saved.  But the homes that didn't have the blood covering it would be struck by the worst kind of plague. The plague would take the life of all first born males. The house of Pharaoh, all the way down to every firstborn male livestock.

Imagine even the pain of that.  And God had to slowly increase the severity over ten plagues, giving Pharaoh many opportunities to turn his heart and to release the slaves that he was  exposing  and oppressing and killing. And this final plague is what it took to finally move the heart of Pharaoh to release the slaves.

That's a hard story, right?  It's one I wanted to skirt today. I did not want to talk about today.  But again, if you Googled it, I think it brings up some pretty interesting questions that I wanted to have a pastoral response to. As you read through Mark, and you're like, why in the world is there so much happening with the Passover, and what does that mean?

And if we don't talk about it, we actually don't see how Jesus ultimately fulfills the Passover and all the different meanings with that. And if I could be really, really honest, these are one of the stories in the Bible That I struggle with.  That I struggle with.  Like, God, how could, how could even that happen?

How could you send a plague like that? Like, I get that Pharaoh, like, it took this to move his heart, but why?  But why, but why?  And can I tell you, I don't know if I have resolution to some of those questions.  I don't know if I have that. And I have to default back to what I know about God. I have to remember that while God is love, God is also just.

And I also have to remember that God is the perfect picture of goodness and the perfect picture of justice, and I'm not.  And His ways are better than mine, His thoughts are better than mine, and I'm often conflicted, corrupted, and motivated by all the wrong things, and He never is. And so, if this had to happen, like, ultimately, if I default back to what I know about God, I have to just know that, for God, like, there had to not have been any other way,  but God probably would have taken it.

Egypt was this evil, corrupt society, demonstrated in rulings to enslave and violently oppress the entire, this entire people group, followed by orders to have a generation of males killed in the river to reduce their population, and yet.  You see how evil they are? What is your response to that type of government, if you're experiencing that?

Like, and so it's hard to be on the outside and to like make judgments about some of this stuff without being caught up in all of that. But what I do remember, what I have to remember is that God, even though these people are evil, even though he had the right to bring judgment on all of them, he extends grace how many times?

Nine times.  Nine times to have them turn from their evil ways and to respond to him, and yet they don't. Right? Like, that would be like if someone, like, attacked America in a terrorist attack, right? Do you think we allow that to happen nine times before we react?  Like, no, what is our normal reaction? Like, okay, you hit me, I'm gonna hit you back harder, right?

That's just the American way.  This is a nine times that God offers grace, which means he's far more grace giving than I think I would ever be. He's far more grace giving than I think any of us would ever be. And I know a lot of us talk a bunch of big game about how we're so full of grace, but when it comes down to it, I really don't think we're full of grace.

Yet God shows over and over, even to an evil society, that He offers grace.  And praise God that He is so full of grace. Why?  Because he continues to offer the opportunity to turn from our evil ways. And to extend the offer for each of us to find life in him if we would not be like Pharaoh.  If he would heed the advice of God and turn from our ways and turn to God.

Because we either choose the offer of life or we choose judgment for ourselves.  Nine times Pharaoh could have chose different, and yet he doesn't.  Pharaoh rejected the offer of life and accepted judgment, which led to the death of so many.  And this is what it took to deliver the people of God from slavery.

It's a sad story and it's really hard, but the good part of that is that this entire group, people group in our world got to go free and move the heart of Pharaoh to say, hey, get your people out of here, like I'm done with them. And they were able to finally be free. And they get to walk forward in this newfound freedom.

And Passover, while it's this meal, it became a symbol of celebration for these people. Imagine for generations of being oppressed and finally set free. Like, imagine, like, how amazing that would be. And so this symbol, this Passover meal, was to be instituted year after year after year so that they could celebrate, so they could remember, and it's also as a warning.

Are you still with me? I know it's heavy, but I trust that you can do it.  Okay?  It's a symbol of celebration because the people remembered that God and God alone could only deliver them.  It was a reminder of God's faithfulness in the past and continued faithfulness in the future, and it was also a warning that all of us can be formed into the image of an evil empire, where evil actions flow from our evil hearts.

And then all we'll ever reap in that scenario is judgment and death.  We can be formed into the image of empire, or we can be formed into the image of God. To receive life, and to walk in newfound freedom, and to leave spiritual slavery behind us. We get to walk into all that God has for us of being people of grace to the rest of the world.

And with all of the people in this city, back to Mark chapter 14, who flocked into the city to remember Passover, to have this amazing meal, to remember all that God has done and will be doing. Jesus had this meal with a guy named Simon, who had been healed of leprosy. Now imagine this, leprosy, like you could not  be around people if you had this skin condition because they don't want that to be spread to a bunch of other people.

But all of a sudden, he's healed of that and he can. Have all these friends over and to have a meal again. Imagine being  on the outskirts of society, not able to interact with anyone else. And all of a sudden you can have that first meal again. You remember when we were shut down from COVID and  how terrible that was at times.

And I remember like, we finally got to open up, but just a little bit, we had to take a bit of a risk, but we had some meals and we had some people that we trust that maybe are a close group of friends and just had them over. And we had that meal and you remember how good it was to be with each other again.

That's what Simon is feeling in this moment, like outskirts of society, and yet he's healed, and he can now have people over. The joy of this celebration, in the midst of this, there's a girl who steps onto the scene, and she offers a gift that is way too much for some people. Anyone ever have that friend that just goes over the top?

Like no matter what, it's like over the top, the gifts are just extravagant, beautiful, and super thought out, and the gifts you give in return are usually not that extravagant or thought out, right?  And so she steps in the scene, and she gets over to Jesus. This woman has been so changed by Jesus. He had given her a gift that, man, in comparison, is nothing to what she's about to offer.

But she comes into the middle of this dinner party, she gets over to Jesus. She has this large jar filled with perfume, and she breaks the jar, pouring the perfume on Jesus.  This perfume is so expensive. It would have been a year's wages. Can you imagine spending a year's wages one on perfume anyway?  Like I know it's the holiday season and I know all the fragrance commercials are on, but I cannot imagine spending a year's  salary like right.

What would Dave Ramsey say about that? That'd probably be a terrible decision. Yet for her, she's ready to offer this, this extravagant gift that everyone else thought was a waste.  It's expensive, it was elaborate. Some would think, man, this is just, why are you doing this? And some around the table are actually offended and protest and begin to like, talk down to this woman.

They break into this beautiful moment, scolding her on this elaborate waste. And Jesus finally says, stop.  Stop.  This woman has anointed my body. For burial at a time. Imagine being around this joyous celebration and Jesus again is talking about his death.  His friends are like, man, Jesus is just upping the weird quota.

Like, talking about death over and over and over. Now he gives this beautiful gift and instead of like saying, look how beautiful I smell, he's talking again about death.  Because he knows what's coming at the end of the week.  And that she has prepared his body for burial. And finally, one of these guys who's was offended was a guy named Judas, who was one of the 12.

And Judas is finally pushed over the edge. Mark 14, 10 through 11. Judas is obviously one of the ones very offended by this waste of money that it actually leads him  to joining the plot to have Jesus killed.  Judas was the treasurer for the group. Some think that he was probably stealing money out of the treasury and Judas wouldn't have been concerned about the poor but certainly knows how to make a religious case, right?

Like, why would she waste all this? She could have given it to the poor and Jesus is like, you're always gonna have the poor. She's doing a beautiful thing. Judas doesn't care. He just has religious language that fuels argument. Anyone else know someone like that?  And so, Judas, to me, can I be honest?  He's really interesting because he's one of the twelve that gets to be with Jesus, walking on earth for three years.

He gets to see and participate in miracles. He is the front row to see how Jesus loves and welcomes in sinners. He gets backstage access to hear Jesus explain all the ways of the kingdom. And Judas, at one point, saw something in Jesus that motivated him so much. To, that he, like the rest of everyone else, left everything behind to join Jesus.

But over time, there's that slide in Judas life, right?  He slid away, because you don't just wake up one day and think, man, this is a really good day to abandon my good friend and have him to be murdered, right? No one wakes up on a Tuesday and that's what you just decide to do out of the blue. There's that slow slide, small decisions in a particular way that leads to things you never thought was possible.

This is what happens with Judas.  Starting with small decisions, seemed insignificant, but compounded over time until it poisoned the soul to the point that he became the type of person that handing Jesus over to be murdered became possible.  It's a slow slide. Remember last week we talked about making sure that we're watching over our life.

We're watching over the possibility that we don't slide to become more like Egypt in our nature.  To be a people formed into the image of evil empire, but instead being a people who would be formed into the image of God. And while Jesus body is being prepared for burial for this lavish offering of a young woman, and while one of his closest followers is actually tied up in helping Jesus enemies, Jesus gets ready to celebrate the high point of a Passover meal, right?

It's always over a Passover meal.  That's a high point of everything, like what are we doing this weekend? I don't know, what are we eating? That's what matters most, right? The meal is where it's all about.  And so Mark chapter four, fourteen, verse twelve, it says, On the first day of the festival and the leavened bread,  when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, Jesus disciples asked him, where do you want us to go to prepare the Passover meal?

It's the final meal. Where do we go? Jesus sends a couple of disciples ahead of him to prepare for this meal. Like, I've got it pre arranged, like, go and you're gonna find this upstairs space, it's gonna be awesome. Think back to when Jesus sends a couple of disciples ahead of him to get a donkey, and he prepares to eat, enters into the city, right?

And as they gather later around the table, as these two unlucky disciples had to prepare this meal for everyone else who just randomly show up and get to enjoy it, Jesus is relaxed with all of his friends.  The conversations around the meaning of Passover, about how God's judgment is passing over us and we get to experience life in God.

I'm sure this is on their lips and in their hearts and in their minds. And then Jesus reminds them that scriptures have told of His coming and that  it's been unfolding before them all of this time, that He is the predicted Messiah and Savior who would be killed on a cross, but He would come back to life again.

Amen. Amen. And one of the twelve were caught up in helping to carry that out. Can you imagine that level of rejection?  Like one of your closest friends, like,  handing you over to be killed. Like, I can't imagine. Imagine the tension that probably was being felt in the moment, because Jesus is like, one of you is gonna abandon me.

One of you is going to do evil things. Imagine the tension. Jesus is talking about death. Jesus is like, kind of messed up the meal for a moment, right? And  And it's probably heavy and difficult, like I can't imagine the moment.  And then finally, Jesus breaks the tension by picking up the bread in the cup.

This is what we do every Sunday, He picks up the bread in the cup. And He says this, as they were eating, Jesus took the bread and He blessed it. And He broke it into pieces and He gave it to the disciples saying, take it for this is my body.  And He took the cup of wine.  Good wine. Not what we offer on Sunday, right?

Good wine. And he gave thanks to God for it. And he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice for many. I tell you the truth, I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.

Which is just a few days later.  You know, I've been thinking, like, okay.  There's all these themes of Passover historically about how we're released from judgment, we can experience life, that in God we don't have to live under spiritual slavery. We can actually live within the kingdom of God, which is to be formed away from empire and into the goodness of who God is.

That's an amazing reality, and it happens to be remembered over a meal. And then Jesus gets up in the middle of that, and he puts himself in the middle of the story. And ultimately, he's saying for himself that he, he is the fulfillment of what this is. That, that the body, the bread represents his body, that the blood represents his blood, that's gonna be shed for his people, just a few days later, right?

And  Not even a few days later, like the next day, like that night, they're going to go to a garden and the next day he's going to be put on trial. And as we talk about that over the next few weeks of what Jesus does for us, he says, this is my covenant with you.  That God continues to reaffirm his covenant with his people over and over through the Bible.

I will be your God and you will be my God.  Watch over you, lead you, and bless you. And Jesus picking up the bread and the cup is identifying himself as the new covenant with his people. He's going to be the Lamb. You catch the language? The lamb that would be slain for the salvation of all people, that through his blood, that judgment of death would pass over people who would accept this new life.

That in Jesus we can find healing, forgiveness, and grace. And this is what brings salvation. This is what we all need. And this is what had been foretold through all of the scriptures. If you begin to read it, you're just to see it all points back to Jesus. Which is a beautiful thing.  Then that, the Passover was ultimately fulfilled in who Jesus was.

In fact, all these narratives in the Bible are just leading to this crescendo moment where Jesus gives his life for us.  And I know we might be offended by this truth,  but if we all laid all of our actions and motivations before God, I think we would all agree that we all deserve judgment and death.

Every one of us before God. All of our motivations, like all of us don't deserve what Jesus actually has on offer for us.  And the beautiful part of that  is that Jesus loved you enough To go to a cross to allow all that judgment to be absorbed into his body, to have it crucified on the cross. But not only that, like three days later, and I know we're getting back to the, the like, the crescendo of like the resurrection, why that's beautiful.

If Jesus doesn't defeat the power of sin and death in our life, we don't have the power to overcome in our life. Does that make sense? Like he had to go to the cross, this was God's plan to have this all put to death, right? That we can have judgment pass over us because of what Jesus has done for us.

This is why He's the fulfillment of Passover. This is why I have to bore you on a Sunday afternoon to help you to understand what the Passover meant, and how difficult elements are wrapped up in that, but how Jesus offers us something better and greater. And the good news of Jesus is that while we've all rejected and abandoned and betrayed and disappointed Jesus at times, He continues to extend you the offer of grace over our lives.

As we are called to continue to believe and just to simply follow Jesus each and every day.  And this is the beautiful part of Passover. This is what happens over a meal.  And we're going to do that meal here in a second. But before we get there, I just want to ask you, how, how are you responding to Jesus?

We see Judas  response to Jesus as someone who's close in proximity, but ultimately his heart is formed away from Jesus. He betrays and has Jesus killed. Or there's a lady who's been so transformed and changed by Jesus that she's saying, I know this seems ridiculous to everyone else, but I simply do not care.

I'm going to give the greatest gift that I possibly can to Jesus in response to all that Jesus has done for me.  Like how are you responding even on that spectrum?  Because each and every one of us have this offer before us. Regardless of how many times you've rejected God, God continues, continuously offers the relationship.

Yeah.  Offers us the relationship to find grace in him.  And so with that, I just want to invite you just to close your eyes just for a second.  Just to breathe deep.

And just to think for a moment. How are you responding in your life?  How are you responding to Jesus?  How are you responding to this, this truth?  That we don't have to experience judgment, we get to experience the goodness of life.  That we can walk out of spiritual captivity and walk into the freedom that God has on offer for us through Jesus.

How are you responding?

And if I can ask you another question,  were  you offended by the story?  And  if you're offended, what are you going to do with that  Are you going to use it to harden your heart towards who God is, when maybe we don't understand why God does things a certain way? Are  we going to bring that offense to Jesus, to God, and say, man, I'm offended by some of this stuff here, but would you help me experience you through that?

Would you help me to understand it? Would you help me to find peace? Would you help me to walk in peace? Hey,  welcome back, everybody. Thanks for tuning into that whole conversation. I know it's a bit of a heavier one, one to kind of wrestle around with and continue to be in conversation. In your community with anytime there's text that we come across that just brings up a lot of questions about who God is and God's nature and character and things like that.

That's best done through the scriptures in community, not in isolation and not through like weird Google searches and things like that. And so make sure that we're, we're bringing all that to God and allowing God to help us to understand who he is more, even if we don't necessarily find peace in certain things.

Anytime we talk about judgment. I don't think we ever find peace in that because there's an absence of peace in that because God's will is that all people come to the knowledge of who he is through Jesus, that all people are saved, that people don't accept judgment upon themselves, but that is their choice, and anytime they make that choice, there's not peace in that because that's the absence of God's will, and anytime there's the absence of God's will, there isn't peace in that situation, and so this is always going to be a tough conversation for us, so if that happens in your spirit, it's And your soul and your walk with the Lord make sure that you're not alarmed by that There's things that we're just not going to have peace in because we live in a broken world And we're living this place where god's will is not done all the time here And we see that when people reject god and live away from god and choose evil choices and so there's not peace in that and we have to just kind of Hold that tension within us, and bring that to conversation with other people.

Bring that to God. Allow God to work that in our hearts and our souls. Help us to carry that forward. But I also want to encourage you that you have a mission ahead of you today. Wherever God has placed you in the world, in your workspace, in your neighborhood, in your families, that's the space that He wants you to carry.

Carry this new life, the new covenant into that space or people can experience the goodness and grace of God through you. Through you that they might come to know him. And so step into that really well. Can't wait to see you in the next conversation next week. Have a great day. Bye.