Genesis 15:7-21

⁷ He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

⁸ But Abram said, “O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

⁹ So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

¹⁰ Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.  ¹¹ Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.  ¹³ Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.  ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.  ¹⁵ You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age.  ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

¹⁷ When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.  ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, ²⁰ Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, ²¹ Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

I was thinking the other day why would anyone want to follow Christ?  Of all the world’s major religions, Jesus was the founder that had the want to end His life on earth.

Mark 14:22-31 (NIV)

²² While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”

²³ Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it.

²⁴ “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them.  ²⁵ “I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.”

²⁶ When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

²⁷ “You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’  ²⁸ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”

²⁹ Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not.” 

³⁰ “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.”

³¹ But Peter insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.”  And all the others said the same.

Theme: Today we look at the importance of Jesus’ death, it’s meaning, and how it can transform our lives.

The disciples are at the Passover, the Jewish celebration remembering how God freed them from captivity, slavery in Egypt.

Remember the Passover: the plagues, the angel of death passing over all of Egypt, the Jews fleeing quickly, and the bread was unable to rise.

The Passover meal includes four cups of wine and each cup is symbolic of the elements of the table: 1) Saltwater was the bitters tears, 2) Bitter herbs was the bitterness of slavery, 3) The lamb shank bone to remember the slain lamb whose blood was rubbed over the entry of the home, 4) The bread of affliction, which our father ate in the wilderness.

When Jesus was the host preaching the rituals of the Passover, when He gets to the bread part of the Passover celebration, Jesus says something different, “This bread is my body.  This bread is my affliction, my suffering, because I am going to really lead people out of bondage and into the freedom of God.”

Jesus is telling the disciples that just like this bread was used to remind us of our exodus out of Egypt, now it is going to remind us of a new and better freedom.  Jesus is saying “Just as once this meal was observed the night before God redeemed Israel from slavery to Pharoah, through Moses, tonight we eat it before the night which God is going to redeem us from sin, death, and evil itself the world through me.  I am the ultimate, final, Moses.  My death is the most important event in the history of the world.”

What did Jesus’ death accomplish?  We look back to Egypt.  God hates evil, and injustice, exactly what was being done to Israelites in Egypt.  God through the plagues breaks the heart of Pharo.  All the people that experienced God’s wrath and the people of God were spared if they had blood over the entrance to their home.

This means, they had faith in a substitute, the lamb’s death and the blood sheltered them from death.

Isaiah 53:5  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed.

Jesus became the real lamb of God.

Just like the lamb was a substitutionary sacrifice for the Israelites in Egypt, now Jesus will become the substitutionary sacrifice for all who want Him to be that for them.  Jesus is placing Himself in the center of the history of the Jewish people.

All love, all real life-giving, life changing love is a substitutionary sacrifice.  By this we choose to love a broken person, it is a substitutionary sacrifice.

2 Corinthians 5:21  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we night become the righteousness of God.

You know it is draining to love needy people.  You have to listen to them, try to help them, spend your energy to support them—this is a substitutionary sacrifice.

Jesus tells the disciples they are to remember Him in a meal.  Jesus says, “Take and eat” the sacrifice must be incorporated into who we are.

Jesus then gives the disciples an oath: “I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the Kingdom of God.”

In Genesis 15, God makes a blood oath/covenant with Abram, that God will uphold the covenant even if it kills Him (God.)

Jesus is also committed to this unconditional blessing, and this brings us into His Father’s Kingdom.  He is absolutely committed to taking us with Him, to our home with God.

Our salvation is not reliant on the strength and fidelity of our commitment to Jesus, but on Jesus’ commitment to us.

We have communion each month to remind us of our weakness and our need for Christ.  Christ is holding onto us, protecting us from ourselves.  We are part of the family no matter what, you are in a new covenant in faith because of Christ.

No matter life’s problems, all of our greatest longings of heart will be satisfied some day when we get to eat with Christ in the Kingdom.  Christ will get us there.  God bless.