As Passover and Easter are fast approaching I have been reading the account of God’s deliverance of the people of Israel from the yoke of Pharaoh and the Egyptians.  My purpose in doing this has been to go back to the root, the foundation of Easter, for it is rooted in the Passover, and the Passover, finds it root in the Exodus.  Reading the book of Exodus these past couple of weeks has just been awesome!  God has taught me much about himself through studying this book.

One I would like to share with you is the Sabbath.  On Friday I participated in my first Shabbat dinner.  Shabbat is the Hebrew word for Sabbath, meaning a day of rest.  It was such a wonderful occasion for me to participate, as I gained a new appreciation for this weekly Jewish custom.  For instance, one of the duties of the father at the Shabbat dinner is to say a blessing over his family, starting with the wife first, quoting Proverbs 31 as his blessing over her.

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What is truth?  This question the Roman Governor Pilate asked Jesus is just as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago.  Pilate may have been replying in a sarcastic manor when Jesus stood before him claiming himself to be the truth, but it is a reality each of one of us must answer.  What is the truth about Christ?  As this is the week of Passover, Good Friday, and Easter, I want to help answer this question of who Jesus is by examining the last part of Olivet discourse found in Matthew 25:31-46.

Matthew 25:31-46 is a very popular passage these days.  It is often used by social justice minded people calling attention to make provision for the “least of these” in society.  Although this is a noble and important aspect of understanding this passage, it would be better to make this a secondary point of application.  The primary point of this passage is to ask what are the requirements for entrance into God’s kingdom?

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On Good Friday, my childhood pastor would become Clint Eastwood. He would basically tell us, “You are a know good-for-nothing-yellow-bellied-gizzard. You are a worthless worm. You killed Jesus! Feel guilty.” (And we wondered why people didn’t come to church on Good Friday.) What if we told the story like the gospel writers? In Jesus’ last moments, he teaches us the greatest lesson of all: how to love those who hate you. He teaches us how God suffers. The point is not guilt; it’s godliness—no matter what the circumstances.

T-Minus 2 Days until Jesus Dies. The chief priests and the scribes want to kill Jesus. Why? Power. They can’t have a rabbi around who teaches against their religious power plays. But wait: they can’t kill him during the Passover feast, because that would ruin the party and could create an uprising among all the peasants—Jesus’ main following—who were in Jerusalem for the festival.