After the sprinkling of the blood came the feast. Only when the house
was secure from the destruction which walked in the darkness of that
fateful night, could a delivered household gather round the board. That
which had become their safety now became their food. Other sacrifices
were, at a later period, modelled on the same type; and in all cases
the symbolism is the same, namely, joyful participation in the
sacrifice, and communion with God based upon expiation. In the
Passover, this second stage received for future ages the further
meaning of a memorial. But on that first night it was only such by
anticipation, seeing that it preceded the deliverance which it was
afterwards to commemorate.
The manner of preparing the feast and the manner of partaking of it are
both significant. The former provided that the lamb should be roasted,
not boiled, apparently in order to secure its being kept whole; and the
same purpose suggested the other prescriptions that it was to be served
up entire, and with bones unbroken. The reason for this seems to be
that thus the unity of the partakers was more plainly shown. All ate of
one undivided whole, and were thus, in a real sense, one. So the
Apostle deduces the unity of the Church from the oneness of the bread
of which they in the Christian Passover partake.
It was to be eaten with the accompaniments of bitter herbs, usually
explained as memorials of the bondage, which had made the lives bitter,
and the remembrance of which would sweeten their deliverance, even as
the pungent condiments brought out the savour of the food. The further
accompaniment of unleavened bread seems to have the same signification
as the appointment that they were to eat with their garments gathered
round their loins, their feet shod, and staves in hand. All these were
partly necessities in their urgent hurry, and partly a dramatic
representation for later days of the very scene of the first Passover.
A strange feast indeed, held while the beat of the pinions of the
destroying angel could almost be heard, devoured in hot haste by
anxious men standing ready for a perilous journey, the end whereof none
knew! The gladness would be strangely dashed with terror and
foreboding. Truly, though they feasted on a sacrifice, they had bitter
herbs with it, and, standing, swallowed their portions, expecting every
moment to be summoned to the march.
The Passover as a feast is a prophecy of the great Sacrifice, by virtue
of whose sprinkled blood we all may be sheltered from the sweep of the
divine judgment, and on which we all have to feed if there is to be any
life in us. Our propitiation is our food. 'Christ for us' must become
'Christ in us,' received and appropriated by our faith as the strength
of our lives. The Christian life is meant to be a joyful feast on the
Sacrifice, and communion with God based upon it. We feast on Christ
when the mind feeds on Him as truth, when the heart is filled and
satisfied with His love, when the conscience clings to Him as its
peace, when the will esteems the 'words of His mouth more than' its
'necessary food,' when all desires, hopes, and inward powers draw their
supplies from Him, and find their object in His sweet sufficiency.
Nor will the accompaniments of the first Passover be wanting. Here we
feast in the night; the dawn will bring freedom and escape. Here we eat
the glad Bread of God, not unseasoned with bitter herbs of sorrow and
memories of the bondage, whose chains are dropping from our uplifted
hands. Here we should partake of that hidden nourishment, in such
manner that it hinders not our readiness for outward service. It is not
yet time to sit at His table, but to stand with loins girt, and feet
shod, and hands grasping the pilgrim staff. Here we are to eat for
strength, and to blend with our secret hours of meditation the holy
activities of the pilgrim life.
That feast was, further, appointed with a view to its future use as a
memorial. It was held before the deliverance which it commemorated had
been accomplished. A new era was to be reckoned from it. The month of
the Exodus was thenceforward to be the first of the year. The memorial
purpose of the rite has been accomplished. All over the world it is
still observed, so many hundred years after its institution, being
thus, probably, the oldest religious ceremonial in existence. Once more
aliens in many lands, the Jewish race still, year by year, celebrate
that deliverance, so tragically unlike their homeless present, and with
indomitable hope, at each successive celebration, repeat the
expectation, so long cherished in vain, 'This year, here; next year, in
the land of Israel. This year, slaves; next year, freemen.' There can
be few stronger attestations of historical events than the keeping of
days commemorating them, if traced back to the event they commemorate.
So this Passover, like Guy Fawkes' Day in England, or Thanksgiving Day
in America, remains for a witness even now.
What an incomprehensible stretch of authority Christ put forth, if He
were no more than a teacher, when He brushed aside the Passover, and
put in its place the Lord's Supper, as commemorating His own death!
Thereby He said, 'Forget that past deliverance; instead, remember Me.'
Surely this was either audacity approaching insanity, or divine
consciousness that He Himself was the true Paschal Lamb, whose blood
shields the world from judgment, and on whom the world may feast and be
satisfied. Christ's deliberate intention to represent His death as
expiation, and to fix the reverential, grateful gaze of all future ages
on His Cross, cannot be eliminated from His founding of that memorial
rite in substitution for the God-appointed ceremonial, so hoary with
age and sacred in its significance. Like the Passover, the Lord's
Supper was established before the deliverance was accomplished. It
remains a witness at once of the historical fact of the death of Jesus,
and of the meaning and power which Jesus Himself bade us to see in that
death. For us, redeemed by His blood, the past should be filled with
His sacrifice. For us, fed on Himself, all the present should be
communion with Him, based upon His death for us. For us, freed bondmen,
the memorial of deliverance begun by His Cross should be the prophecy
of deliverance to be completed at the side of His throne, and the hasty
meal, eaten with bitter herbs, the adumbration of the feast when all
the pilgrims shall sit with Him at His table in His kingdom. Past,
present, and future should all be to us saturated with Jesus Christ.
Memory should furnish hope with colours, canvas, and subjects for her
fair pictures, and both be fixed on 'Christ our Passover, sacrificed
for us.'