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Commentaries
English
Luke
  
THE LEADERS' DECISION
TO KILL CHRIST BEFORE THE PASSOVER
(Luke 22:1-2)
1Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called Passover.


In the Old Testament, the Passover was corresponding to the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was celebrated seven days according to the lunar year of the Jewish calendar. On the 13th of April every year the Jews clean their houses from the old leaven, as a symbol of cleaning their houses completely from the old evil spirit. During all that week they eat unleavened bread, and kill at the courtyard of the Temple, in this occasion, thousands of lambs, which they eat roasted in their family supper in memory of the passing of God’s wrath over their people in the thirteenth century BC when they were slaves of Pharaohs in Egypt. They all knew that their continuous fellowship with the lamb of the Passover only would save them from the anger of the just Holy One, for they were not more righteous than the peoples around them; but their faith in the lamb of God kept them from judgment, and the meat of the offering which they ate became in them a power to come to the ceremony of making the covenant with God on Mount Sinai (Read Exodus 12:1-36). Thus all the people lived from the sacrifice they offered to God, and from the protection of its blood. As they ate unleavened bread when they came out of Egypt, so they ate bread of affliction for one complete week after the Passover, and called it the Feast of Unleavened Bread in memory of their flight to the wilderness and their liberation from bondage. Whoever ate leavened bread, or drank wine in those blessed days was stoned, and cut off from his people. As such hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered every year in Jerusalem to observe this annual celebration, go together before God, and live from his unique grace.