Love in the Dark No.3 Passover Eve

It's lovely to have your company this morning. Let's turn in our hymns of faith to number 112. 112, a hymn which speaks about the praise that's in our hearts that we want to give to our Lord Jesus Christ.

When morning gilds the skies, my heart awakening cries, may Jesus Christ be praised. Let's stand. When morning gilds the skies, my heart awakening cries, may Jesus Christ be praised.

Luke chapter 22, St. Luke's Gospel in chapter 22. I'm commencing to read from verse 7. Luke 22 and verse 7. Then came the day of unleavened bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John saying, go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.

Where do you want us to prepare for it, they asked. He replied, as you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters and say to the owner of the house, the teacher asks, where is the guest room? Where I may eat the Passover with my disciples.

And he will show you a large upper room, all furnished, make preparations there. They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

And when the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.

After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among you. For I tell you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them saying, this is my body given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table.

The son of man will go as it has been decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him. They began to question among themselves, which of them it might be who would do this. Also a dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be the greatest.

Jesus said to them, the kings of the Gentiles lord it over them. And those who exercise authority over them call themselves benefactors. But you are not to be like that.

Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. You are those who have stood by me in my trials and I confer on you a kingdom just as my father conferred one on me so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on the thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.

But he replied, Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death. Jesus answered, I tell you, Peter, before the cock crows today, you will deny three times that you know me. Then Jesus asked them, when I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything? Nothing, they answered.

He said to them, but now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag. And if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Well, it is written, and he was numbered with the transgressors.

And I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment. The disciples said, see, Lord, here are two swords.

That is enough, he replied. Amen. Now I would be grateful if you'd have your Bibles open at the 22nd chapter of the Gospel of Luke.

One of my more favorite Easter pieces that I love to hear sung is the one that has the title, All in an April Evening. The shortened form of the word evening is the term eve. We often think of Christmas Eve, but what I want to do this morning, just widening the subject matter as printed in notes and news so that I can embrace all of the reading that we were brought, what I want to do is to speak to you on Passover Eve.

Three obstacles that confronted our blessed Lord on Passover Eve. You will recall, those of you who were present last time when we introduced for your consideration this 22nd chapter of Luke's Gospel, that in the morning service, I brought to your attention the opening verses from the first through to the sixth, and I spoke in terms of the plot that was leveled against our Lord in order to have him delivered into the hands of the Roman and Jewish authorities. And then I took you from the seventh verse and down to the 13th verse of the plan of our blessed Savior, the way that he caused the plot to be subsumed in the overarching plan of the Lord God so that, well, Peter, when he preaches his debut as on the Sermon on the Mount, or rather on the Sermon on the Day of Pentecost, is able to say of our Lord Jesus Christ that though it seemed as though this man was handed over to you, verse 23 of Acts 2, this man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge.

The plot was embraced within the plan. And then, Brother Tim, on Sunday evening, we concentrated our attention on the Passover from the 13th verse and through to the 23rd. And now I want to speak to you on the problems, the plan or the plot, the plan, the Passover, and the problems, the problems that confronted our Lord on Passover Eve.

You see evidence of them in the first verses that we have to consider. For here is quarreling, or if you like, squabbling amongst the disciples from verse 24. And then there is the difficulty of Peter from verse 31.

Satan has desired to sift you as wheat. Squabbling, sifting, the second problem. And then when you move to the end of our passage, our Lord directs His attention to His disciples moving again from the 12 to the 1 and back to the 12.

And He puts up a question to them, verse 35, when I sent you without purse, bag, or sandals, did you like anything? And He starts to educate them afresh as to what is going to happen as a result of His departure. So I suggest that's the schooling. So here we have, to help you understand this narrative, the problems that confronted our Lord Jesus, the squabbling of the disciples, the sifting of Peter, the schooling that is now necessary for the 12.

As for the squabbling, well, look again at verse 24, a dispute arose amongst the disciples as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Now you are aware, at least those of you who were present last Sunday, of the context of that particular comment. And it seems to us to be crass insensitivity on the part of the disciples that here is our Lord in the upper room and He has just a few hours of, quote, freedom left.

And His nearest and dearest are quarreling. And you ask yourself, well, what on earth are they quarreling about? Well, you recall how our Lord sent His two of the men as sort of a reconnaissance party into Jerusalem. Verse 12 tells you, reminds you of the event.

You are to go there, and you will find a man carrying a water jar. Follow him, book a room in his place because he will have one that is all furnished and make preparation there for the Passover. A Jewish feast was and is a very interesting thing.

That's the reason why we want you here on Thursday evening to have a display put in front of you of the Jewish Passover. In the days of our Lord, when men and women came together for a meal, they would recline on couches. The whole room would be set out in a sort of U-shape, and the main guest would be at the center of the U, and then on either side would be the subsidiary guests.

Now, Golda Meir once said she was a prime minister of Israel, you remember, that the difference between Jewish people in Israel and anyone else around the world is that every Jew thinks that he or she ought to be prime minister, which is the reason why Golda Meir's prime ministership, premiership, was so interesting, along with all her successes. There is a very strong aspect of Jewish character that tends to make them very forceful people. That's why they have produced some of the great leaders in our world.

Now, here is our Lord. He's invited, and you'll find this in the 14th chapter of Luke's Gospel, and you'll understand why I'm taking you there in a moment or two. He's invited to the room of the house of one of the most prominent Pharisees in his day.

And when our Lord agrees to the invitation, it seems at least by implication that he is put off by the way that there is a scramble for the best places when the doors are open and the feast is about to be celebrated. And so our Lord puts up a parable, and he speaks against this lack of courtesy. And he says in verse 7 of chapter 14, when he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor, he said of the parable, when someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited.

If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, give this man your seat. Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. Now, I suggest to you that one of the reasons for the quarrel in the upper room may well have been the question of rank.

You see, you've come across it before, haven't you? In the ninth chapter of Luke's gospel, our Lord then has to take a little child and put the child in front of the disciples. He embarrasses his followers by saying, I know what you've been doing. You've been quarreling as to who is going to be the greatest in the kingdom.

Well, learn the lesson of a little child. And the point of the matter was, they didn't learn. They didn't learn that lesson at all.

The disciples were vying. Maybe the disciples were vying for the most important place, as far as they understood it, in the upper room, when they were gathered together with our blessed Lord Jesus. Maybe that was the reason for the squabble.

Or perchance it had to do with, and here we've got even more information, it had to do with our Lord and his disciples who had come into this upper room after they'd been on a journey from Bethany to Jerusalem and their feet were dirty. And somebody had to play the part of the servant. Who is going to wash their feet? And it seems as though there was no volunteers, no volunteer whatsoever.

And then you remember how our blessed Lord takes a bowl of water and a towel and he goes from feet to feet, washing the feet of the disciples. It seems to me an incredible thing that our Lord faced with his death and with only a few hours away has to direct his attention to these disciples of his who are quarreling. And so he puts up to the, he delivers his remarks to them as he deals with this particular situation.

And he tells them, verse 25, it's the kings of the Gentiles who lord it over them and those who exercise authority. But you're not to be like that, says our blessed Lord, in the kingdom, in the society which I have established, the greatest among you should be like the youngest and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? It's easy for us, perhaps, to point a finger at the disciples and say, well, they were so insensitive, weren't they? We would not have behaved like that.

But are you sure? Are you sure that the people of God in the twentieth century are more mature than the people of God, the followers of our Lord Jesus in the first century? I've known people sometimes stay away from church simply because, well, you know, they have been hurt by somebody's attitude. Maybe they were misrepresented. Maybe, indeed, they were unkindly dealt with.

And yet, the reaction that they offered was far greater than the problem that they had to face. You see, quarreling still exists, alas, within the church of the twentieth century as it did in the first century. If you back off from coming around the table of the Lord, from coming around the Word of God, from regular attendance at church simply because, well, you were misunderstood or somebody misunderstood you, in effect, you're exactly in the same situation as the disciples were 2,000 years ago.

And the one who gets hurt the most is our blessed Lord Jesus. You see, the quarrel was about prestige, who they were in the kingdom. And the man who established the kingdom says this, you can't really deal with the kingdom like this, for in the kingdom that I have inaugurated, the lowest becomes the highest.

The way up is the way down. We hear that Nero fiddled while Rome burnt. How more tragic, disciples quarreled while Jesus served.

And our Lord says that His disciples are to follow Him. You see, you never have any problem with coping with injury provided you recognize who you are in the sight of God. Our blessed Lord, it was said of Him in the epistle that Paul wrote to the Philippians, let this mind be in you, which was in our Lord Jesus, who emptied Himself, who humbled Himself, who did not pull rank, but was prepared as the creator of the universe to go to the disciples in the person of a servant, of a slave.

Now come, some of you have often sung amazing grace, how sweet the sound. How does it go on? That saved a wretch like me. When you recognize your wretchedness, when you recognize your natural low estate, then there's no way that you can disassociate yourself from the body of Christ or from the Lord Jesus Himself simply because of personal injury.

If you're not prepared to forget and forgive, then the one who gets hurt the most is our blessed Lord. Passover Eve, with just hours in front for our Lord Jesus to enjoy the freedom that was His, He has to spend time with a quarreling bunch of disciples. That was one of the obstacles.

But let's move on. Not just the obstacle of the quarreling of the disciples, but also that of the sifting of Peter. Look at verse 31.

Here our Lord speaks to His premier disciple, the one who seems at least as though he's going to have a great deal of authority and leadership responsibility when our Lord is off the scene. But Peter's not really in the condition to take on the responsibilities that will fall onto his lap. And our Lord speaks to him, Simon.

Simon. He repeats the name. Have you noticed that whenever Jesus repeats the name, or repeats the word, not only is it significant, but if it's a personal name, it's generally to indicate a gentle reproof.

Martha. Martha. You're cumbered about with so many things, but don't you see that in this instance, Mary can give you the lead? Simon.

Simon. Do you know what's about to happen? And then our blessed Lord speaks of a woman taking some wheat and tossing it up and down in a sieve. Simon, says our Lord Jesus, speaking to his most unreliable disciple, this is what Satan wants to do to you.

Now, although our Lord is narrowing his teaching at this point from the 12 to Simon, he also embraces the rest. Because those of you who are following me with the NIV will see that the pronoun you there is indicated down in your margin as being a plural. Satan has asked to sift you, all you disciples, as wheat.

But I've prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. A little bit of the message, because I got a little disjointed, that I missed in terms of pointing out verses to you. Let's just backtrack in the earlier section, because when our Lord Jesus has spoken to the disciples because of their quarreling, he also, in his sensitive and wonderful fashion, identifies one of the positive things about the disciples.

Verse 25, You are those who have stood by me in my trials. Now, there were occasions when our Lord has spoken to thousands of people and they just left him. They went off into the distance.

They were evaporated, so to speak, just like the Jew in the sunshine of the Middle East. But these 12, or rather these 11, they stood by our Lord and he was grateful for this. Here is the humanity of Jesus coming through.

You are those who stood by me in my trials. Not adequately. There were times when they let him down.

But this marks them out over against all the others. And so our Lord says, I confer on you a kingdom. And our Lord Jesus, in a most staggering demonstration of generosity and judgment, indicates that the future purposes of God are going to rest on these disciples.

I bestow on you a kingdom because of, well, because of your faithfulness to me. And he speaks ultimately of the return, when he will be there in the kingdom with his disciples. And he will set his disciples up as judging Israel, presumably the redeemed of the old covenant and the new covenant.

Now, this is the point. Here these disciples, our Lord says, have been consistent, have been faithful with him during the difficulties that he's gone through in the last three years. Now there is going to come another trial.

And Simon will be the target of the evil one. And not only Simon, but the rest of the disciples. This night you are going to be shaken as a woman shakes a sieve.

The temptation will be to deny me. The challenge will be to remain true. The temptation will be to stay close.

The challenge will be to stay close. The temptation will be to back off. The challenge will be to assert who I am.

The temptation will be to deny the claims that I have made. This night, the temptations, they will come like a flood. And Simon, you will be at the center of those temptations.

But you, the rest of my disciples, you too will be shaken like wheat in a sieve. But I have prayed for you. I prayed for you, Simon.

Our Lord singles him out. And in the high priestly prayer, we gather in John's Gospel that the blessed Lord also prays for the rest of his disciples. He prays that at the end, faith may prevail despite all the difficulties.

And notice how our Lord identifies the problem through which these disciples will be passing. Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. You see, the thing that stands out the whole of Passover Eve is that our Lord Jesus is actually in control.

The plot, you remember, is subsumed in his great plan. Here is Satan. He wants to destroy the church.

Here is Satan manifesting himself before God Almighty like he did in front of the Lord years ago. Only then he had Job in mind. Let me get at Job.

Now, Satan has asked, let me get at Peter. Let me get at the disciples. You see, it's a rerun of Job.

I'm not exaggerating. It's more or less exactly the same thing. The characters are different and the scenario is different, but the principle remains.

Here is Satan wanting to consume the faith of Peter and the rest of the disciples. Here is our blessed Lord confronted with the obstacle of this quarreling bunch, confronted with the difficulty of Simon being shaken up and down like wheat in a sieve, and so he addresses Simon and uses the language that bespeaks Simon's frailty. Remember that Satan is after you, but I have prayed for you that your faith does not fail, and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.

And true to form, the fisherman says, Lord, you've got it wrong. And Jesus says no, and he uses, and it's the only time since he gives Simon a different name that he actually employs the name that he prefers. The whole of the gospel record, he speaks to Simon on the second occasion with the name that he gave him.

I tell you, Peter. This night, you will not be much like a rock, but nonetheless, I tell you, Peter, because I've prayed for you, I'll take you, and I'll take the rest of the disciples through the harrowing experiences, the difficulties of this night. And though you will betray me, and though the cock will crow, that cock will have a double ring, for our Lord seems to think of the rooster in terms of the bell that tolls, and it will toll for Peter, and when he denies the Lord and he hears the cock crow, it will not only remind him of the shame that is his, for he should have lived as Peter the rock.

It will also toll for him, reminding him that Jesus says, when you deny me, remember I have prayed for you, and there'll still be hope, and there'll still be a future, because I, Jesus, anticipate the problems of Passover Eve. I can circumvent the quarrels of you disciples and put you right. I can cope with the shaking of Peter and the rest.

So let's just move on and conclude our little study. The squabbling, the sifting, but then there is what I have called the schooling, the schooling of the eleven. Oh, what do I mean? Well, look at the 35th verse.

Our blessed Lord takes His disciples down memory lane. He has before committed them to preach the gospel. You'll read this in Luke chapter 9 and also in chapter 10.

There were two occasions when they went out as a little bunch, the 12 of them, and also in a larger group, 70 of them. Now says our Lord, when I sent you out on those missionary journeys, how did I send you? Well, He reminds them, I sent you without purse, I sent you without bag or sandals. Now here's the question, did you lack anything? And they said, no, we didn't lack anything at all.

Ah, but Jesus was then physically with them, and in a few hours' time, He's going to be taken from them. And give it a few hours on that, after that, and He'll die on the cross. And give it 40 days after that, and He will not be with them physically at all, not even in any resurrection appearance.

He will be back in the glory. So He is envisaging, if you like, the gospel situation which will result after His return to His Father's right hand. And that means that the circumstances have changed considerably.

When I sent you out without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything? Nothing. They said, ah, yes. But now, verse 36, now, now if you have a purse, take it.

If you have a bag, use it. If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. What is our Lord here doing? He's preparing the disciples for the time when He won't be with them.

He's preparing them for the days of the Acts of the Apostles. He's preparing the church for the centuries that lie ahead. We are to use our initiative.

We are to use the monies and the facilities that we can control, that we control, in order to enhance the gospel. Ask somebody, but I've got a problem here. Yes, I know your problem and I won't duck it.

How is it that our Lord tells the disciples not only to take a bag and a purse, but to sell their cloak and buy a sword if they don't have one? Well, how do you understand that? Well, one of the things that is perfectly obvious is that our Lord, when He's referring to the sword, is not referring to it literally, but typically. Why do I say that? Well, otherwise, you would have Him contradicting Himself when you get to the gospel record in the account of Matthew when our blessed Savior is in Gethsemane's garden and you remember the chief priests and the elders and their guards come along and they arrest our Savior and Peter, in his impetuous fashion, takes an actual knife that he has and he makes to defend the Lord and our Savior says in the 53rd verse, or rather in the 52nd verse of Matthew 26, put your sword back in its place for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father and He will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled? So, how do we understand what our Lord is here telling His disciples? Well, you remember how on many an occasion our Lord will use metaphor in order to sharply get across His point.

He speaks of His body, for example, at the beginning of His ministry as a temple. Destroy this temple. Time after time He will use metaphor.

I am the door. I am the entry into the sheepfold. What does the sword stand for? Well, it stands for taking the necessary equipment that the disciples will require in order to engage on their gospel proclamations in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and ultimately to the uttermost part of the earth.

Here is our Lord commissioning His disciples for a second era, if you like, of ministry when He is no longer physically present with them. And He goes on, having given that piece of advice, by identifying Himself, verse 37, with the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, when in the words of the prophet we read of our Lord in terms of the suffering servant and it says of Him, He was numbered with the transgressors and our Lord goes on record as saying, I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Do you remember how there is that description of one suffering for the sins of the world, being rejected by men and handed over to evil men and then ultimately sharing His spoils, the result of His victory with others, for Isaiah 53 even hints at the resurrection.

So you see our Lord's putting down this grand teaching to His disciples. He's schooling them afresh, not for the immediate, but for the ultimate, when they will no longer have Him in their company. And then it seems as though He knows a measure of disappointment.

When having identified Himself in terms of Isaiah chapter 53 and the suffering servant, the disciples then come along and say, Here Lord, there are two swords. And Jesus realizes that once afresh they have failed to comprehend what He's been teaching and He says, Enough of that. The possibility is that after that incident He then goes on and brings the address that is found in the chapters of John's Gospel from the 14th and through to the 17th and He teaches them particularly and in a very meaningful fashion about the responsibilities that will be theirs after He's left the scene and how they will depend upon the Holy Spirit to enable them to achieve the proclamation of the Gospel in the immediate locality and around the world.

So then, here is my summary of a somewhat brief meditation on Passover Eve. Our Lord is utterly sovereign. He has everything in His control.

The plot is embraced by His greater plan. He speaks against the problems that crop up that night. The quarreling of the disciples and He gives them an illustration as to the way that they are to behave and having reproved them He's still able to identify the purposes of God with these men.

To you I give a kingdom. And He speaks of the ultimate establishment of His rule in the world. And then our Lord deals with the sifting of Peter and the rest of the men.

And He says it's basically not just your weakness which is being tested it's Satan being released amongst you to do his foulest. But I have prayed for you. And then He schools them for a time when He won't be there when they will need the purse and they'll need the bag and they will need all defenses that they can have that are legitimate in terms of equipping them for going into this hostile world and proclaiming the gospel to the whosoever.

Three obstacles on Passover Eve that our Lord was able to get over. He can help you get over the obstacles and the difficulties that confront you and me in our personal pilgrimage through this world. Let's bow our heads in prayer and listen to a song being played at least the music of a song being played that speaks of the way that God takes the weak and the inadequate in our world, enriches them and enables them to perform His will.

It's number 18 in the white supplement. Come up on the overhead projectors. Will someone put those two lights out at the front please and let's stand and sing.

Give thanks with a grateful heart Give thanks Give thanks because He's given Jesus Christ His Son Give thanks with a grateful heart Give thanks to the Holy One Give thanks because He's given Jesus Christ His Son And now let the weak say I am strong Let the poor say I am rich because of what the Lord has done for us And now let the weak say I am strong Let the poor say I am rich because of what the Lord has done for us Praise the Lord