Anyway, I know it's not Friday and that's what the title implies, but it works, I promise. I'm going to try to make this as concise as possible and still be able to blow your mind.
Lastly, I was trying to tackle too much with this post. I'm going to split it up.
Easter: the holiday that we, as Christians, use to celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! But to understand the gravity of His death we have to start with the story that led up to it.
Actually we have to start about well...a long time before that. So when the Israelites were captive in Egypt, God sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to let them go and he didn't want to so God sent the ten plagues. And then God told Moses to tell the people that they needed to be ready to go at a moment's notice (so they didn't have time to put yeast in their bread to let it rise, hence unleavened bread). Not only that, He told them that they needed to find a lamb, sacrifice it, and put the blood on the door so that the Angel of Death would pass over their house (pass+over=Passover). If you want to read the rest of that story go read more or less Exodus 8-11.
So the Isrealites were eventually set free and they started having an annual Passover meal to celebrate their liberation and anticipate the coming of the Messiah. So Luke 22 lays out the Passover meal that is often referred to as The Last Supper because it was indeed the last supper of Jesus. So they were just going along through the Passover meal tradition (after Jesus washed their feet, but that's an entirely different animal) and Jesus takes the third cup, the cup of redemption and blessing and holds it out to them and says "this is the new covenant in my blood, drink." Weird, right? Well, what he was basically doing was "proposing" to them. What was He proposing? Marriage of course, that we (the church) would be his bride. What does it mean? I'm glad you asked. So in those times, when a man proposed the woman would drink to say yes or not to say no. And what would happen after she accepted is that the groom would go back to his home town while his father built an extension onto their house for them to live in. So the bride didn't get to see the groom the whole time they were engaged and he wouldn't be able to come get her until their house was finished. Who decided when it was finished? The grooms Dad. Let me connect the dots for you. Jesus proposed to the disciples (us) and they (we) said yes. Keep in mind this is hours before He died. He knew He wouldn't see us for a while, so He told us that He would send a helper to us (The Holy Spirit) while He was away. What will He be doing while He is away? Building a house for us, an extension of His father's house. When the Father decides it is done, He will send His son back to receive His bride (us). The best part is that He knew what He was getting himself into with a bride like us! We are not by a long stretch worthy to be the bride of Christ, His closest followers betrayed, denied and doubted Him! He proposed to someone that would cause Him the greatest heartache imaginable, yet He still calls us Beloved which means "one bought with a price."
citations for this post:
John 14:1-2, 16
Ephesians 5:23
Revelation 19:7-9
Matthew 24:36
To keep myself accountable, the follow up posts that correlate with this one will deal with the following topics: Old Covenants, New Covenant, Resurrection Sunday, the Character of Jesus
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