The Passover (Mark #47)
How many of you like movies? Lots of hands. Me too — but I hate spoilers. Anyone with me?
When I go into a film I want a general idea of what it is about, and I do not want you ruining it for me. That is one of the things I appreciate about movie databases online: reviews are tagged so I know which ones not to click.
A couple of years ago, when a certain enormous superhero finale came out, I watched a video of a youth pastor teaching in front of his youth group. He referenced the movie and blurted out one of the key plot points from near the end. This was the Wednesday after it released. The kids started howling in protest — no, you did not! And he just looked at them and said, oh come on, it has been out for five days, you have had plenty of time.
I bring this up because I am about to spoil a movie. I am going to be a complete hypocrite.
But I am not nearly as cold-hearted as that youth pastor, because the film I am about to spoil has been out for twenty-three years. This movie is older than some of you. So you have had plenty of time.
The Spoiler
The film is The Sixth Sense. If you have seen it, you already know where this is going. Some people file it under horror, so if that is not your genre, here is your chance to learn the ending without ever having to sit through it.
The story follows a child psychologist. In the opening, a former patient breaks into his home, shoots him, and then turns the gun on himself. The story then jumps forward, and we find the psychologist apparently recovered and working with a new patient — a deeply troubled boy around whom strange things keep happening.
The boy eventually confesses, in that famous whispered line, that he sees dead people. The psychologist does not believe him at first. His own marriage is falling apart, and he nearly gives up on the case. But he comes back, decides the boy is telling the truth, and together they work out a theory: perhaps these people are drawn to the boy because he is meant to help them.
They test the theory. A girl about his age appears. The boy is terrified but decides to help her, and through what she shows him, a terrible truth about her death is exposed to her father. Justice is done. The boy is relieved. The psychologist feels he has finally helped this child. It all looks like it is heading toward a happy ending.
And then the boy offers a bit of advice about talking to his wife while she is asleep. The psychologist goes home, tries it — and in that moment realizes the truth.
He died in that opening scene. He has been dead the entire film. The boy is the only person who could ever see him.
The Rewatch Changes Everything
I went online just to refresh my memory on the plot — it had been more than twenty years since I saw it — and I stumbled onto compilation videos of people reacting to that ending.
They all have the identical reaction. Jaw drops. Hands go to the face. And they all say the same thing: No. You mean he was dead the whole time?
And several of them immediately said, I have to go rewatch this movie.
Imagine what that rewatch is like. Now they no longer see a man with a troubled marriage — they see a grieving widow. They notice that after the shooting, the only person he ever speaks with is the boy. Nobody else speaks to him at all.
You start noticing details everywhere, because that one twist changes how you see the entire film.
That is exactly why I spoiled it today. Because Jesus is about to do the same thing with his disciples.
As good Jewish boys, they grew up celebrating the Passover meal every year. And as we study this last supper before his death, we are going to watch Jesus drop in a plot twist that changes everything for them.
And honestly, I hope it changes everything for you too.
The Text: Mark 14:12–16
“And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, ‘Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?’ And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, “The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.’ And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.”
What Passover Actually Was
Our passage begins with the phrase on the first day of Unleavened Bread. Every year the Jewish people celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which lasted a week and always began with Passover.
The whole week was a celebration, but Passover especially was a remembrance of what God did through Moses in Exodus, bringing Israel out of Egypt.
If you are not familiar with that story because you missed the animated version, let me spoil that one too. I am ruining movies left and right today.
The Israelites had been enslaved for four hundred years. God sends Moses to Egypt to ask Pharaoh to release the people for three days to go worship in the wilderness. Pharaoh counts up the lost labor and lost production over those three days and says no.
So Moses tells him that God will begin bringing plagues against the nation.
They were wide-ranging. Frogs covering everything. Gnats. Water turned to blood so nothing could be drunk. Total darkness. Hail. Nine plagues in all.
And notice: every one of those plagues struck directly at something the Egyptians worshiped. It was Israel’s God saying, I am more powerful than your gods — and idol after idol was defeated.
And yet after every one, Pharaoh said the people could not go.
The tenth plague
So in Exodus 11, God has Moses stand before Pharaoh and declare a final plague: about midnight, every firstborn in the land of Egypt would die — from the firstborn of Pharaoh on his throne, down to the firstborn of the slave girl at the hand mill, and even the firstborn of the cattle.
That sounds incredibly harsh. But when you consider the harm done to the Israelites over four centuries — the abuse, the thousands killed — this was, in a real sense, justice. And God was not going to discriminate. It reached from the highest in the land to the livestock.
But wait — that would mean the firstborn of the Israelites too.
Yes. Except God put a plan in place to protect them.
He instructs the people to take a lamb, kill it, take some of its blood, and paint it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the house where they eat it. They are to roast the lamb over fire and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, leaving none of it until morning. And they are to eat it with their belts fastened, sandals on, and staff in hand — eating in haste.
And then God says: the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
So when death comes through Egypt, God sees that something has already died in that home. He passes over. Everyone inside lives.
And the belts and sandals and staffs matter, because at the end of this, Pharaoh was not going to release them for three days. He was going to release them forever. Their slavery was about to end.
Immediately afterward, God instructs the Israelites to celebrate this meal every single year — roasting the lamb, eating unleavened bread and bitter herbs, reenacting it annually to remember what God had done and how he brought them out of slavery.
And so across the centuries, the Jewish people celebrated this meal. There were stretches where they forgot it or were disobedient, but whenever they returned to God, they returned to this custom too. It was entirely customary to come to Jerusalem for Passover.
Back to Mark 14
Which is exactly what is happening here. Passover is approaching, and the disciples — good Jewish men — realize they have a problem. They have no headquarters. No home. They have been traveling while Jesus taught and healed. So where are they going to celebrate?
They ask Jesus whether he has a plan. And he does.
Mark tells us he sends two disciples; Luke tells us it was Peter and John. He says: go into Jerusalem, and you will see a man carrying water.
That would have stood out, because water was typically carried by women. A man doing it would be noticeable.
Follow him. When he enters a house, knock, speak to the master of the house, and ask where the upper room is.
Sure enough, they go into the city, spot the man, follow him, knock at the house — and the owner says the room is ready. They go upstairs and there it is: a table, cushions arranged around it, and a space to prepare the meal.
So they roast the lamb. They prepare the unleavened bread. They get everything ready. And eventually Jesus and the rest of the disciples arrive.
We will talk about Judas in two weeks — during the meal he leaves. But two things happen at that table that function as complete plot twists, and they change everything for these men.
Plot Twist One: The Bread
“And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’”
The bread Jesus holds is unleavened. It is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, after all. And the reason they ate only unleavened bread for the whole week was solidarity with their ancestors, who had no time to let yeast work through the dough and cause it to rise. They had to bake immediately, because they were leaving immediately.
So picture something more like a large cracker than a sandwich loaf.
In a typical Passover meal, the leader — usually the father of the household — would hold that bread up and say: This is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.
But when Jesus holds it up, he does not stop there. He says: this is my body.
In other words: this is my affliction. This is my suffering. My body is going to be broken for you, so that you might be released from slavery to sin.
I cannot help wondering whether in that moment the disciples looked at one another and started asking what was happening. Does this mean Passover has been about Jesus? Jaws dropping. Hands going to their heads. You mean it has been about him the whole time?
Plot Twist Two: The Cup
And to erase any doubt, Jesus keeps going. Verse 23:
“And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’”
A Passover meal typically involved four cups of wine. The first two before the meal, the last two after. There would be Scripture reading, then a cup; more reading, then the second cup; then the breaking of bread and the meal itself; and after the meal, cups three and four.
Where the four cups come from
The four cups derive from Exodus 6. At that point Moses has already gone to Pharaoh and been refused — and not only refused. Pharaoh, offended at the audacity of the request, made conditions worse. So bad that the Israelites turned on Moses and his brother Aaron and told them to go away.
Moses is discouraged, and God encourages him by reminding him why he is there. Exodus 6:6–7:
“Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.’”
The four cups take their names from those two verses.
The first is the cup of sanctification — I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
The second is the cup of deliverance — I will deliver you from slavery to them.
The third is the cup of redemption — I will redeem you with an outstretched arm.
And the fourth is the cup of praise, sometimes called the cup of consummation — I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God.
Which cup was it?
Luke 22 tells us this cup comes after the meal, which means it is either cup three or cup four.
If it is the cup of redemption, then when Jesus takes it and says this establishes a new covenant, the meaning is: this is my blood, which redeems you. Just as the blood of the lamb helped redeem the people out of Egypt, the blood of Jesus redeems us out of slavery to sin.
But it could be cup four — the cup of praise or consummation — which carries the idea, I will make you my people and I will be your God. The idea of coming back into relationship with God. Sin took us away from God, tore that relationship apart, and plunged us into spiritual death. And through the blood of Jesus a new covenant is established, and we come back into relationship with him.
Everything They Thought They Knew
I wonder what was happening in those disciples in that moment.
This entire time they thought Passover was about Egypt. They thought it was about God’s work in bringing Israel out of slavery. They thought it was a story about then.
And now they are sitting at this table and this man is saying: no. This is a story about me.
That this meal, celebrated for centuries, is now being fulfilled by this man — because it is his body that is broken and his blood that is shed. And through him we are saved, we are delivered, we are redeemed, and we are brought back into relationship with our God.
I can guarantee that the next year, when those disciples sat down to celebrate Passover, it was not just another meal. It was not simply warm memories of family gatherings. It was not merely a remembrance of Egypt.
They would think of Jesus. They would remember the crucifixion and the resurrection. They would remember seeing that body whipped and beaten. They would remember how much blood was shed. And they would remember that he rose again from the dead — and that he did all of it for them.
That plot twist changed everything for them.
My Prayer Is That It Changes Everything for You
If you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, hear this: Jesus came for you. He died on a cross, his body broken and his blood shed, so that you could have a way out from the penalty of your sin.
The Scriptures teach that the penalty of sin is death. Every single person ever born deserves that death — not just the firstborn. Everyone.
And Jesus is the Lamb who was sacrificed, so that his blood could go over the doorposts of your heart, so that death would pass over you and you could come into eternal life.
If that is you, I am genuinely glad you are here. We started this church for you. And I would love nothing more than for today to be your spiritual birthday — the day you give your life to follow Jesus.
Most people mark that decision in prayer. They simply confess their sin and say: God, because you sent Jesus to die for me, I now give my life to follow you.
Come to the Table
And I know many of you have already given your life to Christ and already call yourself a follower of Jesus. So I can think of nothing better than for us to celebrate that last supper right now.
The ushers will pass the elements to you. Rather than taking them immediately, hold on to them. We will sing a verse and a chorus, and then take the bread together. Then we will sing another verse and chorus, and take the cup together.
So stay seated as the ushers come, hold on to what you are given, and let us do this together — remembering that the bread is his body, broken for us, and the cup is his blood, poured out to redeem us out of slavery to sin and bring us home to God.
