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1 Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, that He said to His disciples, 2 "You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified." 3 Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people assembled at the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, 4 and plotted to take Jesus by trickery and kill Him. 5 But they said, "Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people." ~ Matthew 26:1-5
Today, we transition into Matthew 26 where we will witness the climax of redemptive history, and the greatest event in the history of the world. It was "the Passover week" which is immediately followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread. While often referred to as such, Passover isn’t a week or even a day, but a meal held on the 14th day of the month of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar.
The meal for Passover is "the Seder," which is a memorial to what God did for His people in their Exodus from Egypt. The Seder is to be eaten on the 14th day of the month of Nisan, after the sun sets. The Feast of Unleavened Bread begins at sundown on the 14th of Nisan and lasts until the 21st, where leaven is removed from the meal and only unleavened bread is eaten, symbolizing the haste of the Jews departure from Egypt. The Passover points us to the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God who took away our sin. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 5:7 we read, "Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us." The bread of the Feast of the Unleavened Bread also points us to the sinless One who said, "I am the Bread of Life."
In v.1-2 of today's passage we read, "1 Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, that He said to His disciples, 2 'You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.'"
The public teaching ministry of the Lord Jesus had come to its end. He has turned His attention fully to the cross. The fulfillment of all the Passover sacrifices that had ever been celebrated over all the years back to the Exodus was at hand. The Lord Jesus considered it joy to obey His Father so that you and I could know our sins forgiven. This was the fourth time the Lord Jesus told His disciples about His suffering and death that would happen in Jerusalem. This was the first time He gave to the disciples a specific time frame, "after two days."
Once again, the Lord Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of Man which is a messianic title from Daniel 7. As the Son of Man, His disciples knew that He was telling them that He would conquer all enemies. He referred to Himself as the Son of Man because He was about to enter God’s presence who would then give to Him all of the authority, glory and sovereign power to fully rule over even sin and death for all who would believe in Him. Everyone who has ever believed in Him as their Savior will worship Him out of a changed heart.
Earlier the Lord Jesus had said, "Every one that exalts himself shall be humbled; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted." Putting the cross before the throne was a conscious decision for the Lord Jesus. As a result of humbling Himself before His Father even before time began, the Lord Jesus reached the means to the ultimate will of the Father for Him. He now was face to face with the cross, the tool that was used for Him to be the satisfying sacrifice for every sin ever committed. All along, the Lord Jesus kept His eyes on the Eternal One and fulfilled the unthinkable for you and for me. This is why we so cherish that old cross where He openly demonstrated His love for us all.
In v.3-5 of today's passage we read, "3 Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people assembled at the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, 4 and plotted to take Jesus by trickery and kill Him. 5 But they said, 'Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.'"
As the Lord Jesus spoke these words on that Wednesday night, the Sanhedrin had called a special meeting in the house of Caiaphas. They met in order to plot the death of the Lord Jesus. Their plan was to wait at least eight days but God’s plan would come to fruition in two days. The religious leaders were so enraged, they leaped at the opportunity to kill Him, but as the Scriptures reveal, this was the unfolding of God's plan to redeem hopeless man. It was the fulfillment of the divine design. The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is the apex of redemptive history and the ratification of the New Covenant.
For the Lord Jesus the cross was no surprise but for the disciples it was shocking. It should have been in view for the disciples given the centuries of the Passover lambs that were slaughtered but they failed to see that far in advance. The cross of the Lord Jesus is explicitly prophesied in detail in the Old Testament, even down to the very things that happened to Him while He hung on the cross. Even the actions of those around Him even before He was nailed to the tree. Even the words He and others spoke while He hung there on the cross were predicted. His crucifixion was truly the unfolding of an amazing tapestry.
God is sovereign and everything happens within His divine framework. Everything in life is either caused or allowed by our Father who is in heaven. During His thirty-three years on this earth, everything the Lord Jesus did was what God wanted Him to do. The Apostle Paul tells us that "in the fullness of time, the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to be the propitiation or the satisfying sacrifice for all of mankind." The death of His Son was planned by the Father before the foundation of the world. It was the divine plan of God that He would die for the sin of the world.
The Lord Jesus was handed over to the Jews to be crucified. The Passover takes us on a journey going all the way back to Egypt when the enslaved Jews experienced the forgiveness of God as the death angel passed over their homes with blood stains over their door frame. The Lord Jesus has always been the sacrifice through whom we have been made acceptable to God. Most biblical scholars believe the Lord Jesus was crucified at the very same place where Abraham intended to drive a knife through his son Isaac. And, as the door into heaven, all we have to do is to pass through Him. It was the will of God for the Lord Jesus to be crucified on that particular Friday, even though the Jews wanted to wait until the Passover had come and gone. Christ died to satisfy the justice of God on our behalf.
