You're probably wondering, what does the Passover have to do with me? Isn't this a Jewish thing? But if you go back to Leviticus 23, and you read about the seven feasts, what are they called? The Feasts of the Lord, or the Seasons of the Lord. These are the Lord's Feasts. They have a prophetic significance in that the Spring Feast, that of Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of First Fruits, and what we know as Pentecost, all are fulfilled at its first coming. And we have about a four-month break. And then we have the Fall Feast. There are three. The Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. So those have yet to be fulfilled. Right now, we're in that hiatus, that four-month break, and the Church is part of that right now. And so, you might be thinking, okay, so how does this solve Tanya? If you have your Bibles, please open them to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. 1 Corinthians chapter 5. 1 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul says, starting in verse 7, For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast. Paul was speaking to a predominantly Gentile church, and he's telling them to basically In the context here, to clean out the old one, for Christ, our Passover has been sacrificed. And so here he identifies Yeshua, or Jesus, with the Passover. He is the Passover Lamb of God. We see that from the Gospel of John, chapter one, verse 29. We see that at this time, John the Toxic is telling us about John the Baptist. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. I would think the Jewish mindset then would go to the Temple and the Sacrificed Lamb in the Passover. So how is Jesus this Passover Lamb? Well, to understand that, we've got to go back to Exodus, Chapter 12. Exodus, Chapter 12, and the story of the Exodus. We see that in the Exodus, Moses instructs the people of Israel to sacrifice the Lamb of God, or the Lamb, the sacrificial Lamb there, and then take the blood and put it on the doorpost and the lintel of their house. And so what happened at that first Passover in Exodus 12 was that the death angel, when he went through the line of Egypt, and he spewed the firstborn, and he came to a house that had the blood So, we as believers today in a more spiritual sense have that The blood of Messiah sprinkled over the doorpost of our hearts, so that when Judgment Day comes, God will pass over us. Those that don't have that blood of atonement will have to go into the lake of fire. So, Jesus was indeed the Passover lamb in their respect. We see that he was tested on the 10th day of Nisan, which we would consider the triumphal entry of the Promised Son, David's reign. And sometimes we understand that, or most of us understand that, or interpret it as the as Him presenting Himself to Israel as their King. In reality, it was this day that the Lamb would be set aside, a year old, and He would be tested to see if there was any defect or blemish or anything in Him. And so, Jesus was tested. He was tested by the Holomians. He was questioned. He was tested by the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the scribes. And he was found to be perfect. A perfect man of God. So, our responsibility in all of this was that the Lamb's blood was shed, just as the Lamb's blood was shed for the Israelites. So, we, too, have a responsibility to believe upon Jesus for our forgiveness. So that, again, so that the dead men do not pass over us, and the judgment never come upon us. So, in the Corinthian passage, the means of working our lives of sin today is 1 John 1. 1 John 1 says, If we confess our sins, be it faithful and just, forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Later on in the Corinthian passage, Paul admonishes the church, as well, to purge the leaven from within there. Why? Because some of them are taking the Lord's Supper, and in other words, you marry. And judgment was being brought upon the church. In fact, Paul says some of you are weak. Some of you are sick and some of you have died because you were all taking the Lord's Supper when you were being married. So again, the use of purging was, for us as individuals, is to confess 1 John 1 passage, and it means also that the Church has a responsibility of protecting the love and faith among itself through Church discipline. And why do we say all of this? Why is the blood thing important? Because when we turn to Leviticus 17.11, it tells us, For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood by reason of life that makes atonement. So, what animal sacrifices did was just cover the blood, or cover the sin. It didn't take our sins away. Christ, with the final sacrifice, His blood was perfect, and therefore His blood takes the sin completely, like all of our sins. So, another reason with regards to knowing the Passover is to know the context of the communion service. Within the communion service, what we're actually doing is celebrating an abridged version of the Passover Seder. So, and we do that through the matzah, the eating of it, a cup of wine. And also another reason, a third reason for knowing at least a little bit about the Passover service is sharing the gospel with the Jewish people, both Jews and Gentiles. And the fourth is also, there are a number of passages in the New Testament, and we'll get to that, to where we're familiar with them, but we don't know an understanding behind that. What did these things, what was the context of these passages, like when Jesus is doing the Last Supper with his disciples? So, and we'll see all of that. So what happens in the Passover Seder, about two weeks to one and two weeks before the Passover, you have the Jewish home. that it undergoes a complete cleaning, cleaning of all the leather, just like we would clean the sin from our hearts, our lives. The woman of the house, she does a spring cleaning, everything from the attic to the main floor to the basement, everything is cleaned. And then there's a ceremony that the father goes through, And what happens is they'll go and they'll put little piles of breadcrumbs around the house. And the father will go with a candle and a wooden spoon and a feather. And what he'll do is he'll take that lemon, he'll scoop it up into a spoon, Wrap it up in a linen cloth and on the day before the night of the Passover they will take that and they will burn it. And then basically what happens then is that the house is now kosher or cleaned to celebrate the Passover. And so At that time, at the first night of Passover, it starts, or just before it starts, there's a number of things that happen. Usually the oldest man in the house, usually the grandfather or whoever is the most elder, he will take a, he's gonna be the conductor of the ceremonies, so to speak, and he will take a hat called a miter, and he will wear his miter, and have a robe, and it's called a kittle, And what this represents is the priesthood. So he's, in essence, the priest of the house, and he's going to be telling the story of the Passover. So most of us think of the medical priest as having the job in the temple, or the services just in the temple. Actually, those would only be the sons of Aaron that are doing anything in the temple. The rest of the Levitical priests, what they did, they had a specific job in that all of the tribes had certain seats. And they would have these Levitical priests in these cities. Now, back then, everybody didn't have a copy like this was all before the Kremlin crisis. So you had very few copies of the scriptures. So these Levitical cities where the priests would reside, because remember, they didn't have any land. Land wasn't given to them. And so, it was their responsibility to teach the scriptures to the people of Israel. And that's why they had these cities. So, you had those that worked in the temple proper. those, the descendants of Aaron, and then you have the rest of the priests that actually taught the people in their specific cities. So you would have those in the land of Benjamin, there would be those that teach the Benjamin lands, and then so forth. Throughout the land of Israel, And so on this night, every head is covered to show their respect for God. Men would wear a skull cap called a kippah, and the women would wear a kerchief or a veil or something like that to cover their head. So now we come to the part in the ceremony where we're going to start the service, and this actually is what starts the Passover Seder. And my wife is going to come up, and she is going to light the candles. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us by your grace and has permitted us to kindle the best of life. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has kept us in life and has preserved us and has enabled us to reach this season. So in doing so, she has performed a major function in the Savior's service. Because without her doing these Passover lights, she does it also on Friday night, just before the Sabbath, we can't start the service. So the service doesn't start until these are lit. and then the special blessing over them. So there is after the Seder starts, then we have the blessing over the wine. And then the first piece of parsley is picked up, usually put in some salt water, and then eaten. This is the first of the bitter herbs. The parsley symbolizes Israel in her youth, when she was a young nation, when she went into Egypt, 70, and came out, probably went on to 0.5 million strong. And so that symbolizes Israel as a young nation. And then the dipping into the salt water represents that of the salt water of the Red Sea. And then we have the four questions. And for that, I have a young man here who has memorized these four questions. And this is David. And he's going to do our four questions. Now, these four questions have to be done in Hebrew. So he's going to say the four questions, and then I'm going to translate. you Now, for the few of you who didn't understand that, It is, why is this night different from all other nights? On all other nights, we may eat either leavened or unleavened bread. But on this night, only unleavened bread. On all other nights, we may eat any spices or herbs. But on this night, only bitter herbs. On all other nights, we do not eat even once. But on this night, twice. And on other nights, we eat or drink, either sitting or reclining. But on this night, we all reclined. It's these four questions that basically start what the whole service is about. And it's about an hour and a half service total. We're not going to go over all of that service. And it's not done contemporaneously. It's done with what is called the Amida, the telling. Now, this one is a real colorful one. And it's got some nice, really nice stuff in it. Hebrew on one side, and English on this side, being that this is an English-speaking country. But in France, they have Hebrew and French, German, Hebrew and German, and so forth. But it takes about an hour and a half or so to go through this whole hug it out. And this tells a story that answers the questions of those foreign questions. So, and we're gonna, we're just gonna summarize them. The first question has to do with why is this night different from all other nights? Loving and unloving Brad. And this is, we're the person in charge, basically, talks about the bread of affliction. So this is Lebanon. You can see it's flat. So when the Israelites were leaving Egypt, they left in haste. There wasn't any time for it to Lebanon. And so as they were leaving, they put the dough on their backs and the sun baked it. And so it became unleavened. Now within rabbinical Pharisee Judaism, there was a lot of traditions that came in. So there's specific requirements for this unleavened bread, which is called matzah. One of the requirements is that, of course, biblically, it has to be unleavened. Remember, leaven is a symbol of sin, and in the Gospel of Matthew, specifically, the sin of false doctrine. But we have this, so it's sin-leavened. So there's no leaven in it, and that Jesus was the ladder of God, he didn't have any sin. Also, you'll notice that it has stripes. In Isaiah 53, 5, it talks about, by his stripes we are healed. You'll also notice that in the same passages, he was pierced, but the matzah has holes. Why? Because Christ was pierced for our transgressions. through the Roman spear and being nailed up to the cross. We also see in Zechariah that they will look unto him whom they have pierced. So this, and this has to be this way. So you'll notice a few other things. And we talked about the parsley and the salt water. So the first time we dipped in the salt water with the parsley was because Israel was a young nation. And so the dipping had to do with them going through the Red Sea. time we think we eat the bitter herbs has to do with because there's Jews still living outside the letter and so there's another shedding of tears because remember the Back up a little bit. So anyways, we got from the parsley to the, we're going to talk about the horseradish. And we're shedding tears for the horseradish. When you take about a teaspoon of this, your eyes start to well up, and you start crying. And the reason is because of the bitter slavery within within Egypt. And then the second shedding of tears has to do with the other bitter herb has to do with because not all Jews are back into the land. And then we have what's called the roasted egg. And the roasted egg symbolizes the Passover lamb that was slain. And then we have the kharoset, the mixture of apples, nuts, and wine and cinnamon. And this is because of the brick mortar that the Israelites used to build the cities of Pharaoh. And then we have the shank bone of a lamb. And this represents the Passover lamb that was sacrificed on the first day of Passover. So we need to understand the Jewish time of reckoning. It's always from the first night or from sundown to sundown. We say today from midnight to midnight, but theirs was from sundown to sundown. Any part of the day was considered the whole day. It didn't matter if it was daylight or dark. It was still considered the whole day. So when Jesus spent three days and three nights in the valley of the earth, it didn't matter from our perspective that he was in there. in the tomb from Friday to Sunday. Remember, Sunday starts Saturday night at sundown. It didn't matter whether it was the actual, the way we understand it, the three days, three nights, or whatever, 24-hour days. Any part of that day was considered the whole day. That included daylight and darkness. So that was the, remember, it's the Jewish mindset we have to think about, not what we think today. So you got some people that say, oh, he was crucified on Wednesday, or he was crucified on Thursday, because for them it has to be 24 hours, or it has to be a full daylight, or it has to be a full darkness, whatever. No, we have to look at the Jewish mindset here. Any part of the day was considered the whole day. So then we can go from there, we talked about the Passover lamb. And remember, he was a lamb that was without blemish and no bone was broken. So during the stage of service or during that first Passover, there was no, not a bone was broken. Now if you had a family that wasn't really a big family or anything like that, you had other people that came in, other maybe relatives or neighbors that came in and you celebrated with the one lamb. But there couldn't be anything left over until morning, so whatever was left over was burnt. So we have, again, the sacred plate here. And most of them are somewhat colorful. They have six indentions in them. And each indention, we kind of went through a little bit of the stuff that's in it. And so, again, the first night of Passover, going back to the Passover lamb, was individual. Each family took a lamb and then had their Passover, the first night of Passover. Now, on the first day of Passover, we go back to the Scriptures, where Jesus is being crucified on Friday. So, at 9 o'clock in the morning, when Jesus was being crucified, the Passover lamb was being sacrificed in the temple, where the 24 priests would be eating the Passover sacrifice. That was just for them. So, they would be eating the Passover lamb in the temple at the same time that Jesus was crucified at 9 in the morning. And then we go to what's called the matzah atash. It's used for the bag. And this bag is somewhere round, somewhere square, depending. But this is different than all of this. For all this stuff over here, rabbinic tradition basically has some commentary on why this happens. But this part of the ceremony is different. There's no rabbinic traditions on this. Some say, well, it does this or does this. But they don't really define or describe why they do what they do in this. And so what you have here is you have a matzah tosh. Now, within this matzah tash, there are three compartments, and each compartment has a piece of matzah in it. And sometime during the ceremony, that middle, the middle matzah is taken out, and we'll talk about that in a little bit here. But we have the matzah back, there's just one back. So they don't define any, there's nothing in the rabbinic writings other than, oh, it's the three branches of Judaism, the Levites, the priests, and the people of Israel. Well, but they don't explain why, why didn't you break the middle or whatever. But when people come to, when a Jewish believer comes to Saving Faith, he understands what this is all about. There is only one God. This is a unity. So there is only one God, but this one God is manifested in three personal self distinctions, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What happens is during the service, when the middle one is removed, that is a picture of the Incarnation. John says in his Gospel, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So, we have the Incarnation with the middle Matzah, Hebrew, Devar, Aramaic, Memorab, Greek, Logos, English, where the word became flesh, but we have a picture of the Incarnation when we remove that second, that middle piece, and it was this piece that Jesus was at that first Seder service, and he said, this is my body broken for you. The one piece, the one half is put back into the middle, and another one is wrapped in linen, and it must be linen, and then it's hid away until some time later in the service. So we're going to see how this all fits in with regard to the Lord's Supper here. So again, you know, we believe in one God, and this one God is revealed in three personal self-distinctions, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. So there's no rabbinic Understanding or commentary on any why this is so and it's only when they come to saving faith in Yeshua or Jesus that people really understand And so going back to The first cup of wine, this is called the cup of blessing or Thanksgiving. And this is shortly just before the four questions. And we're gonna get back to that because we're gonna see where Jesus said, This is the wine that I will not drink from this until it's fulfilled in the kingdom. We'll see how that fits in. And then you have the second cup, and this is called the Cup of Plagues. And there are 10 drops of wine, you name off the plagues, that are spilt from this cup. And the reason being is because wine is a symbol of joy in the Jewish understanding. And so in order to not drink the fullness of joy from this cup, 10 drops are spilt. Because our rabbinic tradition forbids them to gloat over the the bad things for their enemies. And then you have the third cup, the cup of redemption. And this represents the Passover lamb that was sacrificed. And we'll see how this one identifies with Jesus. And then of course, the last one, the cup of praise, where they sing before they go out. So all of this, And this is really a condensed version here of the Passover Seder. We're going to go into a few passages of Scripture. And if you would, take your Bibles, turn to Luke 22. So, Luke 22. Luke 22, starting at verse 14. And when the hour was come, he sat down and the apostles with him. And he said unto them, with desire, I desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I shall not eat until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And then skip down to verse 18. For I say unto you, I shall not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come. So this is the first year is the Cup of Blessing, and the reason why it's the Cup of Blessing is because right after the lighting of the candles in that first cup, It's the longest of the blessings, and normally he would just say, Baruch hatah adonai Eloheinu melech haolam borei k'riyat gatholim. Blessed art thou, Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth the fruit of the vine. Then we have the dipping of the parsley, and then the eating of the bitter herbs, the arroz, and then, of course, there's the aficona, and we see that in Luke 22, 19. So if we go down to verse 19, and he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, this is my body given to you, this do, and remember, it is of me. So what you have here is that other piece is taken out toward the end, and then it is broken up and given to everyone around the table. And that's where he talks about, this is my body broken for you. They don't go to verse 20 and the cup and the white man are after supper. And how do we know it's the third? Cup for the cup known as the cup of redemption So we have this representing the Passover lamb from the Passover a physical redemption we see represents Messiah's blood in the spiritual sense for us when we celebrate the passing of the Lord's communion service. So the couple of redemption, and then of course go to Matthew 26. Turn to Matthew 26. After 26, and when they had sung a hymn, they went out unto the Mount of Olives. Now, when you read the passage here in English, it says a hymn. Actually, it's a verb in Greek, a hymn. And what they were doing were singing the Psalms 113 to 118. at this time. So there was, it was more than just the way we look at it as just one hymn. It was, they were singing these songs and it was after the Savior. So, if we can turn to John chapter 6, we'll see some other passages here in scripture. John chapter 6, starting in verse 32, John 6, 32. Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, it was not Moses that gave you the bread out of heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life unto the world. They said therefore unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that comes to me shall not hunger, and he that believes in me shall never thirst. So we see that in this sense, how is it that these passages, how we understand them in the context of the Passover, Jesus is the true bread that came down from heaven. Go down a little bit further, starting in verse 48. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which came down out of heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. Yea, and the bread which I give is my flesh for the life of the world. And then John chapter 6. John chapter 6, starting with verse 57. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he that eats me, he also shall live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. He that eats this bread shall live forever. These things said he in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum. So what does it mean to eat his flesh and drink his blood when we do the community service? It is the belief in him. We see that later on in 1 Corinthians, Paul talks in chapter 15, one through four. The gospel, what is the gospel? That Christ died? Okay, everyone believes that Christ died. Is that what we need to believe? No, we need specifically to believe that God or that Christ died for our sins, my sins, your sins. That's what saved us. Not just that He died, but He died for our sins. He was buried and He rose again on the third day. That is the gospel. There's nothing else to it, nothing added to it whatsoever. We have to take it personally. So when we take on the communion service, again, we look inwardly and we rid our life of any sin that might be in our life before we partake in an unworthy manner like they did in the court in Chapter 11. So we read earlier about within Luke in 22 where Jesus talks about the new covenant in my blood, this do the remembrance of me. Remember this whole service is we do this to remember this. We do this to remember this. We, we, we. Look at the shank bone of the lamb to remember the lamb that was sacrificed for us in Egypt. And now you have the true Lamb of God, THE Lamb of God, that sacrificed His life for us. And so, again, you have the bitter herbs that, you know, you look at that and you look at the sin, the bitterness of sin in the world today. I mean, you know, and then the sin in our lives as well. And so, there's no one perfect. But we need to confess that sin. We need to agree with God that this is sin, that we fall short of His glory. That all of us, there's no one perfect. What does Ecclesiastes 7.20 say? 720. It says that there is no one righteous. No one. Nowhere. Isaiah, what is it? Isaiah 64, 6. All our righteous deeds are like what? Yes. Yeah. And so the dirty garment, the dirty rags. Nothing. Nothing in us. So when we place our faith or our trust in what He did on our behalf, there's a number of things that happen. One of the things that happens is His righteousness is imputed to us and our sin was imputed to Him on that cross. He took the sin on our behalf. He became our Passover sacrifice. So, again, last but not least, we have this big cup down here. And this is the cup of Elijah that we read in Malachi 4, verse 5, that He will come before the great and terrible day of the Lord. But in rabbinic teaching, Elijah would come, but he would announce the coming of Messiah. And so, this cup is filled with wine. Nobody ever drinks of it. And then at the end of the service, We basically have one of the kids go out and look up and down the street, Elijah has not come, comes back in, we don't know where he is. Well, Elijah hasn't come, that means Messiah's not going to come. And so, next year, maybe in Jerusalem, because of rabbinic teaching, Messiah will come in the Passover. So, and then of course, in the, the pillow is for when, in, in, When people were freed back then, the tables were a little bit lower to the ground, and they leaned on the left side, so whenever a lot of the stuff was taken, it was always on the left side. You leaned to the left. The part where they're trying to find who the betrayer is and Peter, you know, Jesus says it's the one that dips into this, and we didn't have time to go through all of that yet, but Peter motions to John, and he says, you know, ask him who the betrayer is. And so John leans a little bit more to the left, because remember, they're already leaning to the left, so he just leans a little bit more, and he asks who it is. And there's a couple of the passages there in the Gospels where Jesus, it is he, the first time was when he did the parsley, they dipped it in the same dish at the same time. The second time was when he gave him the piece of matzo with the haroset, the sweet apple mixture, along with the the bitter herbs, and normally what would happen would, he would give it to, it would be a, the person he gave it to would be the place of honor, it would have been a job. But he gives it to Judas and says, what you do is imprison me. So anyways, that pretty much, is a very quick oversight of the Seder. And after we're done here, maybe I can answer any questions if you want to come up and just look around. People already have their hands raised for questions. If you want to go ahead and start the Q&A. Well, thank you, Donald. Just a few thoughts I wanted to share given today being Palm Sunday, and just appreciate the context that Donald gave for us. Truly, I believe that if you have an understanding of the Old Testament, you are well-equipped to understand the New Testament. In fact, I would make the argument, you won't be able to understand the New Testament without an understanding of the Old Testament. So with that, Passover and all the other feasts and observances that took place in Israel, that formed the rhythm of life. They would have weekly observance of the Sabbath, they would have annual feasts and festivals, and that formed the rhythm of life for the Jewish mind and it centered their thinking on their creator. And I think it's appropriate to point out that Jesus is the fulfilled Passover lamb, as John the Baptist well pointed out. Behold the Lamb of God. And not only is He the Passover Lamb, but He's also the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. And it wasn't just a covering as the Old Testament sacrificial system was just a covering that they would have to redo every year. He was the full satisfaction of our sins, the fancy theological term, the propitiation of our sins. He satisfied the wrath of God for us. on the cross by being the penalty for our sins. And so with that, communion comes directly out of Passover, and so with that, I want to invite everyone to partake in that. We believe in open communion. But I would say this, that communion is specifically for those who have trusted in Jesus Christ, because it was in Luke, and I wanna go there and read the passage that Donald read, Luke chapter 22. and if I could have the elders come forward, or the men come forward, and we will take communion together. But in Luke Chapter 22, starting at verse 14, it said, ''When the hour had come, he sat down with the 12 apostles with him. Then he said to them, ''With fervent desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And then he took the cup and gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among yourselves, for I say to you, I will not drink the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Likewise, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. So after going through the Passover and the individual elements, we focus communion on those two, the cup and the bread, and how the bread symbolizes the body of Christ and the cup, of course, the blood of Christ that was shed in the parallel passage in Matthew says for the remission of our sins, for the forgiveness of our sins. So if you have trust in Jesus Christ, we open this table to you to partake together as we pass the elements. I do want to also share in the nature of kind of getting into the historical accuracy of Passover, we have decided to have the cup being both wine and juice. The outer ring of cups as we pass will be the wine. Again, the outer ring will be the wine. For those with their children, everything other than the outer ring is good, it's grape juice. I want to make that clarification so that you're not surprised by it. With that, Pastor Dave, would you pray for bread? Father, thank you so much for the reminder that Christ, our Passover has been slain, that he took upon himself for our sins in his body on the cross. So as we remember his body, we remember him and his death on the cross. We thank you so much for this reminder. Again, mentioning that rhythms of life of the feasts and observances and the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. Many think that because of the context of communion, this is something that should be taken every year as Passover, as it comes out of the Passover. Passover was a annual observance, but I want to point out in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, when Paul is going over the institution of the Lord's table, he says, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat, this is my body. which is broken for you, do this in remembrance of me. Now that word in comes from the Greek preposition eis, which means unto or towards. The idea is we're doing this for the express purpose of remembrance. And so because of that reason, we at Fellowship Bible Church observe communion weekly. Of course, we're not gonna fault anyone who practices differently, but that's why we observe weekly. And so we do this towards a remembrance of Christ and his sacrifice for us. So let's remember Christ together. And Dan, if you're ready, would you pray for the couple? Father, we thank you so much for your goodness and your mercy to us. We thank you for pick up, which reminds us that Jesus died and he shed his blood for our sin. So we thank you for that. We thank you for the sacrifice that our Lord Jesus Christ made. And we praise you and ask you to bless. this time in Jesus' name, amen. Again, a reminder, the outer ring is blind. Please only take one cup. Continuing the passage on Paul goes on to say in verse 25 in the same manner. He also took the cup after supper Saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood this do as often as you drink it Towards or unto remembrance of me. Let's remember Christ And with that, I want to close with a word of prayer, and I feel given this observance of going through the elements and stuff. Something Donald mentioned with the search of Elijah. When they would come back and Elijah was not found, they would say, you know, maybe next year in Jerusalem. But we have the hope of the imminent return of Christ as believers in Jesus Christ. But with that, I want to pray for the Jewish people, God's chosen people who have yet to trust in their Messiah. Perhaps he will rapture his church and resume his plan for the day of the Lord, which will be used to bring them to faith. So let's pray to close our service. Father, we thank you so much for this day and what it celebrates. You are the Messiah. Your Son came demonstrating miracles of the Messiah and ultimately laid down his life for our sins on the cross. And though the kingdom was not established at your first coming, we have the promise that it will be established at your second coming. And with that, Lord, you declare to Israel that they will not see your face until they say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We pray, Lord, that We thank you for your people, the Jews who have placed their faith in Christ and are a part of the church. Lord, we pray for the rapture, that perhaps today even, you would return for us and bring your nation to faith through what you have planned for them. Your covenantal faithfulness, Lord, is marvelous to behold, and we thank you for that, and we pray for your people, and we thank you for the salvation you have through your son. As we go today, Lord, we pray that everyone would be encouraged, and think of you this week, reflecting upon the ultimate sacrifice you make for our sins. We thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.