passover... but not

Okay, bear with me.

I grew up celebrating Passover every year. At the passover seder, we all broke and ate the matzoh and drank the four cups of wine. Everyone at the table. When I was twelve, my immediate family went to a messianic seder hosted by my second cousin, who is a messianic jewish rabbi. We were unofficially banned from my extended family's jewish seders from then on. Everyone in my family, youngest to oldest, was banned – even though my father was the one who made the decision to attend the messianic seder. (I guess my relatives understood the concept of covenant headship.) So we went to a different table, a messianic table. We all went and ate and drank at that passover table, now commemorating the death of Christ.

This past Thursday was my first Maundy Thursday church service. Growing up (since I was twelve) we commemorated Maundy Thursday with an actual seder. Of course, we didn't call it Maundy Thursday. We called it Passover.

So at our church's Maundy Thursday, as opposed to every other Sunday ("Why is this night different from all others?"), it seemed we were really (and appropriately) hammering on the connection to passover and the seder. And it kept bringing me back to the seders I'd attended growing up. And I remembered feeding wine and bread to my cousin when he was no older than one, and could only just chew and swallow. This was the level of participation he offered at the seder despite that he had no concept of what was going on, he could not read and he could not speak the confessions or prayers recited during the meal. And yet we wouldn't have even thought of withholding the bread and wine from him (and the karpas, and the maror, and the korech). In fact, wherever the baby's faculties keep him from participating, we act for him. (For example, during the urchatz – the washing – we wash their hands for them.) Even more, the youngest child who can speak is given a special role at the seder; nevertheless, speaking and the ability to ask the Four Questions is not a requisite for admission to the table.

Again, on Maundy Thursday we as a congregation affirmed that what we celebrate is actually the last supper, the passover seder, freely offered to all members of the covenant community. And then I was made to withhold the bread and wine from my son, who was baptized into the covenant, just as my cousins and I were circumcized into the old and failed covenant. So what is it? Are we celebrating the seder or not? If so, how could it be so different than the seder I celebrated growing up? How could we do something in the Church of Christ that would be unthinkable to my un-believing relatives, who always celebrated with great relish the day that the youngest child at the table first took their matzoh and wine, i.e., the day a weaned baby celebrated his first seder.

So what am I to think? Are we celebrating the last supper, or are we celebrating the communion as distinct from the last supper? Did my Jewish relatives, who follow the same seder liturgy (though the true meaning is obscured by unbelief) every year in the same basic way as Christ did, have it all wrong? Or is there biblical reason to alter the fundamentals of the seder?

do you want it, or don't you?

the law of God.

as a church, we are so far from espousing a fully-orbed, working understanding of the law. testifying to this is the unabated slaughter of 50 million children in the last three decades, the church's complete inability to stem the tide and its endless ceding to secular pressures on the issue (including the pressure to just drop it), not to mention that many christians are even now considering voting for candidates who support expanding access to and incidence of this horrible pagan practice. add to that the church's pitiful failure to field a candidate who promises to ban the murder of america's children, and you've got a big matzoh ball. the issue of abortion is apropos to discussion of the law of God; if we behaved like we believe that the law of God is an immutable law, that not a jot or tittle will be put aside until Christ's return, then we would take seriously its commandments, and we wouldn't talk of "rights," but rather of duties, which would drive us to action on behalf of the innocent. (suffice it to say, i do not consider the issue of correcting american-style "poverty" a greater issue than the murder of children. care for the unborn – the truly voiceless – is a paramount issue to wage correction. consider: would it offend you if i said that we shouldn't be murdering the poor wholesale at one-and-a-half million per year?)

and, really do we think that God will grant us success in correcting the "problem" of the "poor" if we continue butchering our children?

before i get too far afield – into questions of whether God rewards obedience and punishes disobedience – allow me this (controversial?) statement:

all you who call on Jesus Christ as your savior most certainly do not believe that you are free from the law of God.

now the law of God is a touchy subject, and some people who read this are going to want to accuse me of legalism and such. let me start by saying this: my justification and my hope come from Christ, in whom i believe through faith, which is a gift of God. there is nothing in me apart from Christ that warrants salvation. all my good works are enabled through the gift of faith by my covenantal union with him. i am obedient to my baptism, which was also pre-ordained by god and marks me as a christian, only by the grace of God. he alone makes me to continue in righteousness through obedience and he alone is sacrifice for my sins when i fail.

back to the conversation at hand: hasn't Christ's death freed us from the law of sin and death? didn't abraham's salvation come by faith, and not by law? didn't i die to the law? aren't we under grace, not law? yes, yes and yes. but all these statements flow from a presupposition that the law of God is still fully operative, in fact necessarily operative. (i might deal with what it means for the law to be fully operative in later posts and what that means for our "modern" culture – remember, to people 200 years hence, our modernism is their antiquity. for now, we'll focus on why you cannot believe the law is not operative.)

ask yourself: what do i mean when i say Jesus is my savior? you mean He died for your sins, right? well what the heck does dying for your sins have to do with his being your savior? and how can He die for your sins? well, He was sacrificed for your sins. okay, what does that have to do with being forgiven for sins? what i mean is, where do we come up with the idea that Christ's death has anything to do with our sins? what connects our sins with Christ's death?

the law! the hopeful message of God's grace (which alone addresses God's law).

the author of Hebrews, in one among many New Testament passages addressing the topic, illuminates the answer. in speaking to hebrew christians planning to return to Jerusalem prior to its destruction, to return to the old form of the law in its atoning sacrifices, encourages them thusly:

For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

Hebrews 7:26-27.

so he writes that Christ, under the terms of the sacrificial law, offered himself up as a sacrifice according to the pattern of old-covenant sacrifices. this is repeatedly affirmed by other authors and orators who refer to Christ as the "passover lamb." see, Christ is only our savior because of the law. only in the law does God establish how one atones for the sins of a people by the sacrifice of another.

furthermore, the priesthood of Christ is one that directly refers to the law. words like "priest" and "sacrifice" and "atone" and "curse" are meaningless apart from the law. the law is the tutor that taught us about Christ's office and accomplishments. it teaches us that there are priests, and that they make sacrifice for our sins, and that sacrifice atones for sins and lifts the curse of the law – but not the law itself. we only know to interpret Christ's death as sacrifice for the sins of his people because the old testament system taught us that that's how God works salvation. when we look at the law, we see grace, which is why the psalmist can sing of loving God's law.

consider this: if the law has been completely set aside, than how can Christ have died for our sins? yes, he could have died for the sins committed before he hung from the tree. but ours? if the death and resurrection of Christ abolished the law of God, then there is no sin to atone for. indeed, it must be that some law is still operative in some way, and it must apply somehow, despite that it is clear that we, the redeemed, are not under it nor does our righteousness come from obedience to the law (though, according to james, our obedience flows from our righteousness).

what law then? the law as expressed by Christ in the new testament? what's that law? "Obey my commands." and what are His commands? follow me here: Jesus is triune with God and the Holy Spirit. He is the incarnation of the old testament, law-giving God. what God commands, Jesus commands. nothing proceeds from the mouth of God that Jesus disagrees with.

all our claims of Christ flow from the law of God as expressed in the Old Testament. if you claim Christ as your savior, you are making a claim to God under the law, claiming that Christ died under the law now existing for your sins under the law now existing. you are pointing to Christ and telling God, "cursed is him who hangs on a tree." Deut. 21:23. He took the curse. because you are at one with Christ, you can be righteous, and you have the ability to please God by obeying His commands as expressed in the law.

to recap:

1. we christians claim Christ as our savior.
   
2. Christ is our savior because he died for the sins of his people.
3. the law of God establishes the pattern of substitutionary atonement, that one can die for the sins of another. He established the law of grace.
   
4. aaronic priests were unable to perfectly atone for the sins of the people (collectively and individually) because the law of grace requires atonement for the sacrifice-maker's sin as well. the law taught God's people, through pageantry and liturgical repetition of sacrifice and festival (the same liturgy as ours), how God was going to work his redemption of the world.
   
5. Christ was able and did fulfill the law and the sacrifice required under the law.
6. Christ is the perfection for us of every sacrifice required by the law.
   
7. we present that sacrifice to God, appealing to the law of grace.
   
8. thus, we claim right standing under the law based on Christ's obedience (active and passive).

okay, so if the law has to be at least partially operative for us to be justified, how do we decide which part to obey and which part to not obey? which ethical burdens do we carve out?

more on that later (maybe).