14.02 | The Table of the Free

Matthew 26:1-30

‘When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”’

Matthew 26:1-2

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I’m a stickler for getting a roast dinner just right.

Obviously there’s a fair bit of work that goes into the timings around the meat. That goes without saying. Keep it tender, keep it moist, and leaving it to rest makes a massive difference when it comes to carving.

But only the roast dinner rookie stops here.

Roast potatoes: briefly boiled and then tossed in salt and flour, before dropping them into sizzling hot fat in the oven. No sizzle, and you’ve rushed it. Yorkshire puddings, that hero of English cuisine, have a similar relationship with the sizzle. The veg should be done right at the end, because nobody likes soggy broccoli.

The gravy is the unsung hero of the table. For me, you’ve got to use the meat juices to make a roux, before getting some red wine in there, and then gradually beefing it up with stock, water (preferably from the veg), and seasoning. It should be abundant, as your Yorkshire puddings should be filled like erupting volcanos.

Every culture has great meals as a part of their cycles of celebration and storytelling.

For the Jews, the lead example was (and still is), the Passover. The backstory for this beautiful meal goes back over three thousand years. The Hebrews (ancestors of the Jews) spent four hundred years in the land of Egypt, with hostility from the Pharaohs leading to all out slavery. They were brutally oppressed under the expanding vanity projects of the Pharaohs, lacking one of the most essential, God-given ingredients that is required for human flourishing:

Freedom.

The first Passover was the meal shared on Israel’s final night in Egypt. It was the meal that God commanded them to eat, with the blood of the same lamb that they were eating painted across the entrance to their homes—a marker that their houses were not to be defined by death and grief, but by life and liberty. This was the night they moved from belonging to Pharaoh to belonging to God. This was the night they became free.

The disciples of Jesus had grown up with this annual meal, telling and retelling the story, assisted by the earthy materials of meat and bread and herbs and wine. As they told the story, the very flavours and rhythms of the meal enhanced the narrative, entering afresh into the reality that they were once enslaved, but that God always brings His people into freedom.

Matthew is taking us into the final hours before the Cross. And he wants us specifically to know that it is the Passover. He wants us to notice that Jesus picks this festival and this meal as the organising visual for the the climax of His ministry. The themes of the past story are going to be essential to understanding what is happening here. The meal teaches the Cross.

The meal, where the unleavened bread of affliction is fulfilled, as the undefiled body of Jesus is afflicted unto our healing.

The meal, where the cup of wine becomes our cup of blessing and freedom, inviting us into the overflowing joy of the coming age that breaks into our very present moments.

The meal, where an innocent one dies, and His life that is poured out becomes the new marker under which we live and walk.

The meal, that means that a leper becomes the host of Jesus in the most significant week of His life, and the woman with the sketchy reputation becomes the lead visual of worship and devotion in her beautiful and prophetic act.

The meal, that speaks right into our moment, our places of addiction, pain, oppression, and limitation.

The meal where we see the true Lamb has come. And that His life given will mean a new inbreaking order of being for all the world.

This meal. That introduces God’s new inbreaking order of

Freedom.

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Reflect:

Take some time to sit with this new reality afresh. 

Think over those places where you are enslaved to patterns of thought, behaviour, or addiction.

Remind your soul in words that you have been liberated by your Jesus, your lamb.

Invite the Spirit to manifest this freedom in increasing measure in your soul today.

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Pray:

Lord Jesus,

I hear so much about freedom:

Freedom to choose, freedom to consume, freedom to self-create;

But in truth, it often doesn’t feel very free.

Amidst all the noise,

My soul can feel captive to things, and fears, and anxieties, and the opinions of others;

I can feel enslaved to habits of thought and action,

That actually make my life feel more like captivity

Than the freedom you offer.

Today,

I return to your table.

I bring to afresh my places of captivity,

And I proclaim afresh with defiance that Jesus died to set me free

Would you enable your new life in me again,

That I may live in the abundant joy, feasting, and liberty

Of your endless Kingdom

That sounds so beautiful

And that sounds like a life I want to live.

In Jesus’ Name,

Amen

Old Testament: 

For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:

Leviticus 4:1-6:7 | Psalm 22:22-31