Matthew 26:17-19

PREPARATION FOR THE PASSOVER

Matthew 26:17-19; Luke 22:7-13; Mark 14:12-16. It is now Thursday morning, the Passover beginning properly on the following Sabbath; but these two preceding days are occupied in preparation for the great national solemnity. Josephus says it was not uncommon for them to slaughter two hundred and fifty thousand lambs during a single Passover. O what a wonderful symbolization of Calvary's bleeding Lamb! “On the first day of unleavened bread, when they were accustomed to slay the Passover, His disciples say to Him, Where do You wish that, having gone, we may prepare that You may eat the Passover? And He sends two of His disciples, and says to them [Peter and John see Luke 22:8], Go ye into the city, and a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you; follow him. And whithersoever he may go in, say to the landlord that the Teacher says, Where is the guest-chamber, where I may eat the Passover with My disciples? And he will show you a large upper room, furnished, ready; there prepare for us. And His disciples departed, and came into the city, and found as He said to them, and prepared the Passover.” They escorted me, during both of my tours in Jerusalem, to a large upper room in the City of David, on the summit of Mount Zion, which they claim to be identical with the one here mentioned, which received imperishable notoriety for the Last Supper, the winding up and abolishment of the Passover, which had been so prominent since that memorable night when they began their exodus out of Egypt, no longer slaves, but a free and independent nation, Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, having broken every chain; meanwhile its celebrity was augmented by the imperishable memories of the wonderful Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost and fire fell on the disciples, the full-orbed gospel dispensation, under the auspices of entire sanctification, pouring down from heaven like a deluge, converting three thousand, and in a day or two five thousand more, giving a boom to the Church of the Nazarenes which shook the world with the tread of an earthquake, and, glory to God! It is still heaving and quaking.