July 25, 2026
Saturday, July 25
One night, Jesus and His disciples celebrated Passover in an upper room in Jerusalem. They had all done this many times with their own families, but this time was different. Jesus, taking the role of the father in the celebration, changed the script. He took the unleavened bread and said, “This is my body.” He took the cup of wine and said, “This is my blood.” He told them that one of their own would betray Him that very night. He told them He was going away to prepare them a place in His Father’s house. He told them He loved them, not as servants, but as friends.
Then, just a few hours later, everything happened just as He predicted. A mob led by one of the disciples arrested Jesus. He was beaten, ridiculed, denounced by His own people, and nailed to a cross. It didn’t make sense. He was the best person anyone had ever seen. He was the only perfect, sinless One, yet He died like a criminal. He was the most powerful person they had ever seen. But He didn’t resist when they arrested Him, tortured Him, or even when they drove those spikes through His hands and feet. In the middle of that afternoon, a soldier took a cudgel and broke the legs of the men being crucified on Golgotha, to make them die faster. When He got to Jesus, the man from Nazareth was already dead. But three days later, He was alive again.
In the years to come, those first followers of Jesus began to piece it all together. That night before His arrest, He had told them, “Greater love has no one than this, that He lay down His life for His friends.” He had given the wine and the bread at His last Supper a new meaning, but He hadn’t even mentioned the lamb, which was the main course. Why? Because He WAS the Lamb. John the Baptist had called Him “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:7 called Him “Christ our Passover Lamb.” Peter in 1 Peter 1:19 said that we were ransomed from our sins “with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”
He WAS without blemish. He was a perfect sacrifice. No wonder He was dead before the soldiers could break His legs. Like the Passover Lamb, none of His bones were broken. In other words, He hadn’t come to lead a revolution against Rome. He hadn’t even come to be merely a prophet or a miracle worker or an example. He came to die in our place. That horrible cross was our salvation.
And that’s why the second ritual Jesus commanded us to perform (along with baptism) is the Lord’s Supper. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are reminded that we are saved only because Jesus was willing to die in our place. He knew how our hearts are prone to wander. He knew some of us would look at the change God’s grace made in us, and say, “I did this.” We would become self-righteous and judgmental toward unbelievers. Or we would conform to their ways, trying to achieve success through ambition, coercion, or flash, and call it the work of God. That’s why we need to remember who we really are: People who would be dead if not for the death of the Lamb. The more you remember that, the more you will draw people to Him. The more you will experience joy and hope. The more you will live out His purpose for your life.
Come on, let’s celebrate the fact that we’re Redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb.
Senior Pastor
First Baptist Conroe
More from Pastor Jeff at his website: jeffbergerwriting.com
