Holy Week
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.” Luke 22:7–8 ESV
We celebrate it on a Thursday. It’s a national holiday upon which many eat special foods like turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, and pumpkin or sweet potato pie. The menu may be different in your home, but we all celebrate Thanksgiving Day.
They began their celebration on a Thursday. That was when each household took the lamb they had purchased, sacrificed it, and prepared its flesh over fire. They ate it with special symbolic foods, bitter herbs, and unleavened bread. It was a time for remembrance, a national holiday for the Jews.
It was an opportunity to remember the past, how the Passover lamb’s blood had delivered them from death and resulted in their departure from Egyptian slavery. It was an opportunity to remember God’s rescue and discuss it as a family group. No doubt Jesus and His disciples celebrated a traditional Passover meal when they gathered on Maundy Thursday. No doubt they remembered and discussed God’s great deliverance by means of the blood of the lamb.
Then Jesus took bread and broke it and gave it to them. “This is my body,” He said. Jesus took a cup of grape wine at the close of the meal and said, “This is my blood.”
We still take up the bread and the cup today and remember that He gave His body and His blood to deliver us from death eternal. We listen carefully and know that He speaks to each of us personally. “This is my body given for you.”
Search not how this takes place, This wondrous mystery;
God can accomplish vastly more than seemeth plain to thee.
The Lutheran Hymnal 310:4