Supper Time

In today's podcast, you will hear the story of Passover and Easter and how God told what He was going to do over 3000 years before he did it.

Each story is a concise, creative tale that aims to be both biblically and historically accurate, although some characters and conversations may have been added for the sake of storytelling.

Transcript

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Have you ever heard of Passover? It's okay if you haven't. Today I'm going to tell you about it because I think it's absolutely amazing. So sit back, relax, kick off your shoes, and for the next few minutes, reimagine this. A long time ago in Egypt, there was a ruler called Pharaoh. He was in charge of the land and all the people in it, including the slaves from Israel. These slaves had to do a lot of hard work. One of their jobs was to make bricks. They would gather mud from the Nile River, mix it with straw, and shape it into rectangle like brick shite brick shapes and let them dry in the sun. And they had to make a lot of bricks. They were used to make city walls, buildings, houses, pretty much everything. And if they didn't make enough each day, they got in big trouble. For years the Israelites cried out to God, asking him to save them. So God sent a man to help. Any idea who that was? Moses. Moses went to Pharaoh and asked over and over again for Pharaoh to let God's people go. And each time Pharaoh said, Nope. But not only did he say no, he decided to punish the people for even asking. He took away their straw for brickmaking, but told them they still had to make the same number of bricks every day. That was terrible. People were searching high and low for things they could add to the mud to help it stick together and be strong. This made for a lot of extra work. And when the bricks fell apart because they had no straw in them, they had to remake them or be punished. Yikes. When Pharaoh continued to say no to Moses's let my people go, God sent plagues to the people of Egypt. Frogs and locusts, sickness and flies. But Pharaoh's heart was hard and he wouldn't let the people go. Finally, Moses told them he had one more chance. Then Moses told the Israelite people that God was going to send one final plague, and they needed to do something to prepare for it. Each family had to find a one-year-old sheep or goat that did not have any sickness or strange markings or any problems. It needed to be as perfect as possible. They had to kill it and use some hyssop branches to make a paintbrush, then paint the top and the sides of their front door frame with the lamb's blood. That night, the Lord would pass over the land, and anyone inside a house who had the blood of the lamb on the door was safe. But if they did not, the firstborn son in each house died. Obviously, it was a terrible and sad time for a lot of Egyptians. But after this, Pharaoh let the people of Israel go. And now, over 3,000 years later, the Jewish people still celebrate Passover as a way to thank God for saving them with the blood of the Lamb when he passed over. You know, it's almost Easter. It's also almost Passover. And this is what's so cool. Check this out. Jesus and the disciples were celebrating Passover. They were all eating together what we call the Last Supper. After the meal, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. There, he was arrested and taken before Caiaphas, a Jewish high priest, and before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. There people lied about him, and the Jewish leaders said he needs to be punished. But they didn't have the power to kill him, which is what they wanted to do. So he was taken to Pilate, the Roman governor. They told Pilate how bad Jesus was. But Pilate was like, I don't see what you're talking about. I don't find anything to punish him for. Well, clearly the people did not like hearing that. So they took Jesus to Herod, the governor of Galilee, the town where Jesus was from. Herod made fun of Jesus, but then ended up sending him back to Pilate. Finally, Pilate had had enough. He was like, look, each year during Passover, I have a tradition of releasing one prisoner. Let's release Jesus. But the people were like, no, no way! Release Barabbas. Now Barabbas was accused of rebelling against Rome and killing people. He was not a good guy. But the people kept yelling, give us Barabbas! We want Barabbas. So Pilate asked, What should I do with Jesus? And the people yelled, Kill him! Crucify him! So Pilate let Barabbas go free and sent Jesus to die. It's crazy, two men were standing before Pilate, one who had done wrong, Barabbas, and one who had done no wrong, Jesus. The guilty man was set free, and Jesus, the sinless man, was killed. Now listen, because this is my favorite part. Did you know Jesus is called the Lamb of God? And he's perfect. He's never done anything wrong, and yet he was killed. Remember the first Passover? The people had to find a lamb, as perfect as could be, so they could sacrifice it to save themselves. Now, at Easter, Jesus, the perfect lamb, was giving himself up, dying, shedding his blood to save everyone. You see, when Jesus died and then rose again three days later on Easter, he made a way for everyone to be saved, to live in heaven with him and God and the Holy Spirit forever. At Passover, the first one, a lamb saved the people who had blood on their door frames. At Easter, Jesus the Lamb saves everyone who believes in him. So Passover was about God rescuing his people, and Easter is about God rescuing all people. I think that's so cool. God foretold what he would be doing thousands of years before he did it. I love how these two stories weave together, don't you? Want to hear something else cool? When Jesus died, he was buried in a tomb or a cave, and a huge rock was rolled in front of it, so big it took a bunch of people to move it. On Easter morning, one angel came and rolled away that rock and then sat on it. And finally, did you know that as Christians, we celebrate the Last Supper? Yep. Whenever we have communion with bread and wine or juice, we remember that meal, the Last Supper, and what Jesus did for us. Cool. And hey, if you liked the story about the plagues and want to learn more, I recorded some really fun podcasts about an Egyptian girl who lived through the plagues called Nefera's Story. Scroll back to July and August of 2025 and you can find them and check them out. Hey, thank you so much for listening today. I hope you have a great week, and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye.