Maundy Thursday

**Today is the day when Jesus celebrated his final Passover with His disciples. At this Passover, Jesus washed the feet of His disciples in an extraordinary display of humility. He then commanded them to do the same for each other. It was on the Thursday of Christ's final week before being crucified and resurrected that He said these words to his disciples**

*So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.* **JOHN 13:12-15**

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#3 Jewish Festivals

In Exodus 23, God ordained "that three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me":

(1) Spring: the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Pesach/Passover)

(2) Summer: the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot/Pentecost)

(3) Fall: the Feast of Booths or Tabernacle (Sukkoth)

The first festival celebrates three separate events during the week:
The Feast of Unleavened Bread, followed by Passover (Friday), and concluding with the Feast of First Fruits (Sunday).

#The Feast of Unleavened Bread
*1 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 2 “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. 3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need, you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or the goats. 6 Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.* **~EXODUS 12:1-6**

*1 “Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place where the Lord chooses to put His name. 3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. 4 And no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the meat which you sacrifice the first day at twilight remain overnight until morning. 5 “You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which the Lord your God gives you; 6 but at the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at twilight, at the going down of the sun, at the time you came out of Egypt. 7 And you shall roast and eat it in the place which the Lord your God chooses, and in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. 8 Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a sacred assembly to the Lord your God. You shall do no work on it.* **~DEUTERONOMY 16:1-6**

#The Last Supper
**Exodus 12 instructs that the Passover lamb is to be "slaughtered at twilight." The lamb forms the centerpiece of the Passover meal. Jesus took this meal with His disciples at twilight; we call it 'The Lord's Supper.' During the dinner Jesus that "One of you will betray me" then Judas leaves the group, having already agreed to betray Christ. During the meal, Jesus redefines the Passover feast, explaining that He is ushering in the New Covenant described by God through the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.**

*31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah* **~JEREMIAH 31:31**

*17 Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “I will gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.” ’ 18 And they will go there, and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there. 19 Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.* **~EZEKIEL 11:17-20**