We begin just before the final Passover meal was to be eaten by Jesus and His twelve disciples. This would be the last time they would eat this meal together. The Passover meal was an annual celebration of the Jews which commemorated God’s deliverance of His chosen people Israel from 400 years of slavery under the kings of Egypt. The final plague of the ten that God sent against Egypt to force Pharaoh to let Israel go was that the firstborn of each household in Egypt would die unless the blood of a lamb without spot or blemish was applied to its door posts on all three sides. The death angel sent by God, upon seeing the blood on the door, would pass over and not kill the firstborn in that household. Those Jews who believed the warning from their prophet Moses and applied the blood to their doors saved their firstborn of both people and animals. However, the Egyptians lost all their firstborns from Pharaoh down to the common servant if the blood was not applied to their door posts. Moses, by the power of God, then led Israel out of Egypt to the land God had promised them.
The blood of the slain lamb was a picture of the blood that would be shed by the Lord Jesus Christ, the sinless Lamb of God, on the cross. Those who have faith in Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection have His shed blood applied to the door posts of their hearts. The anger of the Lord will pass over Christians and they will be forgiven of their sins and inherit everlasting life and enter into the promised land of heaven after death. John the Baptist referred to Jesus as “… the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)
Jesus knew that His hour had come when He had to die for our sins, leave the world, and go to the Father. Jesus loved all those the Father had given Him who were in the world. He would love them for all eternity.
The unleavened bread of the Passover meal represented several things. First, when Moses led Israel out of Egypt in haste there was not time to add leaven or yeast to the bread for it to rise. So the leaven was left out of the bread they baked to take with them on their journey. Second, leaven often symbolizes sin in the Bible. As a little leaven spreads throughout the bread, so too does sin spread throughout a person. Jesus was warning us about the evil of sin and how it can thoroughly contaminate us. Third, Jesus warned His disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees who were the Jewish religious leaders of His day. Their leaven (sin) was false teaching and hypocrisy.
How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?—but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 12 Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Matt. 16:11-12)
In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” (Luke 12:1)
It was on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread right before His death that the disciples approached Jesus and asked Him where He wanted them to prepare a place to eat the Passover meal. He told them to go into the city to a certain man and to say to him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.”’” (Matt. 26:18)
God providentially directed them to the right man and the disciples went to his house and prepared it for the Passover meal.
Jesus Christ is the bread of life.
And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. (John 6:35)
We eat this bread of Jesus when we read and obey His word, the Holy Scriptures.