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Luke 22:16   For I tell you, I will not eat [the Passover] again until it finds fulfilment in the kingdom of God.

Isn’t it wonderfully encouraging to be given these little glimpses of the faithful outworking of the plans and purposes of our Omniscient, Omnipotent, Sovereign God in the affairs of this broken, messed up world – a world that seems to us to be so incongruous with the original creation when God declared on Day 6 of Creation Week that it was ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31)!

His revealing of the unfolding Plan of Salvation and Redemption (which is what the whole Bible is all about) began just after that declaration when he made a promise to our rebellious, disobedient, sin-launching parents in the Garden, by saying to the Serpent (the Deceiver): “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15).

From that point on, it is clear that God is moving relentlessly to the fulfilment of the promise when the heel of Jesus was ‘bruised’ on the cross as he took on our sin and died in our place, and thus ‘crushed’ Satan’s head.  Perhaps the most significant part of the long journey to this point was God’s rescuing Israel from bondage in Egypt, of which the observance of the Passover was the annual celebration.

As Jesus celebrated his last Passover on earth with his disciples, he pointed them to its ultimate fulfilment in the Kingdom of God when he returns, ushering in the end of time and the New Heaven and the New Earth.  “When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more; when the morning breaks eternal, bright and fair; when the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore, and the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there”! – by God’s amazing grace alone.

Reflecting on all this encourages me greatly in the face of life’s many contradictions and trials. So, like Anne Ross Cousin, “I’ve wrestled on toward Heaven, ’gainst storm and wind and tide; ’til like a weary traveller that leans upon his guide, amid the shades of evening, while sinks life’s lingering sand, I’ll hail the glory dawning in Immanuel’s land.”

– Bruce Christian