Day 1 | The Cup of Sanctification

At the beginning of Holy Week it’s important for us to remember that everything that takes place between Palm Sunday and Resurrection Sunday is rooted in the Jewish festival of Passover. This week as we make room to contemplate the sorrow of Jesus’ death and to celebrate the victory of His resurrection, let us take time to reflect on the four fold promise of Passover that was being fulfilled in Jesus.

The story of the Exodus is the story of God fulfilling his promise from Exodus chapter 6.

But the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”
God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.’” Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.
Exodus 6:1-9

This was the four fold promise of God to his oppressed and enslaved people.

I will bring you out—I will remove you from the oppression
I will set you free—I will remove the bondage of the oppressor
I will redeem you—I will remove the effects of your oppression
I will take you—I will give you a new identity; I will marry you.

But notice verse 9

Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.
Exodus 6:9

Imagine the tragedy of such brokenness. When a prophet of God comes with a message of hope, there was no one to receive it because they had a broken spirit. The identity of slavery was so deep that they couldn’t imagine a life of freedom.

In his book Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller tells the story of a Navy SEAL rescue mission of a group of American hostages in a dark part of the world. While these people were in captivity they were physically and psychologically abused, led to believe that there was no hope of rescue. Their captors mounted fake rescue missions to get the hostages’ hopes up only to be crushed with the news that nobody was coming.

The SEALS stormed the compound where the hostages were held, eventually reaching the room where they were kept. The hostages were curled up in the corner of the room, terrified. The SEALS stood at the door calling to them, telling them they were Americans. The SEALS asked the hostages to follow them but they wouldn’t. They couldn’t. They couldn’t believe that rescue had really come.

The SEALS had to think quickly. There was no time to carry each hostage out one by one. One of the SEALS put down his weapon, took off his helmet, and curled up next to the other hostages. He stayed in this position until the hostages noticed him. He looked them in the eye and whispered that the SEAL team were Americans, they had come to rescue them. All that the hostages needed to do was trust them and follow them to safety.

Such is the rescue mission of God. To the Israelites he sent Moses to identify with them in their oppression and to gently lead them out from Egypt. And so it is for us when Jesus took on humanity to look us straight in the eye and lead us to freedom.

How many of us are in the same kind of captivity, believing there is no hope for rescue?

The lies of our enemy have gone so deep that our identity gets wrapped up in our captivity. But God speaks to us his promise: I will bring you out; I will set you free; I will redeem you; I will take you as my son or daughter.

The first cup of Passover is the Cup of Sanctification, the promise that God would bring us out from under the yoke of slavery. What cruel masters do you have in your life that you cannot free yourself from? What do you need to be saved from, whether a secret sin, an addiction, a thought pattern, a relational wound, a lie you have believed?

Begin by confessing it to God and making the confession to your own heart: He will bring me out from under the yoke of slavery.

Let us drink the first cup.