When someone is about to leave us -- whether they're going on a long trip or whether they're about to die -- the last things they say and do carry special meaning.  They are fraught with significance, given the possibility that we may never see them again.  This was certainly the case on Jesus's last night on earth.

At the meal we now refer to as the Last Supper, Jesus reinterpreted a feast that was central to Israel's identity and salvation history -- the Passover meal.  The Passover was their last supper -- the last one they would eat in Egypt before God released them from years of slavery and oppression.  The centerpiece of the meal was the sacrifice of a pure, innocent lamb, a symbol of God's rescue and deliverance.  

It's no coincidence that Jesus's own suffering and death coincided with the timing of Passover.  During this last meal with his friends, Jesus tells them how his body is about to broken and his blood is about to be spilled -- just like the Passover lamb -- as a sacrifice for them.  In this new telling of the Passover story, Jesus himself IS the lamb.

And the new covenant he initiates inaugurates a new Passover story, the story of God rescuing his people -- and ALL peoples -- from the power of sin and death through the blood of the Lamb.  In this new arrangement, God rescues people not because of their own goodness, but because of his.

With John the Baptist we say, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29)