The Meal That Heals

The Meal That Heals

The Yom Kippur ceremony was an image and a preview of the atoning mission of Jesus Christ. He died on the cross and, by bearing the sins of the world, He became the final offering for sin. Christ Carried it All Under the Old Covenant, a man could not become a priest until the age of thirty (Numbers 4:3). John the baptizer introduced Christ as the “Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). Christ was about thirty years of age at that time (Luke 3:23). It would be Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who would take the sins of humanity and defeat the power of sin in the lives of those who would trust Him: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.” Colossians 2:14 A Secret in the Garden After forty-two months of ministry, Christ and three disciples huddled under the gnarled olive trees in the garden of Gethsemane. As the disciples’ eyes became heavy with sleep, the eyes of Christ pierced the veil of what was coming as He begged that the cup of suffering would pass from Him (Matthew 26:39). In the darkness, Christ interceded to His father for three hours (Matthew 26:36-46). Luke indicated that “His sweat became as it were great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44). Luke said He entered into agony. The Greek word is agonia and it implies extreme emotional stress. Why was Christ under such mental pressure? How could His sweat become as great drops of blood? That night in the garden, I believe there was a conflict unfolding in the invisible arena of the spirit world that only Christ and God were aware of. The pressure of the sins of the world was being transferred to the Son of God. Satan was unaware of this process and would have stopped it had he known the future impact of this moment:

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