As Passover approaches, Christians are called to an intensified focus on Jesus Christ and every dimension of their relationship with Him, since this annual opportunity is given only to those who have been buried with Him in baptism and raised to newness of life. Through the apostle Paul in I Corinthians 11, God has made clear both the necessity of participating in this solemn memorialization of Christ's death and the careful preparation required for proper participation. Each individual must scrupulously examine himself, recognizing the inestimable cost of what has been done on his behalf. This self-examination, according to the Greek word Paul uses, is not meant to produce self-condemnation but rather to function as an approval process—an honest evaluation of how one relates to the One who paid the price for his life and to whom he owes allegiance in every thought and action. Conversely, neglecting this preparation invites condemning judgment for failing to undergo the process wholeheartedly. One of the most valuable tools for this examination is Jesus' own words spoken during the final twenty-four hours of His human life, recorded in John 13-17—nearly a quarter of John's gospel—spoken either directly to His disciples or in His prayer to the Father before His arrest in Gethsemane. Among these instructions, John 15:11-19 stands out as particularly relevant to self-examination before Passover. There Jesus commands His disciples to love one another as He has loved them, declaring that the greatest love is to lay down one's life for one's friends. He calls them friends rather than servants, having made known to them all that He received from the Father. He chose them out of the world to bear lasting fruit, and because they are no longer of the world, the world hates them just as it hated Him. This passage reveals that God has ordained a loving relationship among the friends of God—a fruitful, chosen friendship distinct from the world's hostility. This relationship among brethren, uniquely separated from the world through Christ, is a critical component of the judgment Paul addresses in I Corinthians 11:31 and should therefore be a key element of self-evaluation before keeping Passover worthily. The question becomes whether believers are truly fulfilling the responsibilities of God's friends in their relationships with one another. Proverbs 18:24 reinforces this point: a man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Though its deeper Hebrew meaning is often lost in translation, and its exact rendering has generated controversy, the verse clearly warns those separated from the world through Christ that friendship with one another must mirror the friendship Jesus describes in John 15. Those rightly related to Christ must maintain that same bond with one another—a relationship that binds them to Christ while separating them from the world, forming an essential part of proper preparation for Passover.

Preparation for Passover centers fundamentally on rightly understanding who Jesus Christ is and what His sacrifice accomplished, since Passover itself is entirely about His identity and death. Because Passover is preparatory—readying believers spiritually to participate in the rest of God's plan outlined by the holy days—the preparation demanded exceeds that of any actual holy day. Paul's instructions in I Corinthians 11:24-29 establish that the bread and cup symbolize Christ's broken body and shed blood, sealing God's covenant of salvation. Because such a monumental sacrifice must be fittingly remembered, allowing Passover to become mere ritual or habit robs it of significance; failing to comprehend its meaning makes believers more likely to treat Christ's death unworthily, as the Corinthians did when they focused selfishly on their own concerns rather than on Christ. Central to worthy observance is Paul's charge to "examine" oneself and "discern" the Lord's body—testing whether one's understanding is genuine and distinguishing rightly what the sacrifice means. This requires seriously reviewing personal spiritual and moral failures against the backdrop of Christ's perfect, sinless life of thirty-three and a half years, so that appreciation for His sacrifice deepens, much as spectators who have personally failed at difficult skills come to appreciate professionals who perform them effortlessly. Yet awareness of sin should never deter participation in Passover; rather, it should drive believers toward it, since the symbols themselves are the means by which sins are paid. Two dangerous snares threaten proper self-examination: comparing oneself to others, which breeds self-righteousness and self-justification, and excessive self-condemnation, which produces despair and effectively questions God's grace and ability to forgive. Both responses reveal a lack of faith in God and diminish the value placed on Christ's life. The proper focus at Passover remains not on one's sins but on the payment for sin accomplished through Christ's sacrifice—God's grace to justify through His blood, distinct from the grace given during Unleavened Bread to sanctify believers toward glorification. I Peter 1:18-21 underscores the necessity of valuing Christ's blood as "precious," a term meaning to place worth upon something, which is precisely the task of Passover preparation—personally assessing what Christ's sacrifice is worth. Hebrews 10:26-29 warns that willfully practicing sin after receiving truth reveals a pitiful assessment of that sacrifice, constituting rejection of the baptismal oath, contemptuous rejection of Christ, and insult to God's merciful judgment. The Old Covenant Passover lamb, separated from the flock for four days before slaughter, likely served as a beloved family pet for most Israelite farmers, illustrating through the death of an innocent, intimately known creature the true cost of sacrifice. Ultimately, animal sacrifices could never produce genuine obedience, but the death of the sinless God-Man—foreordained before the foundation of the world—establishes a New Covenant relationship, calling for gratitude, worship, and departure from sin as the only fitting response to so costly a redemption.

As the Passover season approaches, there is an expectation of increasing trials and pressures, orchestrated by Satan to distract from the profound benefits this time offers. God, through Paul, urges a deep self-examination to assess personal progress over the past year. This examination is not meant for condemnation but for honest evaluation of the heart's attitude, enabling one to approach Passover confidently with a right spirit. Despite the busyness before Passover or the personal cost of true self-examination, God calls for a sincere review of life over the past year and the making of necessary changes. This process, though painful at times due to the resistance of human nature, is supported by God's boundless love and readiness to forgive upon repentance. In preparation, God encourages prayer and fasting to seek His help in seeing oneself clearly. He understands the trials faced and offers forgiveness for all iniquities, showing mercy and grace. He does not punish according to sins but completely removes transgressions. With a true fear of God, there is no need for fear, as He knows human limitations and remembers human frailty. Planning time for this self-examination before Passover allows one to approach the season with thankfulness and joy, free from heaviness or doubt.

Preparation for Passover centers on the deep, deliberate study of God's works, particularly the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, rather than a superficial acceptance of them. Psalm 111 establishes this principle, noting that God's works are "studied" by those who take pleasure in them, and that His works and righteousness are eternal and unchanging, always trustworthy. Israel's failure in the wilderness, despite witnessing extraordinary events, demonstrates that experiencing God's works without faith and reflection brings no benefit. This same danger applies to Passover: without deep consideration, its significance can be missed entirely. The confusion surrounding Christ's identity during His earthly ministry, illustrated in Matthew 16 and John 7, shows that people could see and hear Him without grasping who He truly was. This confusion parallels the danger of approaching Passover superficially. Since Christ is what Passover is about, and salvation is inseparable from Him, proper preparation requires studying Christ Himself in His many roles—Creator, Redeemer, Savior, High Priest, Firstborn, Head of the Church—so that His sacrifice is rightly discerned. Preparation for Passover, therefore, is not a holy day itself but is preparatory to the entire festival plan, beginning the annual rehearsal of God's purpose. First Corinthians 11 instructs believers to "examine" and "discern" before partaking, meaning to test, scrutinize, and rightly evaluate the genuineness of one's participation, so that Christ's sacrifice is not treated carelessly. Two snares must be avoided: comparing oneself to others, which breeds pride and prevents repentance, and excessive self-focused remorse, which denies God's grace. Instead, the correct focus is on the payment for sin—the precious blood of Christ—not on sin itself. First Peter 1 emphasizes that redemption came through the precious blood of a spotless Lamb, foreordained before creation, showing that redemption was purposeful, not merely foreseen. Malachi 3 reinforces that those who meditate on God's name and value His works are considered His treasured possession. Hebrews 10 warns that treating Christ's blood as common, through willful ongoing sin, constitutes rejection of the very basis of the covenant. Exodus 12 provides the pattern for Passover preparation: the lamb was selected on the tenth day and kept until the fourteenth, allowing the family time to closely observe and grow attached to it before its sacrifice, intensifying the sense of loss and value when it was slain. This vivid picture illustrates the cost of the sacrifice—an animal nearly like a family pet—as an emotional analogy pointing to the far greater sacrifice of the innocent, sinless Son of God. Ultimately, preparation for Passover means recognizing the awesome cost of salvation, feeling the weight of injustice that the innocent Christ should die for the guilty, and responding with gratitude, worship, and obedience. This proper preparation ensures that Passover is not reduced to ritual or habit, but becomes a genuine, thoughtful remembrance of Christ's sacrifice as the sole foundation of the relationship with God and the entire plan of salvation that unfolds through the festivals.

Passover demands the most thorough preparation of any observance because it initiates the annual rehearsal of God's plan and requires participants to examine themselves before partaking of the bread and wine. Such self-examination must detect shortcomings, recognize one's condition, and produce genuine appreciation for the sacrifice that seals the New Covenant. Participation proclaims Christ's death and return, affirms partnership in the covenant, and signals unity with the body; treating the symbols irreverently, carelessly, or ritualistically therefore incurs guilt for the body and blood of the Lord and invites divine chastening. Faith forms the foundation of worthy observance. It begins with believing that God is and grows into trust that includes Him in every aspect of life. This operative faith works through love, prompting submission and obedience rather than mere intellectual assent. Neglect of the word of Christ weakens faith and risks drifting back into former ways. Equally essential is remembering what believers now are: Abraham's seed through union with Christ, co-heirs of the world and of all things, the focus of God's redemptive purpose. Forgetting or undervaluing this identity leads to an unworthy attitude at the table. Serious consideration of these realities, accompanied by repentance and renewed commitment, enables participants to take the Passover in a manner that honors the One whose blood purchased their inheritance.

Preparation for Passover centers on the events of the 13th of Nisan, the day before the lamb was slain at the beginning of the 14th according to ben ha arbayim, "between the two evenings." Exodus 12:15 and 12:19 command that leaven be removed from houses, and this requirement, written in the Hebrew past tense indicating completed action, necessitated substantial preparatory work before the Passover itself could be observed. This preparation explains a long-standing translation problem in the Synoptic Gospels. Matthew 26:17, Mark 14:12, and Luke 22:7 have traditionally been rendered as referring to "the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread," yet the Greek actually reads toon azumoon, "the unleavens," a plural form without the word "bread" present in the text. Properly understood, this plural likely refers not merely to bread but to houses, borders, and days that had to be made unleavened, meaning the 13th of Nisan, the first day on which leaven had to be removed, rather than the 15th, which is the actual first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Unger's Bible Dictionary confirms this by citing John 19:14 and describing how, on the evening of the 13th, heads of households searched for leaven by candlelight, pronounced a blessing, and declared any undiscovered leaven void. The Mishna adds that leaven was burned by 10 a.m., forbidden to be eaten after 11 a.m., and that unleavened bread was baked and ready by 3 p.m. that same day, all in preparation for the roasting and eating of the lamb once it was killed at the start of the 14th. Recognizing the 13th as "the first day of the unleavens" resolves the apparent chronological contradiction between John's Gospel and the Synoptics. If Matthew 26:17 were correctly understood as the disciples asking about preparations on the 15th, the disciples would have been asking their question nearly two days too late, and Jesus would have been crucified on the 15th rather than the 14th, an impossibility given that He had to fulfill the role of the true Passover Lamb. Instead, the disciples were asking on the 13th, the day of preparation, exactly when such a question would be expected. Luke 22:7 reinforces this by stating that "the day of the unleavens" was when the Passover "must" be killed, using a Greek term indicating legal compulsion under God's law, showing that this day of preparation extended into the beginning of the 14th, when the lamb was actually slain. Mark 14:12, describing the disciples' question "when they killed the Passover lamb," uses an imperfect tense indicating an action already in progress at that very time, someone was already sacrificing the lamb even as the disciples spoke, apart from the Temple, since the priests had not yet done so. This confirms that ordinary people were preparing and slaughtering their own lambs domestically, consistent with the practice reflected throughout Jesus' final Passover, in which He gave clear, prior instructions to His disciples about where preparations should be made, showing this was not an improvised or novel meal but a properly prepared observance of the very Passover God had commanded in Exodus 12.

The concept of preparation for Passover emerges most directly in the distinction drawn between Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as two separate festivals with two separate meanings. Unlike Unleavened Bread, no command exists forbidding work on Passover, and the reason given is that Passover involves substantial labor—killing the lamb, applying its blood, skinning it, roasting it, eating it, and burning what remains. This labor-intensive nature identifies Passover as the preparation day for the holy day that follows. Just as spiritual transformation requires groundwork before a person can truly begin to come out of sin, Passover memorializes the necessary preparations for that departure, while Unleavened Bread memorializes the actual act of coming out. The preparation involves coming to a knowledge of God's plan and purpose, gaining understanding of and belief in the blood of Jesus Christ, and beginning to repent—all foundational work that must precede the actual turning away from sin represented by Unleavened Bread. This spiritual pattern is mirrored in the physical events surrounding the Exodus itself. The spoiling of the Egyptians illustrates a preparatory process unfolding in stages. God's initial instruction to spoil the Egyptians came near the beginning of the first month, but genuine fear among the Egyptian populace did not develop until much later, after repeated plagues wore down their resistance. A command to actively begin spoiling came only after the ninth plague, allowing a period—conservatively estimated at about eight to nine days—during which the Israelites could gradually acquire silver, gold, and clothing from their neighbors. This spoiling was then interrupted by the Passover itself and resumed in earnest after the death of the firstborn, when the Egyptians, in their urgency, threw goods at the Israelites rather than merely lending them. The so-called "day's delay," which fifteenth-Passover advocates use to mock the early-fourteenth Passover position, is shown instead to be filled with genuine preparatory activity rather than idleness. During the daylight portion of the fourteenth, after leaving their houses at boqer, the Israelites did not sit idle but walked from their homes in Goshen to the assembly point at Rameses, a journey of considerable distance given the size of the population—conservatively over two million people with their flocks and herds. Along this journey they continued spoiling the Egyptians. Once gathered at Rameses, further preparation occurred: watering and feeding their flocks, resting, and organizing into orderly ranks by tribe and family in anticipation of departure, which itself required significant logistical preparation given the scale of the movement. Thus preparation for Passover operates on two connected levels: the physical preparations that occupied the Israelites between the plagues and their actual departure from Egypt, and the deeper spiritual pattern these events foreshadow, in which Passover itself stands as the day of preparation—commemorating the laying of groundwork in belief, repentance, and understanding of Christ's blood—before the seven-day process of actively coming out of sin, pictured by Unleavened Bread, can begin.

Preparation for the Passover requires making every effort to dig into the truth of God's Word so that the memorial times are kept in line with what He wants to be learned from them. This helps one more properly examine oneself within the Body of Christ as the approach is made to keep what should be one of the most solemn yet joyous occasions of fellowship in peace with Jesus Christ, the Father, and one another. The memorial is commanded to be kept annually as among other things a clear reminder of the covenant made at baptism to live as Christ lives when buried with Him in the waters of baptism. Although the focus must never be taken away from the totality of the cost that was involved, there is something very specific to consider as the Passover is kept and the peace offering is celebrated as the memorial that has been given. The peace offering is shared with the King of Peace while the inestimable cost is considered, which demands absolute faith in action. Jesus Christ washed the feet of even the man who was going to betray Him. Opportunities have been given to really understand and love brothers, but what He said must be followed. Jesus Christ gave an example that the feet of one another ought to be washed. The commandment is to love one another as He has loved, and greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. Those who are Christ's are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Abraham was called the friend of God. The peace meal that Melchizedek offered to Abraham is a type of the memorial to be kept at the beginning of the 14th. The main focus of the Passover is the peace meal, a meal that was shared with the Father, the Son, and one another in unity. The world is divided and will never find unity by doing what is right in its own eyes, but unity must be found within the Body of Christ through the command to humbly serve one another without any partiality whatsoever. The perfect sin offering must precede because the way is cleared before by the perfect sin offering made on behalf, which in turn prepares the way to become acceptable burnt and meal offerings. The peace offering shows the perfect communion produced. When Jesus Christ kept the Passover with His disciples on the last Passover of His life as a man, He said He had completed the work that God had given Him to do at that meal. The main focus has to be on the peace offering that was made that night because only Jesus Christ could show the perfect burnt offering and the perfect meal offering that could produce the peace offering that brought unity to the body of Christ. He spent the evening very carefully telling His disciples what they must do if they were to be His friends and keep His commandments and humbly serve one another, treating each member of the Body of Christ as if submitting to Jesus Christ Himself. Those who participate in the peace offering and then continue to follow a faithless, self-serving path of life do so to their peril. Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, but a man must examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. There should be no schism in the body, but the members should have the same care for one another.

As Passover approaches, we must prepare by storing God's Word in our minds to combat temptation, following the example of Jesus Christ. He relied on His Father's Word to defeat Satan, demonstrating the necessity of memorizing Scripture to replace wrong thoughts with divine truth. This preparation is not just for Passover but for every day, as Satan seeks constant opportunities to weaken our trust in God. By arming ourselves with specific verses and using them against temptation, we strengthen our resolve and align our thoughts with Christ's. This ongoing process of memorizing and applying God's Word equips us to choose His way over our own, ensuring we are ready to face daily challenges and honor His sacrifice.

In preparation for the Passover, we are called to engage in self-examination, as admonished in I Corinthians 11:28, which states, "But let a man examine himself and so let him eat the bread and drink of the cup." This process may reveal our guilt in certain areas, yet it does not necessarily prevent us from partaking in the Passover. We cannot make ourselves worthy, but through self-judgment, as mentioned in I Corinthians 11:31, "If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged," we have the opportunity to make changes and avoid harsher trials. This examination is a vital step in preparing our hearts and minds for the Passover, ensuring we approach it with a renewed focus on our relationship with God.