The Passover Supper

The first Passover prefigured Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and showed what it means to be God’s covenant people.

The final plague that fell upon the land of Egypt in Moses’s day brought death to all the firstborn in the land—even firstborn animals. But God provided a way for His people to be spared from this plague. By performing a symbolic ritual, the children of Israel showed that they were God’s people, and then through the Passover, God saved them from destruction, delivered them from bondage, and sent them to inherit a promised land. (See Exodus 12.)

Here is a brief description of the emblems of the Passover, in which we see many symbolic representations of Jesus Christ’s ultimate sacrifice and our covenant with God.

Significant Passovers with the Savior

• 1st Passover: Purification of the temple (“Make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise”)—see John 2:13–17.

• 2nd Passover: Miracle of the loaves and fishes (“I am the bread of life”)—see John 6.

• 3rd Passover: Last Supper (“This do in remembrance of me”)—see Luke 22:7–20.

• April 3, 1836: On Easter Sunday 1836, the second day of Passover, the Savior appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple.

Our Passover

“Do we see [our weekly sacramental service] as our passover, remembrance of our safety and deliverance and redemption?

“With so very much at stake, this ordinance commemorating our escape from the angel of darkness should be taken more seriously than it sometimes is.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, “This Do in Remembrance of Me,” Ensign, Nov. 1995, 68.