Passover
Passover is right
around the corner.
This year, Justin and I are attempting to observe each of the biblical feast days. The first few have been fulfilled in Jesus' death and resurrection, but that doesn't nullify the beauty or significance of them. Just as Easter is a way we remember and rejoice in Jesus rising from the dead, I hope you can see the deep meaning and joy we can find in Passover and the consecutive feasts.
This year, Justin and I are attempting to observe each of the biblical feast days. The first few have been fulfilled in Jesus' death and resurrection, but that doesn't nullify the beauty or significance of them. Just as Easter is a way we remember and rejoice in Jesus rising from the dead, I hope you can see the deep meaning and joy we can find in Passover and the consecutive feasts.
To set the stage, I
want to give a brief overview of the first three festivals ordained by God for
the Israelites to observe.
The first feast
commanded in the Bible is Passover, which was to be celebrated on the 14th day
of the first month (according to the Hebrew calendar).
The very first Passover took place when Israel was in bondage to the Pharaoh of Egypt. They knew
God had promised to make them into their own nation, but yet here they were
430 years later, still in slavery. God spoke to Moses and told him to lead His
people out of Egypt. God sent nine plagues on Egypt each with their own
intended message. The last and final plague was the killing of the firstborn sons
and firstborn livestock of Egypt. To protect His people from this plague, God
commanded the Israelites to take a sacrificial lamb, slaughter it, and put its blood on
the doorframes of their houses. When God saw the blood, He passed over, and the
destructive plague wouldn't touch that household.
That very night, the
Israelites were freed from Pharaoh's oppression and they fled Egypt. The
Israelites were commanded to observe this feast day as a lasting ordinance, remembering how God led them out of Egypt and delivered them from bondage.
The next Festival is
the Feast of Unleavened Bread which lasts for 7 days and begins on the 15th day
of the first month.
The Feast of Unleavened
Bread started on the day after Passover. The Israelites were not allowed to eat
anything made with yeast and were to purge their house of any leaven. As the
leaven will eventually rot the bread, to remove it was a symbol of cleansing oneself from the
sin which corrupts us. As God rescued Israel from the Egyptians during the
Feast of Unleavened Bread, so they in turn kept the feast day to
remember all He had done for them, and to cleanse themselves from sin.
Another
theme of the feast was asking and thanking God for giving us bread/life out of
the ground.
The third festival is
the Feast of Firstfruits which was the day after the Sabbath following Passover.
In the year that Jesus died, this happened to be the 16th day of the first
month.
The feast of Firstfruits
is about giving God the first of your harvest. In it, you were telling God that
even if you gave Him the first and very best portion of your harvest, you
trusted Him enough to provide what you needed for the rest of the year. The
Feast of Firstfruits was instituted when the nation of Israel was still wandering,
without land or crops, therefore, it was observed in faith that God would lead
the people to the land He had promised.
How often do we thank God for His
future providence in our lives? What a beautiful demonstration of faith.
When I started reading and learning about
Passover and the subsequent feast days, I couldn't stop because I was so
overwhelmed by the way Jesus revealed the truth of who He was and what He came to
do.
I pray you are also able to see the very obvious hand of God in these festivals
surrounding Jesus' death and resurrection.
To begin this story, we should start on the 10th day of the first month, 4
days before Passover. This day was called "lamb selection day". God instructed the Israelites to select the perfect lamb, without spot or blemish in
preparation for the Passover sacrifice.
Have you ever wondered why Jesus was
born in Bethlehem? The Israelites often chose their sacrificial lamb from fields located in Bethlehem that were owned by the Sadducees.
On the 10th day while
the Jews were selecting their sacrificial lambs, Jesus was riding a donkey into Jerusalem as
the people cried "Hosanna. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
The King of Israel." I don't think they realized it, but in that moment,
they were essentially selecting the ultimate sacrificial lamb as the final atonement for their
sins.
1 Peter 1:18-19 says "For you know that it was not with perishable
things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life
handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a
lamb without blemish or defect."
A question you might
have is why they were instructed to choose the lamb 4 days prior to the
Passover sacrifice. I believe that God wanted to make sure the sacrifice was
not anonymous. Today we often experience
"cheap grace", which happens when we don't comprehend the true consequences for our sin, and we take the forgiveness for granted. Since we don't care for the lamb, we don't appreciate
the sacrifice. As they cared for the lamb, God helped
them remember the magnitude of their sin as they came to love the innocent lamb
they were watching over. The sacrificing of their lamb on Passover was difficult, antagonizing even, but it
served as a healthy reminder.
Fast-forward to day 14
of the first month, Passover. This was the evening Jesus instructed His
disciples to prepare the Seder meal, or the "Last Supper". This was the 'opening ceremonies' to Passover if you will. The
moment of this meal that really spoke to me was when Jesus took the matzah, the
unleavened bread, which was unadulterated by decay.
He gave thanks, broke it,
and then gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this
in remembrance of me." (Luke 22:19). A tradition of the time was that the host
would break off a piece of the matzah bread, (the piece was called the
afikomen) and he would hide it away until the end of the meal. He would bring
it back after the meal as the "dessert".
The matzah represented
Israel, and the Messiah was "broken off" from the people and hidden
away. The appearance of the piece at the end was symbolic of the coming of the
Messiah, fervently expected at the time of Jesus.
THIS was the piece of bread
that Jesus held up when He said "This is my body, broken for you." He
was claiming to be the MESSIAH, the perfect, spotless lamb without decay!
(If you didn't get goosebumps, take a minute to re-read that last paragraph.)
After this meal, Jesus
and the disciples went to the garden to pray. What followed was a series of
events that ultimately led up to His death on the cross. If we follow the
timeline of the story, from the garden to the betrayal to Jesus' trial, we see
that Jesus was crucified at 9am, the time of the first temple sacrifice of the
day.
While the Jews were
offering this morning sacrifice, they were praying 18 benedictions. Amongst these
benedictions, they were praying for: redemption, forgiveness of sins, the
coming of the Messiah, and the resurrection of the dead.
How incredible
to realize that Jesus was being crucified as the final sacrifice on our behalf
while the people were praying for it.
The temple sacrifice
happened again at 3pm and it was thought that this specific sacrifice was for
the entire nation. I read that the High Priest would ascend the altar in the
temple at 3pm, take his knife and kill the lamb while saying "It is
finished".
At that very moment,
the veil in the temple was torn, and Jesus spoke "It is finished" as
He breathed His last breath.
THAT is what is being
celebrated on Passover. The ultimate sacrifice, the Messiah redeeming us and
freeing us from our bondage! What joy and gratitude we should be filled with!
Jesus was taken down
from the cross and buried before the sun set, right before the Feast of
Unleavened Bread began and the preparations for Sabbath took place. Jesus was
"planted" in the ground just in time for the Jewish people to begin
the time of asking God for bringing life from the ground. Jesus Himself told
His disciples that "unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."
and in John 6:35, Jesus declared that "I am the bread of life."
What
a foreshadowing of what was to happen on the Feast of Unleavened Bread!
As this feast day
passed, and the feast of Firstfruits began, Jesus rose from the dead. It was
just the day before that Jesus' followers most likely came to the temple on the
Sabbath. As they were stunned and grieved by Jesus' death, they would have
listened as a vision was recounted in which God had promised to bring the dead
to life. A dramatic prophecy was always read in which the Lord instructed
Ezekiel to declare to a valley filled with dry bones: "I will make breath
enter you, and you will come to life." (Ezekiel 37:5)
In 1 Corinthians
15:20-23 it declares that "Christ has indeed been raised form the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a
man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all
die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the
firstfruit; then, when He comes, those who belong to Him."
Can you begin to
imagine the women going to the tomb where Jesus was laid on the morning of
feast of Firstfruits and discovering that Jesus had risen from the dead?
In
that moment, I have to believe that they understood the significance of the
timing of His death and resurrection. He wanted to leave them with no doubt
that He was the Messiah and He was fulfilling all the prophecies from long ago,
that He was the firstfruit, the life from the earth.
The feasts they had
been celebrating for years made so much sense now as Jesus became the essence
of what those feasts promised.
This is literally just
the tip of the iceberg of what I've been learning. I don't know how many times
my jaw has dropped and tears have come to my eyes as I begin to understand the
symbolism of what the feasts meant. The beauty of the feast days has become so
rich and vibrant to me. Those who might say that we no longer need to keep them
because Jesus fulfilled them are missing the point. We can continue to celebrate
them in remembrance, joy, and great thankfulness of what Jesus did for us. As
many celebrate Easter to remember Jesus rising from the dead, there are already
three feast days that all point to the death, burial, and resurrection of
Jesus. I believe they encompass SO much more than Easter. The depth and
magnitude of what these feasts signify remind us of who Jesus was, what He has
promised, and the way He fulfilled prophecies and foreshadowing. It shouldn't
astound me that Jesus didn't forget one single thing. He has proven Himself to
be so faithful to His people.
The feast days
declare that Jesus has set us free and filled us with great joy!
He has become our passover lamb, our firstfruit, our unleavened bread, our provision.
"Therefore we are duty-bound to thank, praise, glorify, honor, exalt, extol, and bless Him who did for our forefathers and for us all these miracles. He brought us forth from slavery to freedom, anguish to joy, mourning to festival, darkness to great light, subjugation to redemption, so we should say before Him, Hallelujah!"
- Passover liturgy from the Mishnah
Sources:
"Sitting at the
feet of Rabbi Jesus"- Spangler/Tverberg
*I did some reading on
the "3 days and 3 nights" that Jesus was in the ground and how it
seems to conflict with the timeline of how His death, burial and resurrection
happened. I don't want to include the discussion in this blog post, but the
last 3 sources are about this interesting topic.
Comments
Post a Comment