The Jewish holiday of Passover is among the most prized of the Jewish people. It is not only a reminder of God’s trustworthiness, but it also leads to God’s Lamb, the Messiah, who was the last sacrifice for sin. God instructed the Israelites to maintain the Passover Feast from down the generations for this reason.
Passover teaches us of the Lord’s fidelity to His Words year after year. God told Abraham that he’d father many nations and that his posterity would have eternal ownership of Israel. Years later, however, the Lord’s people discovered themselves captives in Egypt. It’s reasonable that they doubted God’s fidelity after the pledge of a country appeared to be violated.
God, on the other hand, proved His faithfulness by raising up Moses, to shepherd His people to freedom. God brought ten plagues to Pharaoh when he declined to let the people depart. The tenth of which was the loss of all first-born sons. Although the epidemic would have affected everyone, God made a way for Israel to be rescued. The angel of death “passed over” all who put the blood of an unspotted lamb on the door posts and lintels of their homes, sparing the lives of their sons. It forced Pharaoh to release the Israelites after his firstborn son died, and God liberated them with a great, outstretched arm.
Passover is significant because it foreshadows an even bigger event than the story in the Old Testament: the death of Yeshua the Messiah, the final Passover Lamb, who redeemed us from sin. “The Messiah, our Passover, has likewise been sacrificed,” Paul wrote to the disciples in 1 Corinthians 5:7. On Passover, Yeshua fulfilled the sacrificial system’s obligations by laying down his life. All the Pesach lambs pointed to him as the ultimate immaculate Lamb.
The Pesach lamb was spotless, and Yeshua was sinless as well. Our sins were placed on Yeshua in the same way as the high priest put a Jewish person’s sins onto a blameless lamb as an atonement sacrifice—both situations of the blameless dying for the wicked. Those who apply Yeshua’s blood to the “doorposts” and “lintels” of their temples will be protected from spiritual death, just as they were saved from death by applying the Pesach lamb’s blood to their homes. If we further understand the first part of Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “Purge out the old leaven, so that you may be a brand-new lump, as you are unleavened.” As a result, Passover reminds us of God’s steadfastness in not only freeing His chosen from slavery in Egypt, but also in freeing us all from our sin via the sacrifice of the True Lamb, Jesus the Christ.
With the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, this time of year is of importance to us all. It reminds us of the ultimate sacrifice for sin, Jesus Christ. It is also the beginning to our understanding of the way, the truth, and the life. As Jesus rose on the third day, we also have the same access to the Father by His Spirit. If only, we allow all of the teachings of the Messiah to have a place within our heart. Life comes by every word of God and not only by bread or morsels (Matthew 4:4).
The Christian News 