Culture
Passover today
The Lord God of Israel chose the nation of Israel to teach nations of himself. Isaiah 43: 12 reads “Ye are my witnesses (Israel) saith the Lord, that I am God” One of the dynamic and most powerful way to see the Messiah is in the Biblical feast of Passover, Pesach in Hebrew.
Passover is one of the three major feasts in which the Lord commands the children of Israel to go up to Jerusalem annually; at the appointed time according to God. The religious feasts God commands us to observe are found in Leviticus 23:5-44.
The Jewish people had to learn for themselves that the Lord is God, the one true God. The Jewish people are to be a light steering other nations away from sin and idolatry. Yet only when we remember and obey to observe the best we can, is when the biblical feasts righty give God the honor due him. It is that the biblical feast we as Jews exemplify that honor and glory due Him to the other nations, thereby being a light to the nations.
The ancient feasts of Israel were to serve as a future truth as well, even prophetic we might say. The feasts were signs of agriculture of the time. There are meaningful still today as we celebrate, a show and display clearly of Gods dealing with his people Israel and a future fulfillment to come.
The season it is celebrated is spring. It is signifying a new beginning. Under the Law of Israel it is an annual reminder of the release from bondage in Egypt as a nation. The blood of a lamb was to be placed at the top of each door (lintel) and the two side posts. This was commanded by God the night God redeemed his people from slavery in Egypt. Without the blood on their doors we would not be delivered, we would die. God made that very clear to us when He commanded to place the saving blood of a lamb on our doors.
The meaning today is key in a Christian’s life as redemption from sin is offered to us, thanks to Christ’s blood on our hearts. We as Christians have also been delivered, we have been delivered from not slavery in Egypt but from the slavery of sin today. In this Christological significance we see that all believers by grace can be saved (and his blood as in the Passover lamb). Scripture teaches our Lord is the Lamb of God. Lambs were for sacrificial purposes in Jesus time. He was sacrificed for our sins, to redeem us, the perfect lamb sacrifice to deliver us, as in Passover. 1 Peter 1:18, 19 “for you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold… but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot”.
The Israelites suffered from Pharaoh and cried out to God in their bondage in slavery under his rule and God heard the pleas and suffering. Their hearts had been broken, their spirits too and their physical bodies but only now they were ready to receive God’s help. God has a covenant with His people, it was given to Abraham, again to his seed Isaac and then again to Jacob. This was a new time now for Israel, they were leaving their life of hundreds of years in Egypt. God would deliver them if they were willing to listen and do what he said to them. He indeed delivered the entire nation that night of the first Passover! Israelites did put a lamb’s blood on their doors. He would give them a new covenant at Sinai too where they journeyed after their deliverance from Egypt. God had preserved the Jewish people in Egypt at Goshen and saved them from the famine in Canaan. It was time to move forward as a nation now and return to Israel.
This night is a night to be remembered for all generations, Exodus 12:42. Those only who were of the covenant could partake and those who were circumcised (in Jesus today we have the heart of circumcision). The lamb had to be eaten in one place (a home, a family). It had to be eaten in one night. No leaven is allowed in the home for 7 days and still this is true today. A sacrifice was to be made with no leaven (blood sacrifice). We can see there were many rules God gave concerning the blessed Passover feast.
The Jewish people celebrate this feast with symbols and each symbol represents the miracles God did for us as a people. We are to reflect, we are to remember. God wants us to remember what he did that we can praise him afresh and anew in our hearts, remembering his goodness to us. God does not want us forgetting His great love towards us and His perfect power in saving us that night so many centuries ago. The feast brings back all those thing to our minds which show His greatness and love for us all. The foods we eat have symbolic meaning for us and we are to eat each food item annually on a Seder plate. Seder means order. Passover is in an orderly display to teach and show what happened in Egypt, as God commanded.
Some items we eat are bitter roots and we are to eat this to remind us of the bitterness of slavery. Sweet haroset is like desert reminds us God is good all the time and also the sweet promise of salvation and deliverance. The egg represents the sacrifice as we do NOT eat lamb at Passover. We eat a first rate chicken or beef usually. It is a great feast indeed.
We raise four cups which have meaning spiritually and in the light of our hope in Christ too. Passover is a wonderful time to tell an unsaved Jewish person about Christ. We have the Holiness cup (Kiddush), a cup of plagues, a praise cup, and one of salvation, redemption too. The month of Passover is the time for redemption!
Stories of redemption are read at the table for over 2 hours. The bitter lettuce and egg plus Passover redemptive foods are eaten with flat looking matzo bread. This bread has no leaven. The people had to quickly run out of Egypt and there was no time for the bread to rise or the leaven. We faithfully clean our homes, all supermarket stores too which sell breads (you cannot buy bread at this time in Israel) and we must throw away any leaven each year at this time of Passover too.
It is important to see here that after a full year we tend to forget God’s goodness in our lives and a biblical feast brings it fresh into our minds again each year about the time we start forgetting! That is God’s way to keep us remembering all He did and all He will do for us still in the future in the kingdom to come. The matzo bread is to be placed in threes at the table on Passover. It signifies unity, the crown of leaning, the crown of priesthood and the crown of kingship.
The middle matzo bread is to hidden and must be found during the evening. It is hidden, it is buried, and then it comes back. It is called the afikomen. Is this not what happened when Jesus our Passover lamb was sacrificed for us that night of redemption at the season of Passover? He was taken, He was buried (hidden) in that Passover season and he came back, yes He is risen. He is risen indeed.
This year Easter is celebrated only one day after the Passover holiday begins or the first day (remember there are 7 days of the feast). Easter we remember the Lord coming back, His rising and deliverance and our deliverance from the dead. We are dead in our sins the bible teaches. Let’s this season remember the hope we have in the celebration of God’s deliverance now. We celebrate the new life Christ’s blood offers us.
After the cups and the meal plus a candle lighting by a woman of the house and a prayer Passover continues through the night. After the matzo is hidden we break for the Passover meal. We read the stories together and sing songs of deliverance. We bless the Lord with our lips and hearts as we give glory to Him alone for His great deeds this magnificent evening.
Many songs and some rabbinic literature is quoted but we as Jewish believers in Jesus often do not quote the Rabbis in our everyday lives. Their teachings are very different from Jesus’ teaching. Often they are mixed with mysticism, which is not the truth. Jesus is the way the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father except me the bible teaches says. The Rabbis largely do not confess Jesus and so we do not use their writings too much. However it is a fact that the siddur is heavily rabbinical and the Passover stories. There are some Messianic Siddur books to follow if one chooses but we are more traditional in our home.
During the night we ask questions, the most well-known being “why is this night different for all other nights”? The answer of course being this is what the Lord did for me, when He led me out of the house of bondage, He delivered me with a mighty hand and an stretched arm! This feast as well as all of our biblical feasts as Jews teach the younger generations what God did for us as a people.
The last cup in which we also close the Passover feast is the Elijah cup. This cup is only manifest at the close of the Passover meal. John the Baptist was himself Elijah says Jesus, (if we will accept it he emphasized). Elijah was to prepare the way for the Lord, and the hearts. Did not John do just that before he was mercilessly beheaded in prison by an unrighteous woman’s desire to have him beheaded? Often God’s people are treated wrongly by the worldly ones for their godly living.
The Jewish people are commanded to be a light to the nations. We see God’s greatness in this wonderful feast we as Jews are to observe every year. It can be enjoyed with Christans too who are in the new covenant of the Jewish prophet Jeremiah: 31:31, in Jesus Christ.
We have this hope today. “Blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of the lamb” Rev. 19:9. What a feast THAT will be. While Passover is the greatest of feasts it won’t compare to the feast we are invited to by Jesus Himself, the feast of the Messiah and the day when we will join Him.
“Great and marvelous are they works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are they ways, thou king of saints. Who shall not fear thee oh Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou alone are holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgements are made manifest” (Revelation 15:3-4).
Happy Passover season, the appointed time to be delivered and to remember our great and almighty God we serve, the God of Israel.! He is risen indeed! So on behalf of Israel we shout, Hope in the Lord! Shalom!
Miriam Abramov, one of founders of Awake Israel ministries in Israel, is an Israeli believer in Christ and is a graduate of Israel College of the Bible in Jerusalem, a four year degree accredited college. She served in the Israel army in weapons control and continued to pursue a Master’s degree in Jewish studies.
She is an international speaker regarding Israel and the biblical Feasts. She has written a book, Married to Israel. She has written often for Messianic periodicals in the Holy Land. Miriam enjoys journalism status international.
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