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Passover Tidbits #6:   Jesus and Passover

To many Christians, the idea of Jesus and the Passover seems to go together like ... say ... a nice steak and gasoline.  You know what I mean. To pick up a nice steak, you must travel to a grocery store, or a restaurant, typically by automobile. We know that any motorized vehicle requires fuel, thus the connection between steak and gasoline.  That is to say, many Christians don't immediately associate the idea of Jesus with Passover.

Most believers know that Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples immediately before His crucifixion.  Mark 14:25 (and the other Gospels as well) tell us Jesus was celebrating the Passover but declined "to drink any more wine, (the 4th cup we later find out) until that day when He can drink it anew in the Kingdom of God"

Just that phrase tells us a couple of things, Y'shua, the Hebrew word/name translated into Greek as Jesus, and the Hebrew word for "salvation," and He always celebrated the Passover.  No surprise, He is, after all Jewish, and He came specifically to "fulfill the law and the commandments and not to destroy them " per Matthew 5 chapter 17.  

It is equally expected that all of His disciples were also celebrating.  There was never the slightest question by the disciples whether or not the arrival of the Messiah would cancel, override, void, change, or cause an end, to any of the Feasts. 

The arrival of Y'shua the Messiah never created any question in the minds of the disciples, His followers, or even His enemies that He would in any way, put an end the commandments of YHWH, or supersede the Words of the TaNaKh, or the oral traditions of the Children of God. More than 200 times we read in the New Testament we are to celebrate the Feasts.  In fact Jesus Himself said several times "If you love me you will keep My commandments." 

The feasts were always celebrated well in to 300's by believers of The Way and Judaism everywhere.  It was the persecution from the Roman Church in the late 300's that made it difficult for many believers to celebrate the Feasts, or all believers would still celebrate it today, just as Jesus did.

Jesus' comments that He would not drink the last glass of wine (the cup of redemption) until the "Kingdom was restored" clearly indicate He expected His followers to continue to celebrate Passover, at least until that time of Restoration, which if you are unsure has not happened yet, and apparently even after. 

The Passover is Jesus; it is the picture of the coming Messiah, Y'shua, who would cover the faithful with His blood. That He would be the sacrificial Lamb, sacrificed to offer the faithful a new beginning by showing the way of redemption.  It was the blood sacrifice of the perfect spotless sacrificial lamb of Passover that would set the captives free and lead them to the Promised Land. 1,000 years later, on the exact same day, it would be the sacrifice of another perfect spotless sacrificial lamb, Jesus, which would set the captives free and led them to the Promised Land. And three days after His sacrifice, on the Feast of First fruits, Jesus arose from the grave fulfilling the rest of the Passover celebration.  There is no daylight between Jesus and the Passover.

The Exodus is not the first picture in Scripture of that idea, and was certainly not the last, but that picture is always the same.  YHWH, God, the Father, did not send Jesus, Y'shua  The Son, to simply move in with us and slide some furniture around to clean up the place.  He sent Him that we may know there is a cost to our sin, to our unbelief, to our compromise.  He sent His Son not to move in with us, not to join us, but as Scripture tells us at the Passover and in one thousand other ways, we are to leave what we know, to follow after Him.

Perhaps that makes some Christians uncomfortable. We are all comfortable knowing what we think we know, and we are not typically big on change.  YHWH, Y’shua  God, Jesus, the Tanakh the New Testament, are always teaching us to be more like Abraham, Moses, Rebecca, Jacob (Israel), Joseph, and yes Jesus, along with many others in Scripture, who, in order to follow, first had to leave. 

In today's world we see Christian churches celebrating the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, usually on the wrong day and certainly in the wrong way.  Easter, complete with Easter eggs hunts, chocolate bunnies with ears we love to break off, sunrise productions, huge banners, truckloads of flowers, tons of pomp and circumstance.  We are celebrating His resurrection, not His sacrifice.  We want to share the rewards, but not the work.  It is like having Ice Cream for dinner, its great for a while, but offers no real nutrition.  Passover highlights in advance, the sacrifice that made the resurrection possible.  Certainly the resurrection is important and it falls on the Feast of First Fruits, it could be no other day of the year, but it is not what YHWH considered to be the main event.  

I wonder to myself if the hype over Easter, basically a pagan celebration, usually celebrated on the wrong day, is like those Christians expecting God to join them, to clean up their place a bit, that He will somehow bless and honor our celebration because we use His name, and tell His story.  Perhaps He will He is a good and merciful God, but I think we can do better.

I think, or at least I hope, it is less an issue of salvation, as we know God looks at the heart of His people not the actions so much, but it may be more an issue of blessing, do we really want to miss His blessing? He offers His blessing to those who follow after Him, and He often removes His blessing from those not walking in His ways. 

The account of Stephen, in the Book of the Acts, we find Stephen speaking to the Pharisees by saying, more or less, "you are missing it".  Amen.  The action of the religious leadership of the day was a good faith attempt to follow God, but it was filtered through man's wisdom.  Acts reminds us that the religious leaders of the day were "gnashing their teeth" at Stephen for having the unmitigated gall and nerve to actually remind them what the Scriptures said. Any follower of God who celebrates Passover, is familiar with that sound.

But Stephen, like Moses, Abraham, Joseph, Jesus and others before him had the correct response, "lay not this (sin) to their charge".  We are all on a walk, and will meet the Messiah on His terms, not ours.  The time will come when every true believer will sit at the Passover Table with Jesus, and at that time we will all thankfully drink from that last cup of the Passover, the cup of Redemption.  I can't wait for that day to come, but until that day I will celebrate the Passover as Elijah, the Gentile offered a seat at the most important event in all of Human history.

As for me and my house we will celebrate on Nisan 14, just as the Lord ask, March 30th this year, and then again on Sunday, ironically April Fools day.

Shalom,

 
CB