This week, on Friday, April 6th, 2012, the Feast of Passover begins at sundown. I am grateful for all the traditional Seders that are being held as believers from across the nations celebrate the biblical Jewish roots of our Christian faith. I have participated in various forms of the Seder Meal for years – especially after moving to Nashville, Tennessee and discovering such a rich understanding and honoring of our Jewish roots in this city.

You may choose to use a Haggadah (printed guide that leads you through the retelling and traditions of the traditional Jewish Passover Seder Meal). To assist you in observing Passover this year, you can actually download a Haggadah at https://thewatchman.org/en/feasts/feast-of-passover. Or, you may simply choose to read the Passover story from Exodus 12 and the Passover evening meal of Yeshua and His disciples on the night of His betrayal. These are simply tools to help celebrate your own deliverance from slavery through the blood of the Lamb. The important thing is reflect and to remember!

Passover always comes on the 14th day of the biblical month of Nisan (also called Abib) and always with a full moon. Israel needed no lighted torches on the night of their deliverance nor did the Roman soldiers on the night of Jesus’ betrayal. Remember the night of Israel’s deliverance and remember the night of Jesus’ betrayal when He sat with His close friends for the last time.

The Feasts Prophetically Speak

There are seven Feasts of the Lord celebrated in the Jewish faith each year. Passover is the very first major feast, followed by the feast of Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and finally Tabernacles. All seven of these memorial feasts are celebrated throughout the Biblical year in strategic succession. Each of these feasts are prophetic in nature and each point to Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Lamb of God.

All seven of these Jewish Feasts are previews of “coming attractions” that were or will be fulfilled by Christ Jesus and the New Covenant. The first four Jewish feasts have already been fulfilled during Christ’s first coming through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. As New Covenant believers, our understanding is that the remaining three feasts are yet to be fulfilled with details surrounding the second coming of Jesus.

Passover Declares Salvation

The Feast of Passover prophetically speaks of our personal salvation. It points to the spotless Lamb of God (Jesus) and the necessity of His shed blood on the cross. God’s severe judgments on a sinful, unbelieving world are placed on Christ willingly.  Isaiah tells us, “All we like sheep have gone astray and each of us have turned to his own way. But the iniquity of us all have fallen on Him.” This is the beauty from ashes story of the work salvation of the sacrificial Passover Lamb.

He bears the bitterness of slavery and mankind’s addiction to sin; He enables the believer to escape worldly entanglements and live a life free from sin. He who knows the Son is free indeed!

In Passover, we find historical and spiritual reasons for the preparation of the unleavened bread in view of the hasty and dangerous journey ahead of the Israelites who had been held in Egyptian captivity. “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.” Exodus 12:15.

Throughout Israel’s generations, this simple Biblical commandment to cleanse one’s home and life from leaven became the launching pad for the entire feast progression. This command to “eliminate sin and de-clutter” one’s life, leads us into our own personal salvation journey. It starts with the Exodus from Egypt’s slavery and ends with the great and final celebration when God “Tabernacles with men” at the Feast of Tabernacles.

Let us prepare ourselves by cleaning out all wickedness and sin from our lives and then celebrate the Feast in obedience to command of Yeshua, “do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19)

Yes, Let Us Remember this Day!

At some point in the evening you may also want to read aloud the following selection from one of Don Finto’s Speaking Life monthly emails from The Caleb Company which he released several years ago:

  • On this Day, 3500 years ago, lambs were slaughtered throughout Goshen in Egypt. Hyssop brushes stroked Jewish doorposts with lamb’s blood. The children of Israel met quietly, sequestered behind bloodstained doors, waiting to be delivered from 400 years of slavery.
  • On this night, 3500 years ago, the Lord went through the land looking for blood on doorposts. There was a great deliverance, a pass-over. Firstborn sons were slain in houses where there was no blood. Wailing and mourning was heard when judgment came in Egypt.
  • On this night, 3500 years ago, freedom was proclaimed in Israel. Firstborn sons of believing Israel were spared through the blood of the lamb. The lamb’s blood painted on doorposts brought freedom. The wealth of Egypt became the wealth of Israel. Shouts of joy were heard as Moses led Israel out of Egypt.
  • On this night, 3500 years ago, the exodus from Egypt came suddenly. For 3500 years faithful servants of God have remembered this night.
  • On this day, 2000 years ago, another Lamb was slain, Human hearts were stroked with Lamb’s blood andfreed from centuries of slavery.
  • On this day, 2000 years ago, the Lord began to look for Lamb’s blood on the doorposts of hearts. There was a great deliverance – a passing over.
  • On this day, 2000 years ago, wealth was restored to the sons of Adam, another Moses led another Israel out of another Egypt.
  • On this day, 2000 years ago, Lambs blood on the doorposts of hearts brought freedom.

Today, the Lamb’s blood is still found on human hearts. Deliverance is found behind a blood-stained door.

Christ, Is Our Passover Lamb!

Let’s get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast. “For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Cor. 5:6-8)

The Lamb of God, who was slain, has risen and will return as King of Kings and Lord of Lords! Praise His Name forever!

Blessings as you celebrate and remember!

James W. Goll

(This material was inspired and compiled from writings of Don Finto of The Caleb Company and Reuven Doron of One New Man as well as several other sources.)