“Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us”
(1 Cor 5:8, NKJV)
Uri Marcus characterizes the feasts as follows – “the feasts offer a noble purpose to those who will invite them in. They come in order to guide us into righteousness. They also make us partners with HaShem in the mastery of time. Through-out all of these cycles, G-d communicates with us another aspect of His righteousness, along with a picture of who we are in the Messiah, as He unfolds His plan for the redemption of mankind over a span of seven thousand years. The feast days and new moons which fall through-out the year are instruments of His will. They actually lead us to His righteousness.” We and God thus become “partners in time”.
The festival of Pesach, the festival of unleavened bread and the feast of the first fruit were celebrated together, to commemorate the trek out of Egypt (see Ex 11-12). This started on the fourteenth day of the first month and spanned seven days. For the Israelites this feast was primarily a commemoration of how God had saved them from the land of slavery, and put them on the road to the land of promise. Thus God had made this ordinance – “Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by flight.” (Deut 16:1).
At the core of the events taking place during this month of Abib is the celebration of Pascha, during which the people of God’s application of the blood of the sacrificial lamb to their door posts indicates that they have been exempted, passed over, and that they were given the chance to move away from a life of slavery. With this festival we celebrate that we have been freed from the kingdom of darkness.
The symbolism of the feasts of Pesach and the feast of the unleavened bread is clear – Christ is our sacrificial lamb, unblemished by sin (the leaven), blood on the door posts (Christ the door – John 10) – 1 Cor 5:7-8: “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
The feast of the first fruits points to Christ as the first fruits which had risen from the dead – “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Cor 15:20). Christ, as the Firstborn of Life which lives within us, makes it possible for us to, like HIM, become alive in the spirit.
It has always bothered me that the meaning of Pesach is linked to the Angel of death which had passed over the Israelites (Ex 12:23) – I do not want to celebrate a festival which emphasizes the working of the angel of death. But if we translate it literally, it reads – “And the LORD will cross to afflict the Egyptians with a plaque, and He will see the blood on the door lentil and on the two sides of the door-frame, and the LORD will PASACH upon that doorway and He will not allow the Destroyer to come into your homes to afflict a plague.” Clearly it is God who is in a position of PASACH over the doorway, the word in Hebrew meaning “to protect, guard or make a defense”! Consider this literal translation of Isa 31:5 – “Like hovering birds overhead, the LORD Almighty will SHIELD Jerusalem; He will DEFEND and deliver it, He will PASACH it and will cause it to escape.” Celebrate during this feast that God’s protection hovers over you.
- Sela: within this understanding pray Ps 91.
- Read: Deut 17; Ezek 43; Micah 5
- Memorize: Ezek 43:12
- For a deeper understanding: Read Isaac Klein’s A guide to Jewish Religious Practices.
