Passover is the oldest holiday in Judaism (which, by the way in case you missed it, is the direct precursor to Christianity).  It is a biblically-mandated holiday that celebrates 1) the Lord’s protection of the children of Israel when the firstborn of Egypt were struck down, and 2) how God delivered the Jews out of the hands of the pharaoh.  God told Moses and Aaron in Exodus 12:14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord – a lasting ordinance”.  Later on in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, Moses gave instructions about how Passover should be celebrated (Lev 23:4-8, Deut 16:1-8).  These instructions guided many Jews for hundreds of years, including Jesus, in their observance of this holy festival.

Passover is one of the three festivals during which the entire Jewish populace historically made a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem to sacrifice a lamb for their Passover meal.  (They ate lamb because it is what God told them to use as their meal and as the sign on their doorposts on the eve of the exodus.)  This trip was Jesus’ custom as well.  The one story we read of Jesus as a child, is when he and his family went to Jerusalem for Passover (Luke 2:41).  Another example is when Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem; he was going there to celebrate the Passover (John 12).  However, since the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, no animal sacrifices are offered for Passover or any other time.  Instead, the succeeding rabbis taught that fulfilling God’s commandments is what earned merit with God, making animal sacrifices unnecessary. 

Today, Passover is still the most important holiday to Jews everywhere.  They gather with their family and partake in the Passover Seder which is the meal that includes food that resembles what they ate in the book of Exodus. 

So what does any of this Passover talk have to do with us?  As Christians we don’t celebrate any of the Jewish holidays (which in my opinion is unfortunate).  A few years ago, some friends and I got together and had our own Passover Seder.  We are all Christians, so we had to do a lot of research to get it as accurate as possible.  For me, I walked away from that celebration with a better understanding of what Jesus did while he was on the earth.  That one event changed how I view and relate to Christ.

One of the most important reasons that Jews celebrate Passover today is to remember how God freed them from slavery in Egypt.  They remember the redemption of Israel as a foreshadowing of the future redemption of all mankind.  In Exodus, the blood of the sacrificial lamb caused the wrath of God to pass over those that trusted in Him to be their provision for redemption.  We as Christians can celebrate Passover with the knowledge that Jesus, the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”, is the Messiah whose blood redeemed all of humanity (John 1:29).

Baruch HaShem! (Praise God)

In my research for this article I rediscovered my interest in Judaism and how that fits with Christianity today.  In the next few posts I will be looking at other Jewish holidays that Jesus would have celebrated that, as Christians, we don’t today.