Every year Jewish people around the world faithfully celebrate the feast of Passover. On this day, liberal, conservative, secular and orthodox, Israeli and non-Israeli Jews celebrate the decisive moment when God liberated them from slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt and opened the way for them to serve Him (the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob) to fulfill their destiny.
In a meal, celebrated around the family table, they remember how their ancestors were miraculously released from slavery by putting their faith in the Blood of an unblemished Lamb. This was the beginning of a journey to return the land promised to Abraham 430 years earlier.
Yeshua also observed the Passover each year. However, the Passover He celebrated the year He was crucified by the Romans who ruled Israel meant something different. He told His disciples: “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”(Lk. 22.15-16) His final Passover was the climax of His ministry.
At this special Passover He took the Passover bread and said: “This is (represents) my body given for you – Take and eat.” He then took Messiah’s cup saying: ”This is the new covenant in my blood shed for you.” During this Passover He gave His life FOR US on the Cross and TO US on the day of the Resurrection. He fulfilled to the letter the word of Isaiah spoken 700 years earlier. “All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, every one, to his own way; And theLord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment.” (Isa. 53.5-8)
As each new generation of believers remembers the Passover they can choose to personally enter into freedom from sin and alienation from God that Yeshua won for them by His death. They can personally receive the sin-free Resurrection Life that replaces the sin-driven life they received from Adam. And so they can begin the journey of serving God as emancipated people empowered by His Spirit and living by His ways.
Remembering the Passover in a ritualistic way accomplishes little, unless we personally make the journey to walk free from bondage to the world and its ways. Discovering the benefits of Yeshua’s work in His final Passover (His death and Resurrection) changes everything.
On the Cross He gave His life FOR us at His Resurrection He gives His life TO us. Believers in Him now live by the power of His Resurrection Life. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.” (Leviticus 17.11)
To remember Yeshua’s Passover, as He asked us to remember it, activates our faith in the benefits and challenge of His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, and launches us out to a life of serving and following Him.
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