Passover & Resurrection- A Season of Liberation

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The Feast of Passover commemorates an event in history not only for Jewish believers worldwide but also for believers in Yeshua. It is the time of the year that the Spring Feasts of the Lord are celebrated. Passover, Unleavened Bread & First Fruits commemorate the great delivering work that brought the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt to their God-promised destiny. Believers in Yeshua also celebrate this, but in addition remember how Yeshua, through His death burial and resurrection, brings His followers out of slavery to sin (the fallen human nature) from the control of the world and into the destiny that God has prepared for them.

It is unfortunate that many regard the Passover, and the other feasts God gave Moses, as being only "Jewish feasts" when the scriptures call them "the Feasts of the Lord" (Leviticus 23.3) They recall events, which are significant not only for Jewish people, but for believers everywhere. It is tragic that the Christian and Jewish calendars are out of sync with each other. This is a relic of anti-Semitic traditions that embedded themselves in Christian tradition going back to the days Constantine in the 4th century. fulness
(Note: This separation of the Christian Feasts from their roots in the Feasts of The Lord was resisted by the Celtic church for centuries until they finally succumbed to the totalitarianism of the majority at the Synod of Whitby in 664 AD.)

By separating the celebration of Yeshua's death and resurrection from the Passover we lost much of the light which the Passover sheds on Messiah's work and conceals its connection with the Feasts of the Lord. Sadly the vacuum has been filled with ridiculous pagan customs, coming from pagan fertility rituals and represented by Easter bunnies and eggs, which have no connection with the message of the Passover or the Resurrection. Even the name of this greatest day in history has been obscured and changed from Resurrection Sunday to Easter Sunday after Ishtar, a Babylonian fertility God! It is astonishing that so many Christian churches (to this day) still cling to these pagan shadows while ignoring the light of the Feast of The Lord. These pagan practices obscure the glorious truth of the Lord's great Passover and Resurrection. Jesus is our perfect Passover Lamb who came to bring us out of the darkness of paganism not to leave us in it! The day of His resurrection is not Easter - it is Resurrection day! It is time we left behind these pagan traditions so that the real Yeshua can be seen!

Each Feast was kept at its 'appointed time.’ (Lev. 23:4) Likewise each Feast is fulfilled by the Messiah at God’s appointed time. Jesus kept the timetable of these feasts and they foreshadow His work. "So let no one judge you ..... regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance (reality) is of Messiah." (Col 2.16-17) Approximately 1500 years after the Passover out of Egypt, Yeshua fulfilled through His own death, that which the first Passover Lamb pointed to. He was conscious of this pattern when He said to His closest followers. “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." (Luke 22.15) Fulfilling the pattern of the Feast of Passover His blood was shed precisely at the day and hour when the Passover lambs were killed.

Yeshua is the eternal Passover, not only for the people of Israel, but for all who put their faith in Him. All who apply His Blood to their lives and believe that He has borne their guilt and sin are reconciled with God. On the night of the first Passover the Children of Israel were saved from the angel of destruction when they applied the blood of the Passover Lamb to the doorposts and lintels of their houses. In exactly the same way, believers who put their faith in the blood of Yeshua and apply by faith the benefits of His Cross to their lives, receive emancipation and forgiveness. Through Him ‘we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of sin according to the riches of His grace’ (Ephesians 1:7)

By faith in the objective fact that the blood of the Lamb has been shed for our sins, we are delivered from the penalty of our sin, forgiven and reconciled to God. Just as the children of Israel were delivered from destruction, not through their moral conduct but through faith in the blood of the Passover Lamb, so too, all who put their faith in Yeshua's Work on the Cross, receive complete forgiveness and reconciliation. "In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them .. and he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:19,21)

The Feast Passover prefigured the reality of Jesus' death. God passes over the sins of all who sincerely want to be reconciled with Him, forgiven and delivered from their sin. He allowed the innocent Lamb (Yeshua) to bear the destruction sin deserved.
As Isaiah foretold "All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned everyone to his own way but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6)

The most evil person can receive a new beginning in Yeshua if he takes Him as His personal savior and applies the blood of Jesus to his life.
Since Jesus has historically and objectively fulfilled the Feast of Passover, we can say: "God has only two kinds of people on the earth: those whose sins are paid for and those who know it!!" Our part is to repent and believe the good news and through His blood to be reconciled to God, and allow Him to live and express His life through us. When we personally recognize our need of the covering of the blood for the remission of our sins and put our faith in it, we are forgiven and reconciled to God. This is our personal Passover from death to life. How wonderful to enter into the reality and fulness of Passover!

****Passover Is The Beginning Of A Journey **
However the Passover Season is not only The Feast of Passover - it also includes the Feasts of "Unleavened Bread" and "First Fruits. It is the beginning of a journey. On the night of the first Passover, the children of Israel not only applied the blood of the slain lambs to the door posts to survive destruction but they immediately embarked on a journey out of slavery, in Egypt, into the plans and purposes of God. Similarly the Lord Yeshua not only provides covering for us by His death, He also calls us out of our slavery to sin, selfishness and the values and goals of this world to serve and follow Him into the life He has prepared for us. "(He) called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2.9)

This year let us not just celebrate the TRADITION of Passover and resurrection as a holiday. Let us also ENTER INTO THE REALITY it recalls. Let us be like Yeshua's first followers, who put all their faith in His redeeming blood and received the life of His Spirit - His Resurrection Life - to empower them. They left behind the slavery, guilt and shame of their past lives to serve Him. What an awakening there will be when we, the followers of Yeshua - the Eternal Lamb of God - come out of 'Egypt' - leave our bondage to the world and its ways - to self and its demands - to sin and its dominion, and choose to serve and follow the Lord in childlike trust and self-emptying obedience.

This Passover, let us take time to come before the Lord to thank Him for what He has done, and to receive the full acceptance He has provided. Let us be filled with Yeshua's Spirit (life), and follow Him into the plans and purposes He has for us now and in the future.