Passover

Passover is a time for ‘telling, traditions, ritual, and celebration.’
G-d who brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (Ex. 20:1-2).
From the beginning of time G-d had been saying to man. ‘There is no way to approach Me except by coming with a lamb for sacrifice.’
“On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves …… your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old.” You shall bring it into your home to dwell with you for four days. Keep in your house, protected, loved, and became attached to, so when you sacrifice your lamb you know the meaning of giving up the item you loved. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.
The central and most picturesque rite of Passover, the eating of the Paschal lamb, no longer exists. With the fall of the Temple this symbol, like so much of Judaism, went dark.
The lamb had to be killed in the court of the Temple, and then roasted whole and eaten at night at a large family feast. Hordes of joyful pilgrims converged on Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. In the Temple the priests had a remarkable hand-to-hand conveying system to provide all of Jerusalem and all the pilgrims with Paschal lambs in the one afternoon allowed for the rite.
The Holy Temple was in part a slaughterhouse for taking of animal life was not a matter of course in the Jewish faith, but a grant from the Father. At the Temple the meat of the priests and Levites was prepared with much precaution as to purity. The laity brought thanks offerings and atonement offerings, dividing the meat with the Temple personnel, and burning some pieces on the great altar. Moses and the prophets continually pointed out that G-d was not interested in the sacrifices, except as symbols of dedication and purification for mankind. A Talmud saying implies that in Messianic times the sacrifices will not be resumed in the restored Temple, except for the thank offerings.
The pilgrims ate the lamb, as the Torah prescribes, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Though the lamb rite has long since vanished, the large family feast, the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs, remain a part of living Judaism. The Law requires that the elders at the feast tell the children the story of the exodus, so as to keep the memory of the great deliverance green. This ordinance has worked for over three thousand years.
The Talmud in its systematic way set up an order – the Hebrew word is Seder – for the Passover ceremonies. In time ‘seder’ became the popular name for the feast. The Seder is a retelling of the exodus story in a dramatic pageant, enacted by a family and its guests around the table. There are spoken parts for children and adults, chorus recitations and songs, and a variety of colorful food symbols, all of which became properties in the telling of the freedom story. The scrip of this pageant (called the Hagada, or story) is a short vivid book telling the exodus take with some Talmudic embellishment and analysis.
The Talmud tractate Pesakhim opens with the rules for destroying leaven; that is, yeast.
The home is cleared of all leaven and leavened foods before Passover start. The Rabbinic regulations for carrying out this Law recall the stringency of hospital antisepsis. Jewish housewives, following the rules in all generations with great strictness, have evolved a sort of sacred spring cleaning in the week before the holiday, meticulous to the last cranny, to the pockets of clothes, to the dark corners of cellars and closets. The housewife cleans her metalwork by boiling it in water, locks away the dishes and plates used all year, and takes out china and crockery reserved for the festival.
The destruction of the leaven and the eating of Matzo – unleavened bread are key symbols of Passover. They make a great mark on family life. The children who go around with their father the evening before Passover by candlelight, searching out the last scraps of leaven for burning (these scraps are carefully placed here and there by the mother, who has long since cleaned the house up), never forgot the experience. The appearances of the strange dry wafers on the table, the disappearance of bread, are dramatic signs of change. The avoidance of so many customary foods through the week keeps a sense of the occasion alive.
If its meaning can be neatly exposed like the parts of a machine or the solution of a detective novel, then a symbol lacks poetry by which symbols live. There is an instantly visible accuracy in marking the passage from slavery to freedom with a change in the kind of bread we eat. Jews give up during Passover the soft breads that leavening makes possible, and subsist for a week on flat hard cakes baked of nothing but flour and water. The Hagada calls matzo the poor bread that our fathers ate in Egypt, at the first Passover feast, on the night of the exodus.
The bread of freedom is hard bread; one must pay the price for freedom. The contrast between bread and matzo points the contrast between the lush civilization you may have to leave behind and the gray rumbled desert you must go to, to come into your identity. The whiplashes you have experienced from time to time have been unpleasant, but the memory will fade rapidly as the scars healed in the dry desert air. The memory of the lost security remains.
A slave civilization does not work hard. It is slow-moving and easygoing; we still have traces of one in the American South. Take away a man’s rights in himself, and he becomes dull and sluggish, wily and evasive, a master of the arts of avoiding responsibility and expending little energy. The whip is no answer to this universal human reaction. There is no answer to it. The lash stings a slave who has halted dumbly, out of indifference and inactivity, into resuming the slothful pace of his fellow slaves. It can do no more. The slave’s life is a dog’s life, degraded, but not wearying, and for a broken spirit not unpleasant. The generation of Jews that Moses led into the desert collapsed into despair and panic over and over in moments of crisis, for they were not taught to think on their own. Broken by slavery, they could not shake free of improvidence, cowardice, and idol-worship. All the men who have been slaves in Egypt had to die in the desert, and a new generation had to take up their arms and their religion, before the Jews could cross the Jordan.
Leavening, then, would represent in this image the corruption of slave life. But the symbol has ramifications. The Rabbis called the passions of man ‘the yeast in the dough.’ Leaven is a strange and pervasive substance. It is alive; it is immortal; it is unnoticeably everywhere in the air; it ferments grain into bread, and grapes into wine; it is the sour pale example of the stuff of life itself. For one week in the springtime, in the time of seeding and growth, when the Jews celebrated their independence, they cut all trace of leaven from their lives.
The power of Passover – and I daresay the real good of it, whether you call that good serving G-d or the Laws of leaven from dusk of the fourteenth day of Nisan to darkness of the twenty-second. The first and last days of Passover are full holidays. In the interval, called the week of the festival, most work proceeds as usual.

Now many years later, at the same time they were celebrating the remembrance of their physical freedom, G-d acted again, this time providing spiritual freedom. His first born Son, Y’Shua, became our Redeemer, sacrificed on the altar of the Cross, freeing us from our slavery to sin.
Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. And the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses were you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you. Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as permanent ordinance.’ (Ex. 12:1-14).
Through and history prophets began to appear. They urged that sacrifice is not just a ritual – a vain repetition. Jeremiah preached that it is a matter of the heart! It was meant to be an outward expression of inner intentions. Little by the prophets understood that one day G-d was going to send a Lamb in place of all the lambs.
Then a little baby, a Lamb, was born in a stable. He was the firstborn, and unblemished male. He was introduced into His earthly ministry with a quotation form the prophets.
‘Behold, the Lamb of G-d who takes away the sin of the world’ in John 1:29. this was a messianic title equal to ‘King of Israel.’ Once when He was praying the heavens rolled apart and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove to anoint Him. A voice was heard, ‘this is My beloved Son.’ For these people kings were always anointed to their office. It was the seal of G-d’s consecration of men to His service. Just as sheep are anointed with oil on their heads to prevent them from becoming victims of sunstroke, this double anointing was a symbol of G-d’s protection form all opposing elements. His was to be a ministry of mercy as Savior – Lamb and a ministry of judgment as coming King.
When G-d’s Lamb rode into the city on a donkey, He was recognized by many of the people and hailed a King – the Prince of Peace. Y’Shua triumphal entry into Jerusalem was the official presentation of Messiah as “King” to Israel. As the Lamb entered the ‘home of Israel,’ led by a throng, the Paschal lambs were being led into the city in preparation for the Passover. Everyone knew that the way to be redeemed was to sacrifice a lamb.
The veil of the Temple trembled in readiness. The sum and substance of all good, the One in whom dwell all the fullness of Deity in bodily form (Col. 2:9), was facing the serpent, preparing to destroy his works (Gen. 3:15; 1 Jn. 3:8). The blood sacrifice had been a symbol of this final, one-for-all sacrifice that would redeem mankind from the curse of sin and death (Heb. 10:1-24).
Utterly defenseless, like a lamb led to the slaughter, He offered Himself, His soul and body, as a ransom, an offering, a sacrifice, for sin and sinners. The Paschal Victim became the sacrifice of the New Covenant which was for all men (Lk. 22:20). The Lamb died, wearing a crown (Jn. 19:2).
History tells us the Temple was destroyed and has never been rebuilt. The priesthood ended: sacrifice could no longer be offered. The genealogical records were destroyed. The scattering of the people was total. The ancients had demanded that the Coming One present proper credentials. After the great dispersion in AD 70 it would have been impossible. The Lamb, standing on the altar as if slain, described as innocent, meek and mild, represented the emblem most suited to the Messiah. There were many types of sacrifices in the Covenant. Most were due and belonged to G-d. One was voluntary (Jn. 10:17-18). This picture presented was not form man who offers and slays. This was G-d giving voluntarily of His own.
G-d sacrificed the Lamb on the altar of the cross. Those wooden beams became the doorpost for the world’s home. G-d promises to pass over us with His judgment of death as were willing to stand under its protection. This is what we remember and celebrate at Passover (Ex. 12:13).
Utterly defenseless, like a lamb led to the slaughter, He offered Himself, His soul and body, as a ransom, an offering, a sacrifice for sin and sinners. The Paschal Victim became the sacrifice of the New Covenant which was for all men (Lk. 22:20).
The Lamb died, wearing a crown (Jn. 19:2). History tells us the Temple was destroyed and has never been rebuilt. The priesthood ended: sacrifice could no longer be offered. The genealogical records were destroyed. The scattering of the people was total.
The ancients had demanded that the coming One present proper credentials. After the great dispersion in AD 70, it would have been impossible. The Lamb, standing on the altar as if slain, described as innocent, meek and mild, represented the emblem most suited to the Messiah. The picture present was not from man who offers and slays. This was G-d giving voluntarily of His own.
G-d sacrificed the Lamb on the altar of the Cross. Those wooden beams become the door post for the world’s home. G-d promises to pass over us with His judgment of death as we are willing to stand under its protection.
This is what we remember and celebrate at Passover (Ex. 12:13).
The Seder means order. The intent of the ceremony is, and always has been to obey the precept ‘tell thy son and daughter.’ Passover then represents our salvation. ‘Do this in remembrance.’
The unleavened bread used at Passover time is called the Matzoth. It is striped and has holes in it. ‘By His stripes are we healed’, pierced, ‘they shall look upon Him whom they’ve pierced’ and of course, pure, without any leaven, as His body was without sin.
Y’Shua was buried at the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread since His body was interred at sundown of Passover day. Crucifixion normally took three days. The Roman utilized this slow and terrible way of death to terrify the population of provincial Israel.
The young, strong carpenter of Galilee was dead in just six hours. He was placed on the cross at 9 am. ‘The third hour’ and taken down at 3 pm. There was then time enough to wrap the body and bury it at sundown. The answer to why He died in six hours is that’s all the time He could spare. Our L-rd never omitted a feast.