The prophet declared regarding the Messiah, “O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey— riding on a donkey’s colt” (Zech. 9:9, NLT).

During Passover Jesus directed the disciples to find a donkey with a colt. “So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. ⁷ They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them. ⁸ And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹ Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David!  ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Hosanna in the highest!” ¹⁰ And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?” ¹¹ So the multitudes said, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.” (Matt. 21:6 – 11, NKJV).

Jews, celebrate Passover remembering their deliverance from Egyptian slavery.  For centuries, the early church would celebrate the resurrection during Passover.  Why?   Jesus died on Passover during the exact moment the Passover lambs were being slaughtered.  Thus, Paul stated, “Yeast, too, is a “small thing,” but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast. So get rid of this “yeast.” Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast. So let’s live out our part in the Feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread—simple, genuine, unpretentious” (1 Cor. 5:6 – 8, The Message)

 

The Feasts of Passover (Pesach), Unleavened Bread (Hag HaMatzot), and Firstfruits (Yom HaBikkurim), are all part of Passover.

Passover: Part of the tradition and celebration included the
head of each household taking a lamb to the Temple to be slaughtered as a sacrifice unto the Lord. Each family would procure a lamb and tend to it making sure it was without spot or blemish.

Then at the appointed time on the day of Passover, the heads of the households, wearing a special white outer garment, would carry the lamb on their shoulders into the Temple. They would line up by the thousands. At 3:00 P.M., the time of the afternoon sacrifice, a priest would climb to the top of the wall and blow the shofar (trumpet) indicating that it was time to offer the Passover Lamb.

The heads of the households would take a special sacrificial knife and slit the lamb’s throat. The priests, who were standing by, would catch the blood in a basin and then offer the blood upon the Altar. The men would prepare the lamb and take it home to be eaten with family and friends.

The blood would splatter on the white garments worn by the men. They would walk home with this blood stained outer garment. The blood-stained garment was horrifying to look at. It was a reminder of the payment for redemption from bondage and from sin was the “shedding of blood” (Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22).

Unleavened Bread, represents a pure bread, without sin (leaven), – Jesus was without sin, ^“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21, ESV).

Firstfruits, “But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of them that are asleep” (I Cor. 15:20, ASV).

Messiah became Sin!

Jesus died a horrible death on the cross for our sin.  He cried, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani – My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me” (Matt. 27:46, KJV)?

This was the moment when God the Father hid His face from His Son, “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And cannot look on wickedness” (Hab. 1:13, NKJV). 

Why?  Because it is written at that moment Christ became a “curse for us.”  “But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree” (Gal. 3:13, NLT).

“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:10, 13, 14; Isa. 59:2, KJV).

 

Jews enslaved for so long!

The Jews were enslaved in Egypt for so long they had lost hope. Then came Moses, the first prophet, with a message from God – they should trust in the “blood of the Lamb.”  They would become free from slavery and free in their souls – only if they believe the message and act upon it. The last prophet, John the Baptist, came with the same message, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

 

Remembering Messiah, our Passover lamb, is a Celebration of Hope:

The Scripture and rabbinic sages of old told that Messiah would come, die, and be resurrected (Scripture and Talmudic references are noted below):

• Salvation Comes from Messiah & that He would come in Nisan – on Passover (Psa. 116:13; Exod. 12:42; Pesachim 119b; Rosh Hashmah 11b)
• Messiah Would Die (Lev. 17:11; Isa. 53; Psa. 22; Sukkah 52a; Sanhedrin 98b)
• Messiah Would be Resurrected (Psa. 72:16; Isa. 53:11; Ketuboth 111b)

 

The Charge

The resurrection is God’s affirmation that he has not only, “Reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ,” but has “given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:18,19, NKJV).

After the resurrection, our Lord gave us a mandate to be witnesses for Him “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8, ESV).

The Lord also gave us the charge to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature…to the Jew first, and, also to the Greek” (Mk. 16:15 NKJV; Rom. 1:16, ESV). 

“So let’s live out our part in the Feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread—simple, genuine, unpretentious” (1 Cor. 5:6 – 8, The Message)

Shalom and Blessings,

Dr. Jeff