EASTER OR PASSOVER?

EASTER OR PASSOVER?

This week, people are celebrating Passover, the same festival Jesus celebrated on the night of His arrest, when He ate the Last Supper with His disciples. Passover seder is the meal where Jews around the world celebrate their freedom from bondage in ancient Egypt. But what did Jesus do at the end of the meal? What happened at the end of the Last Supper? The Gospels tell us "When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives" (Mark 14:26). The word hymn is a translation of the Hebrew word Hallel (הַלֵּל), a reference to the psalms of praise (113-118), which are sung on Passover eve as part of the Seder feast. Jesus must have been fond of these psalms whose central message is deliverance.

Hallel is one of the most important words in the Hebrew Bible. It is also the root of the word Halleluia (הַלָּלוּיָהּ), which means “Praise unto God” as well as the name of the Book of Psalms in Hebrew, Tehilim (תְּהִלִּים). It is precisely the book of Tehilim (Psalms 118:25-26) that is being quoted on Palm Sunday when the crowds proclaimed "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"(Mark 11:9).

Let's reach to the deeper meaning of the Scripture. Passover, which is celebrated this week, is the Jewish holiday of freedom.

"But that's not what we Christians do. We keep Easter. Jews keep Passover." This is what is commonly said by Christians. It illustrates the traditional beliefs of many people when it comes to this time of the year, Easter versus Passover.

I am a Christian believer in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and a person who observes the Passover of the New Testament. I do not observe Easter. Every year I try to write about the doctrines of the Bible and thoroughly cover what the Bible says about the Passover Christ kept with His disciples. The New Testament teaching is very clear. The Church Jesus founded kept Passover with the new symbols Christ gave them. As the Church spread to the gentile peoples, the same teaching was given to them. The Church of the New Testament did not teach or sanction Easter.

Let me show you one clear scripture to give you something to consider. In 1 Corinthians, Paul is writing to a gentile congregation about problems they need to deal with. After telling them to work with a moral problem he pivots to teaching about God's festivals. He tells them, "Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast - as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth."(1 Corinthians 5:6-8).

Did you catch that? "Christ our Passover, was sacrificed for us." Christ's death was the Passover sacrifice. The perfect sacrifice for our sin, we should have nothing to do with the sins of the past. You are probably familiar with scriptures describing Jesus as "the Lamb of God." At the original Passover in Exodus 12 a lamb was killed. Christ was the fulfillment of that symbolic lamb. Christ, in truth, was the sacrificial "lamb." Before His death He gave teaching which enhanced the meaning for a Christian. He told His disciples to take bread and wine as symbols of His sinless life and shed blood. That is what we should do at Passover - once a year, on the anniversary of His death. There are important lessons I learn each year during this service.

You can learn the same lessons of humility, obedience and thankfulness. Christ's death opens life for us. A Christian cannot fathom the hope of eternal life without coming to understand the full expression behind the words, "Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us." Christian identity is tied to this truth of Christ as our Passover. Keeping the Passover is a key to your identity as a Christian.

Jesus' sacrifice, the central message of the Passover, was a supreme act of love for humanity. Your eternal life depends on this.