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Significance of the Jewish Passover |
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Wednesday, 23 April 2008 |
Rev. John C. Blackford
Religion Columnist
This week members of the Jewish faith are observing their Passover Season. Beginning last Sunday and continuing for eight days, through next Sunday, it commemorates the deliverance of the Hebrews from bondage in Egypt 3500 years ago.
Passover is important to the Christian church as well as to the followers of Judaism. In a recent article the connection of Easter with Passover was considered with respect to the dating of Easter and, further, its impact on Christian teaching.
The date of Easter as “the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox after the Jewish Passover” was set at the Church Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. In 1054 there was a division of Christendom into eastern and western branches, and it continues until this day.
The western branch deleted the phrase, “after the Jewish Passover.” The eastern, or “Orthodox,” churches retained it, and will celebrate Easter this coming Sunday, April 27th, which is also the last day of Passover.
In the Old Testament book of Leviticus, chapter 23, we read of the seven feasts which were to be kept annually by the Hebrew people. Passover was the initial Jewish festival, and was to be held on the 14th day of their first month, Nisan. (Verse 5). It was given so that they would not forget the night they were freed from slavery.
On that occasion the plague of death “passed over” the homes of the Hebrews, who had sprinkled the blood of a lamb on their doors, but visited the Egyptians in the death of their first-born, and brought about the capitulation of their captors.
Fifteen hundred years later, in the time of Christ, the Jews were keeping Passover, and all four New Testament gospels record that Jesus and his disciples observed it; doing so in the upper room on the night before the crucifixion, and incorporating it with the last supper.
Three years earlier, at the outset of Jesus’ ministry, John the Baptist, in anticipation of Christ’s unique relationship to the Old Testament scriptures, had proclaimed at Jesus’ baptism, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” (St. John 1:29).
The apostle Paul is more specific, saying in I Corinthians 5:7, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”
Both implied that through his death and the shedding of his blood, Christ was the ultimate Passover lamb, and that no longer would there be need to kill a lamb on the 14th of Nisan. This teaching is basic in the Christian faith.
Last Sunday, as they have done for 3500 years, Jewish people around the world observed Passover, but with this change: no lamb was killed. The variation goes back to early New Testament times.
The ceremonial ritual instead involves a Passover table on which there is the shank bone of a lamb. In addition, there are a roasted egg, romaine lettuce, parsley, bitter herbs from kosher horseradish and called morar, and charoset, consisting of a sweet apple and a mix of sweet apples and nuts, including walnuts, cinnamon and honey. The main course includes lamb, or chicken, if lamb is too expensive. Unleavened bread (matzah) is served, along with four glasses of wine. In Messianic fellowships, whose followers believe in Christ, grape juice is substituted for wine.
Christians can be thankful to our Jewish friends for keeping Passover over the centuries preceding the death of Christ in spite of persecution, exile and domination by foreign powers, who were often cruel in their treatment of the Jews, especially in matters of their faith.
Our appreciation is even greater when we think of Christ, who was the fulfillment of their Passover lamb, a doctrine at the heart of our faith.
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