The Passover

Around 3300 years ago the Israelites were enduring their 400th year of bondage (separation from the Promised Land) in Egypt. But God had informed them through a man named Moses that He ‘heard their cries and knew their sorrows’ and that He was coming down to deliver them that year!

Curiously, God picked a specific night for the deliverance event; it was to be the full moon night of Nissan 14. (Jewish months are lunar based, so the 14th always falls on the full moon.) On that night, God was going to send a death angel around to kill all the firstborn in Egypt, after which Pharaoh would free the Israelites.

But to save the Israelites from the death angel (and ultimately deliver them out of bondage) God devised a seemingly strange, yet very exact, plan for them to employ in order that the death angel would pass over without killing any of them…the Israelites were to choose a male, non-blemished lamb on the 10th of Nissan, kill it on the evening of the 14th of Nissan without breaking a bone in its body, spread its blood on the doorposts of their houses, and then roast its flesh with fire and eat it that night in their houses. How weird, huh? What on Earth was God thinking coming up with this 'crazy' plan? Does the Creator God just like to invent specific things for His children to do without any rhyme or reason?

Well, a little over 1300 years later, the amazing truth behind the yearly commemorated Passover night was revealed. For on a Passover night (the 14th of Nissan) the sinless (non-blemished) man (male) Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples, was captured later that evening in the Garden of Gethsemane, tried and convicted in the morning hours, and crucified (killed) without a bone in his body being broken later that day. In so doing, he precisely fulfilled every detail of God’s Israelite Passover lamb and became mankind’s sacrificial Passover Lamb, whose blood delivered us from our bondage to sin and death. Stunningly, and little known, Jesus even fulfilled God’s secret prophetic timing detail to deliver the Israelites out of bondage after 400 years by dying on the cross during mankind’s 4,000 year, and he will most certainly return to Earth during mankind's 6,000 year!

Passover (the 14th of Nissan) arrives at sundown Sunday, April 17, this year. If it’s a clear night in your area, maybe you could walk outside and look up at the full moon and spend a little time remembering the Israelites’ Passover night in Egypt and then Jesus’ Passover night in Jerusalem. Maybe you could remember the hell Christ went through that night and all the next day in order to make “forgiveness for sins (eternal life)” available to you. And maybe you could breathe a little prayer of thankfulness to God for what he's done.

Happy Passover,

Gabriel