Questions, questions, questions!
Why is Passover this year in Israel different than all the others that we have known? We are at war, and there are still 133 hostages dead and alive held by Hamas in Gaza; and there are still hundreds of thousands Israelis still evacuated from their homes around the Gaza border and along the Lebanese border, where Hezbollah is fighting Israel; and there are many seriously wounded and traumatized who will not be “at the table”. May the God who sees in the darkness as well as He does in the light give hope to all of these and to their families: the Keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps, and He is the same today as He was when He brought the children of Israel out of Egypt to make them His covenanted people and family in this land of covenant promise for an inheritance and an everlasting possession for the children of Jacob become Israel.
–What is this holiday called, which Jewish people around the world celebrate tonight [in their time zone]? Passover/Pesach
–What do many people call this holiday? The Festival of Freedom
–What did God tell us that this holiday is called? YHVH’s Passover
–Does it matter? What is the basis of our freedom? The blood of the innocent sacrificed lamb visible on the doorposts (Ex 12:13, 23) This was the price that the families paid – the cost of a lamb.
–What did YHVH God tell the Israelis to do on that first Passover night in Egypt 3470 years ago? Ex 12 slaughter a lamb for each household, sprinkle the blood on the doorposts, eat the flesh of the lamb in haste, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs; and remember it throughout our generations (v 6-11, 14) (Even Egyptians could fear YHVH and also join Israeli families.)
–When did the Israelis know that they were free? after crossing the Red Sea on dry ground, and knowing that God had delivered them completely from their enemies who had enslaved them
–So, what made our freedom possible?! believing and obeying what God said about the lamb and its blood, and then YVHH God’s miracle of parting the Reed Sea to save His chosen people and their pursuing enemies perished, who still hated them and their God, despite all that they had seen for His people, and all of His righteous judgments and plagues against Pharoah and their gods
–Why did God bring the children of Israel (who are still the children of Jacob) out of Egypt?
**He had cut a covenant with Abraham, and had told him that his descendants would be slaves in a land not theirs, and that He would bring them back to the land of promise after 400 years, when the sin in the promised land was filled up.
**He had chosen them to be His people, and that He would be His holy people (Lev 22:31-33)
**they suffered as mistreated slaves under Pharoah, who was an arrogant opposer of their God, YHVH, the Creator and the God of the Hebrews
**to give them freedom
–Freedom to do what? to serve YHVH their God, who had rescued them from their hard bondage, as He had promised to Abraham that He would do (Gen 15:12-16)
–Why is it so important that they serve/worship only YHVH, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob?
–He is the one, true, living God who created the Universe – God Most High –He made/cut covenant with the Fathers and to their descendants
–He is the One who has redeemed us, delivers us, and saves us
**to bring us into the Land of Canaan, which He promised to give to the children of Israel
–Did YHVH our God promise an even greater Exodus than what Jewish people are remembering tonight all around the world? Yes!: to bring His people in exile/galut from out of all the countries where He has scattered us. (Jer 16:14-15; 23:5-8) This greater-than-Egypt exodus is already in the process of being accomplished by Jews immigrating to Israel from every habitable continent.
–Did YHVH, God of Israel, promise an even GREATER PASSOVER than this? Yes!
–Deliverance and salvation not only from slavery to others, but even more so from our own sins, and from the sin of “the world” that opposes the true God and His people.
–Yeshua/Jesus, the Son of God and Son of David, the innocent Lamb of God, gave Himself to be the sacrificed Passover Lamb, according to God the Father’s will, shedding His blood, that whosoever believes and obeys God regarding the Messiah/Christ, our Passover, then God will pass over him/her in the Day of Judgment.
Just as the Passover in Egypt was a gift of God’s old covenant faithfulness to deliver His people, so, too, is it the God of Abraham’s gift of salvation and eternal life to any and all who believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus/Yeshua for the New Covenant forgiveness of his/her sins against God and against His chosen people and the Son whom He loves. This greatest Passover the Lord also tells His people and family to remember Him – the Passover Lamb! — and the price of our redemption throughout the generations, until He comes again to save all His people from His and their enemies.
We are to remember as if we ourselves were there in Egypt, slaves under a cruel Pharaoh; we are to remember, as believers in Yeshua, as we were there at the cross, slaves to our own sinfulness, an even crueler slave-master. God has given His people the blood of the Lamb as the sign that He sees on the entrance into our lives, so that He will pass over us when He kills those who did not believe what He says. We need to know and feel that we are slaves, and believe God that He has told us that He is our Redeemer and Deliverer. We will pass over from this body of death to everlasting life with our Redeemer! True and full liberty paid in full with faith in the blood of our Redeemer! Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
