Passover - my beliefs, an FAQ
(click on the question and the answer will follow it)
What is Passover?
Passover or Pesach is the feast of Yah [Lev23:5]. The Israelites celebrated it when their first borns were spared by the Most High, by having the Passover and applying the blood on the door posts. This was as they exited Egypt towards the Promised Land. More on this hereWhy celebrate Passover?
Because:- Its a feast of Yah [Lev23:5]
- My Messiah Jesus Christ (Yeshua) kept it [John2:13]
- Just like it was a remembrance for the Israelites in the promised land to memorialize the works of Yah, who freed their forefathers from bondage in Egypt [Exo13:14], we remember the completed work of Yah both in freeing our spiritual forefathers from bondage and His work through His Son, our Messiah, in redeeming us from our sins and making a way for eternal life with Him.
- Jesus is our Passover. Look at the Yeshua is our Passover sectionhere
When is Passover?
Passover is on the evening of the 14th day of the first Hebrew month. The sacrifice and celebration starts from the evening of the 14th day. This year in 2022, my family will be celebrating it the evening of April 15th. See this for more details on calculating the first month and 14th day.Do you kill an unblemished lamb?
No. The specific commands for killing the lamb, needs to happen from the flock and should be outside of the gates Yah has given to us [Deu16:5] and in a place where Yah has chosen to place His name [Deu16:2]. Since we dont have the temple, where He placed His name, we abstain from it. He has chosen to place His Name on us as His Son's bride, therefore we dont kill a lamb as our Passover. Our Passover is our Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus Christ) [1Cor5:7]. There is a sacrifice that was completed 2000+ years ago. We keep the Passover as a memorial and remembrance. [1Cor11:24-26].Do you do the Passover seder?
No. I am not sure how the seder of old (around Jesus' time) was celebrated but what has survived is a Jewish tradition. This Passover Seder, a Jewish tradition, was started with specific rituals in 1800s. The word actually means arrangement and order. Since the specifics of the arrangement, the dishes and the ceremony is not in Torah nor was practiced by my Messiah, we decided to not keep the seder.Aren't the feasts done away with by Jesus Christ?
I dont see any evidence in the Bible using the 66 books that are preserved, that indicates the feasts of Yah are done away with, following the death and resurrection of my Messiah. Paul kept Passover and other feasts. [1Cor5:8], [Acts18:21], [Acts20:16].There could be verses of Paul's epistle that could be used to claim that all feasts are done away with. At this point, I am of the understanding that, I cant throw away the word of God, by statements in a letter without the full context of what Paul was writing about to the various congregations he wrote to and to keep Apostle Peter's warning on interpreting Paul's epistles [2Pe3:15-16]
Isn't Passover just for the Jews?
As we stated earlier, Passover is a feast of Yah that we are commanded to keep in memorial and remembrance. The Jews were the recent group that is known to have kept and preserved the Passover as a feast, but it is not a Jewish feast. It was a feast given to the children of Israel.Did Apostle Paul keep the Passover?
Paul, from my readings of his epistles and Acts, kept the Passover and other feasts commanded by Yah in His Torah, as did the other apostles. There are two places in Acts, where it is clear that Paul is making arrangements to not miss being part of the congregation in Jerusalem for the feasts. From [Acts18:21] and the context, it is clear that Paul was in Corinth (as he went there from Athens) was there preaching for year and six months. Then he travelled to Syria and then to Ephesus. He couldnt spend more time at Ephesus, although he was urged by the brethren and made his way to Jerusalem through Ceasarea and Antioch.From [Acts20:16] and the context, he wanted to be in Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks or Shavuot, which was called *the fiftieth* in Greek, using pentekoste.
The communion as documented by Paul in [1Cor5:8] is to memorialize the Passover, as he is urging the brethren to clean up the leaven in their own lives. The tradition of cleaning the house of leavened bread during the Feast of Unleavened Bread was being applied in the fulfilment through our Messiah and now we are to look at it spiritually to keep our lives without the leaven of hypocrisy and false doctrines. The word used in [1Cor5:8] in Greek is heortazo (G1858), used only once in NT but is the same work used in Septuagint in [Ex12:14], [Ex23:14] and in 14 other places in the Septuagint.
Did the early church keep the Passover?
Since Paul and presumably other apostles kept the feasts, I surmise that the early church also kept it, to the best of their abilities. Even the new converts from the nations, following the readings in the Synagogue of Moses [Acts15:21], might have been convicted and kept the feasts, just like they did the Sabbath. How and why it was lost and not preserved by the ensuing disciples as Christians were persecuted and became a Romish religion, can only be speculated. What we know is that during mid 150s there seems to have been a pulling away from the Hebraic roots of Christianity as more of the nations were converted and following the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem and further scattering of Jews, the mantle of leadership went from predominantly Hebraic leaders to converts from the surrounding nations.I will save my theories on it for now. Please check back periodically to see any updates based on my digging of old literature.
How do you keep the Passover?
Since Yeshua is our Passover, we dont sacrifice a lamb following Exodus, nor apply the blood on our door posts nor eat in haste with our loins girded and staff in hand. We instead remember and memorialize the great works of Yah through His Son and the exodus of the sons of Israel from bondage in Egypt. The way we memorialize is the following, similar to how Paul commanded to keep the communion.Leading upto Passover, I search my life for leaven, by asking my family and brothers who know me, as to what areas they see hypocrisy and false beliefs. I pray to Yah to clean me of the leaven as He desires, so I can be ready for the feast.
The day of Passover, we gather as family to eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs (zatar, rosemary, parsley mixed with bit of salt and olive oil) and drink grape juice, following [1Cor11:23-28]. We thank the Most High for making a way for redeeming us back into His fold through His Son and close with a prayer. This is how we celebrate the feast of Pesach or Passover. Following this we eat a meal, which may or may not have lamb or other meat along with salad and unleavened bread. We also do readings of scriptures from Exodus and John commemorating this feast and the finished worked of our Messiah. We also reflect on our Messiah's return and the feast we will be having with Him, Yah willing.