Passover: Act 1, Scene 1
On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the LORD's Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.
-- Leviticus 23:5-8:
Introduction
The Festivals, or Feast Days, of the Bible can be understood on many levels. To the people of Israel, they recounted significant events in their national history. That is certainly true of the Passover, which recalls the night when the Angel of the Lord “passed over” the children of Israel during their last evening as slaves to the Egyptians and slew the firstborn of all Egypt.
But these great celebrations of freedom are more than just historical commemorations. As a general rule, we can understand their meaning on several levels. Most of them have distinct application in four areas:
Historical
Christological. They point to Christ.
Soteriological. They point to an aspect of the plan of salvation.
Prophetic. They point to future and end-time events.
Some people believe that the Festivals can be understood in terms of the different covenants of the Bible. Some believe that the Festivals can be understood in terms of different dispensations (ways God has related to mankind through the ages). They might very well be correct on both counts. There is a lot we don’t know, and coming to understand the fullness of what God had in mind when he created these days can prove to be an exciting study.
But throughout this series do keep in mind what we’ll call The Four Understandings of the Festivals. They will add greatly to the richness of understanding what God is doing for us through his son Jesus Christ.
If I were use the phrase “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us”, what would you think I meant by that? Paul in fact used that term in I Corinthians 5:7. What did he mean?
When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)
And Peter referred to Jesus as “a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (I Peter 1:19)
These are all not so veiled references to the first of the Festivals of the Lord, known commonly as Passover.
God introduced the Passover to Israel in Exodus 12. Here we find the historical context of the Festival, but notice how it and its annual celebration pointed toward the true Lamb of God and his sacrifice. Look up the scripture references in your Bible and answer the questions.
Study Questions on Exodus 12:1-13
Summary
God introduced the Passover to the people of Israel on the night they were to obtain their freedom from slavery, and the people were to keep it as an annual memorial (verse 14). In that sense it was meant to be an national holiday in much the same way that the Fourth of July is a national holiday in the United States: it is a reminder that as a nation we did not always have our freedom, but we now celebrate the anniversary of the day and the sacrifices of those who were before us without whom we would not have that freedom.
But God did not intend Passover to be just an historical commemoration. The Passover pointed forward to another event, an event that was to occur on another Passover many years later. Notice these clear markers in Act 1, Scene 1 of the drama that God had Israel repeat every year.
The lamb without blemish (verse 5) looked forward to the true Lamb of God (John 1:29, 36). Peter, in I Peter 1:19, borrows the phraseology from the passage in Exodus and calls Jesus “a lamb without blemish”.
The blood of the lamb delivered the people of Israel from death, just as the blood of Jesus Christ redeems us “from the empty way of life” (I Peter 1:18, NIV). (Note: “Redeem” literally means to buy back in the same way that a slave can be “redeemed” or “bought back” from slavery. Being a slave to an empty way of life, or sin, is an apt way to describe life without Christ).
By his blood we are also “justified” (Romans 5:9), or made right with God, for “according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.” (Hebrews 9:22)
Clearly, the Passover lamb pointed forward to the true “lamb without blemish”, Christ our Passover who was sacrificed for us.
But there is more, right down to the very timing of the fulfillment of this day.
Study Comments and Questions
Turn to John 12. These events took place within a week of the crucifixion. Chapter 12 opens with a specific date attached to it. Notice the phrase “six days before the Passover.” [Note: The term “Passover” is used in several different ways in scripture, depending on the author. “Passover” can refer to the lamb that was sacrificed, as in I Corinthians 5:7. It can also refer to the Passover meal that took place on the 14th of Abib consisting of the lamb, bitter herbs, unleavened bread and wine. As we shall see shortly, Luke’s gospel sometimes employs this usage. In other places, such as John’s gospel and in Luke 22:1, Passover refers to the entire seven day festival beginning on the 15th of Abib and ending on the 21st of Abib. The latter is the common usage among Jews today.]
At the very time that the Passover lamb was being brought into their homes for preparation of the Passover, Jesus Christ was entering Jerusalem in preparation for the ultimate Passover sacrifice.
Now turn to Luke 22.
“Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed. And He sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat." So they said to Him, "Where do You want us to prepare?" And He said to them, "Behold, when you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house which he enters. Then you shall say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says to you, "Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with My disciples?"' Then he will show you a large, furnished upper room; there make ready." So they went and found it just as He had said to them, and they prepared the Passover.” (Luke 22:7-13)
John 18:28
John 19:31
Matthew 26:2-5
These scriptures all point to the time of year that the crucifixion took place. Jesus Christ, whose blood covers our sins and causes eternal death to pass over us, made the ultimate sacrifice as the Lamb of God at the very time of year that the Passover lamb was sacrificed. In fact, at the very time that the high priest was slaying the lamb and shedding its blood, Jesus Christ was shedding his blood and drawing his last breath. [Note: The official sacrifice of the Passover lamb took place in the temple on the afternoon of the 14th of Abib. The Biblical days begin and at sunset (Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, etc. and Leviticus 23:32). Thus, both the private celebrations that took place in homes such as Jesus kept with his disciples and the official Passover in the temple both occur on the 14th of Abib. This was the very day our Savior died.]
Act 1, Scene 1 of the play thus pointed to this first step in God’s salvation plan for the human race, the first coming of Jesus Christ as the unblemished Lamb of God who was to die for our sins and whose blood saves us from death.
On the heals of this sacrifice, God ordained a seven-day festival called in Leviticus 23 and Exodus 12 the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The sacrifice of Jesus is over, but his work is not. The story behind the unleavened bread brings us to the next scene, and that will be the story of the next lesson.
Feast of Unleavened Bread: Act 1, Scene 2
Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover of the Lord your God, because in the month of Abib he brought you out of Egypt by night. Sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God an animal from your flock or herd at the place the Lord will choose as a dwelling for his Name. Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste – so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt. Let no yeast be found in your possession in all your land for seven days.
-- Deuteronomy 16:1-4 (NIV)
These verses set the historical context of the Feast of Unleavened Bread: the departure from Egypt in haste, a departure so hasty that there was not time to leaven their bread. To this day the Jewish people celebrate this escape from slavery by removing all leavening and leavened products from their homes during the entire seven days of the festival. Indeed they “remember the time of your departure from Egypt.
In the last lesson we saw how the Passover lamb in its historical context is a reminder of Israel’s deliverance from death as they were about to be freed from the slavery of their Egyptian masters, and that each year a Passover lamb was sacrificed and consumed, none of which was to remain until morning (Exodus 12:8-10). This was a memorial that was to be kept throughout their generations (verse 14). But we also saw that this was an historical prototype of the true Lamb of God that was to follow.
In the same way, the Feast of Unleavened Bread has not only historical significance, but also a Christological and Soteriological one. (Remember the Four Understandings referred to in the Introduction of Act 1, Scene 1).
First, let’s see what Leviticus 23 says about these days.
And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no uncustomary work on it. (Leviticus 23:6-8)
1. What does Leviticus tell us about the first and seventh days of this Festival?
Note: The first and seventh days of these Festivals came to be known as High Days. The laws of the weekly Sabbath applied to them because in fact they were annual Sabbaths. Many have not realized that during the week of Jesus’ crucifixion there were two Sabbaths, the first an annual High Day Sabbath and the second the normal weekly Sabbath. An understanding of this fact clarifies some of the scriptures related to the timing of many events in the last week of Jesus’ earthly life. We’ll cover more of this in the next lesson (Act 1, Scene 3).
2. Refer back to Leviticus 23:5. Was the day of the Passover (i.e., the 14th of Abib) a holy convocation?
The day of the Passover sacrifice was not of itself a holy convocation or annual Sabbath. That explains why the religious leaders of Jesus’ day were able to conduct their “business” of trying him in their kangaroo court and turning him over to the Romans for execution without violating the letter of the law. An annual High Day Sabbath was the very next day.
3. They were to change their diets for seven days. Now turn to Exodus 12:15. Not only were they to eat unleavened bread, what were they to do with any of the leavening in their homes?
This might seem strange to us, but remember that God was trying to teach Israel – and us – some object lessons by having them act out this simple religious exercise. Leaven is a symbol, and an apt one, for it permeates whatever it touches and changes it.
4. Read the following scriptures and list how leaven is used metaphorically in these passages.
Matthew 16:6 – 12.
Luke 12:1
Matthew 13:33
I Corinthians 5:6 – 8
In three of the four references, leaven refers to some form of sin. In one (Matthew 13:33) it refers to the Kingdom of God. The point is this: whatever leaven touches, it permeates it and changes it. That is true of both sin and of the Kingdom of God. As we’ll see, Paul used the metaphor of leaven in his first letter to the Corinthian church to illustrate how their failure to deal with sin among them was affecting (or should we say “infecting”) them all.
Paul, Passover, and the Days of Unleavened Bread
“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles -- that a man has his father's wife! And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.” (I Corinthians 5:1 – 2)
Paul begins by correcting the church regarding a very public sin that brought dishonor to them as a group because of their failure to deal with it. He says two things that are important for this study. 1) They are “puffed up” or “arrogant” (RSV) or “proud” (NIV) about it. What does leaven do to a batch of dough but puff it up? 2) The man who was guilty should be put away from them (see verse 2 with verses 5 and 13 and the NIV of verse 2). What was supposed to happen to the leaven during the Days of Unleavened Bread?
Paul used this wording in verses 1 and 2 for their metaphorical meaning, but there was also another reason. The church at Corinth (even though it was primarily a Gentile church) understood something about unleavened bread and its meaning that we would do well to understand too. Paul was about to use that understanding to drive home a lesson.
Your glorying (boasting – NIV) is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. (I Corinthians 5:6-7)
Again, notice the metaphors: A little bit of leaven, just like a little bit of sin, will infect the whole body. Put the sin out of your life just like you put leaven out of your homes. Christ by his death as the true Passover Lamb made you “unleavened”, or purged of all sin.
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (Verse 8, emphasis added)
If we think about what Paul is saying here, it brings to mind the words of Conybeare and Howson: “[T]he festivals observed by the apostolic church were, at first, the same as those of the Jews; and the observance of these was continued, especially by Christians of Jewish birth, for a considerable time” (Conybeare and Howson, The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, page 346). Evidently, the church at Corinth was keeping the feast, and the internal evidence of I Corinthians points toward a time of authorship near to Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread.
That the Corinthians kept and understood the meaning of these days made easier Paul’s job of explaining the consequences of sin and how to deal with it. In effect he says, “You should be spiritually unleavened because of the sacrifice of Jesus, but you are not. You did a good job of casting the physical leaven out of your homes, but you need to take that lesson to heart and now cast the spiritual leaven out of your lives. Cast out your malice, cast out your pride, cast out your wickedness, and, yes, ‘put out of your fellowship’ (Verse 2, NIV) the one who is committing incest in your congregation. If you don’t, the sin of one will hurt you all.”
Acts 1, Scene 3: Wave Sheaf Offering of Firstfruits
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. And you shall offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the LORD. Its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the LORD, for a sweet aroma; and its drink offering shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hin. You shall eat neither bread nor parched grain nor fresh grain until the same day that you have brought an offering to your God; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. (Leviticus 23:9-14)
Introduction
We have seen how Act 1 of this serial points to the part of God’s plan relating to the salvation we enjoy through Jesus Christ. Passover shows us that we are in need of a Redeemer and points toward the sacrifice of Jesus body and blood so that our sins could be forgiven. The Days of Unleavened Bread remind us that, even though the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient to forgive our sins, we still need to be diligent to walk away from a life of sin. Just as the Corinthian church had put physical leaven out of their homes, so should we put the leaven of sins out of our lives.
But there is more to what God is doing with us, and there is more to the salvation story than the payment for our sins and change in our lives. God gave Israel a ritual to perform during the Days of Unleavened Bread that illustrates part of that story.
Before we begin, notice these words about the wave sheaf from Leviticus 23: “ … you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.”
Study Questions
1. The New Testament makes reference to “firstfruits”. Who is referred to as the firstsfruits? I Corinthians 15:20-23.
2. In similar vein, Jesus is the “first” in other ways: Hebrews 1:6, Colossians 1:15, Revelation 1:5, Romans 8:29.
Many of the Feasts of the Lord were originally harvest festivals. In verse 10 of Leviticus 23, God told the Israelites that they were to perform the wave sheaf offering “when you come into the land”. When they were in the wilderness, they only had manna, not barley or wheat to offer. After the Israelites came into the land, the spring Holy Days revolved around the barley harvest. This brings to mind how Jesus used the word “harvest” metaphorically. See Matthew 9:37-38; 13:30, 39; Mark 4:29; Luke 10:2; John 4:27-35.
After the people entered the Promised Land, they were to take the very first sheaf of the barley harvest and bring it to the priest to present it before God as an offering, which God would accept. This would happen during the Days of Unleavened Bread on the day after the Sabbath. Remember that the Sabbath begins and ends at sunset (Leviticus 23:32), so Biblically speaking this could have happened any time after sunset on Saturday through sunset on Sunday during the Days of Unleavened Bread.
How long did Jesus say he would be in the heart of the earth? (Matthew 12:40) The traditional teaching is that Jesus spent parts of three days and parts of three nights in the grave, yet Jesus was explicit in saying that he would be in the grave for three days and three nights. The Scriptures do say that Jesus was killed on the Preparation Day for the Sabbath (Mark 15:42), which certainly seems like a Friday. But John’s gospel (19:31) tells us that the Sabbath in question was a “High Day”. We know from earlier lessons that this “High Day” was the first annual High Holy Day of the Days of Unleavened Bread. In other words, there were two Sabbaths that week, the first the annual Sabbath (or High Day), and the second the normal weekly Sabbath. Therefore the Preparation Day for the Sabbath that Mark mentions does not need to be a Friday in order to be consistent with the scriptures.
In fact, quite often the first High Day of the Passover season falls on a Thursday, and if that happened in the year of the crucifixion, the day of the crucifixion would have been a Wednesday. Jesus’ burial near sunset on that day would have him in the grave from Wednesday evening around sunset until Saturday evening at sunset (three days and three nights), which would correspond to the very time that Israel would be allowed to take the firstfruits of the barley harvest and offer them to God. Do you see the parallel between the firstfruits and the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
The Importance of the Resurrection
The death of Jesus is an important part of our salvation, but without the resurrection, we have no hope.
1. Romans 5:10 -- Read this verse. Consider this: We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. But this verse says we’re saved, not by his death, but by his _______ (fill in the blank).
2. I Corinthians 15:3 – Fill in the blank. “Christ died for our _____.”
3. Romans 4:24 - 25 (New King James) – “It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our _______, and was raised because of our _________.”
4. I Corinthians 15:22 (New King James) – “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be ______ _______.”
The death of Jesus Christ is cornerstone of Christian theology, but so is the resurrection. The death and resurrection of Christ accomplished different things. Though his death covers our sins, that by itself does not give us eternal life. These verses clearly show that it is by his resurrection that we have life, for it was through the resurrection that Jesus Christ defeated death.
A Word about Holy Convocations
We are going conclude this lesson by turning back to Leviticus 23. All of the days mentioned in this chapter are special days in God’s sight, but not all of them are High Days on which holy convocations were convened. A “holy convocation” is a meeting that took place in connection with a Sabbath.
The 14th day of the first month (the Lord’s Passover) is not called a holy convocation, but the 15th and the 21st (the first and last days of Unleavened Bread) were (Leviticus 23:4 – 8).
The Day of the Wave Sheaf Offering of Firstfruits is not called a holy convocation. This was not a Sabbath day, but in fact was the first day of barley harvest, a regular work day. And this harvest was also a type of a significant part of God’s plan. Not only was Jesus Christ the firstfuits, James says that the Father “chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.” (James 1:18, NIV) That will be the subject of Act 2.