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Why Don’t Christians Celebrate Passover?

Why don’t Christians celebrate Passover?  There are a lot of potential answers to that question.  Some believe Passover was only for the Jews.  Some believe celebrating it undermines the idea that Jesus is our Passover.  Some believe any celebration of Passover is a return to a law-based pursuit of righteousness and contradicts grace.  But reality is, many of us do celebrate Passover!

What is Passover?

What does Passover celebrate?  For Christians, that’s a little bit complicated.  There are three major answers to “what is Passover,” and they don’t contradict each other; they build on each other.

First, there’s the very first Passover — the occasion when God actually “passed over” the obedient Israelite households while killing the firstborn in each of the Egyptian households.  Then there’s Passover, the established feast, which commemorates that event.  This is what most people have in mind when they talk about Passover.  This feast, however, didn’t only look back; it also looked forward — to Jesus, who is described as our Passover (that is, our Passover Lamb).

“For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” (1 Corinthians 5:7)

The Passover Story

So let’s start at the beginning, with the Passover story.  The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt for hundreds of years, under increasingly heavy-handed rule, when God raised up Moses to serve as His emissary to Pharaoh, demanding that Pharaoh let God’s people go.

Pharaoh refused — repeatedly — and God sent plagues on Egypt — repeatedly — to, shall we say, inspire him to relent.  First the water was turned to blood.  Then the land was overrun by frogs.  Then lice.  Then flies.  Then a pestilence on their livestock.  Then boils, hail, locusts, and darkness, in turn.

Finally, the most dreadful plague of all — the destroyer was sent to kill the firstborn in every home.  But God provided a way of escape for the Israelites, just as He provided Noah’s family a way of escape from the Flood.  They were to make every preparation to flee the land at a moment’s notice.  And then they were to slaughter a lamb, cook and eat it, and paint its blood around the doorframes of their houses.  When the destroyer saw the blood on the door, he would “pass over” that house, and anyone who remained within it would be safe.

When Pharaoh finally did sent them away in the wake of this distress, they didn’t have time to make any preparations, to wait for their bread to rise, etc.

How to Celebrate Passover (in the Bible)

God Himself instructed His people to commemorate this event — before it even took place!

(Sorry; this is a long passage for quoting in a blog post, but it’s important.)

“Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with Unleavened Bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire—its head with its legs and its entrails. You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.

‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. 1Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

‘So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. Seven days you shall eat Unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat—that only may be prepared by you. So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’ ”

Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever. It will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service. And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ that you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.’ ” So the people bowed their heads and worshiped. Then the children of Israel went away and did so; just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.”  (Exodus 12:1-28)

There’s a lot here.  Of course, much of this is the same Passover story I already summarized.  But there are also some key instructions here for keeping the feast in an ongoing manner as a memorial to what happened:

  • Their unblemished lamb was to be kept from the 10th to the 14th of the month, then slaughtered on the 14th at twilight.
  • There was to be no excess.
  • A bunch of hyssop was to be used to put the lamb’s blood over/around the door.
  • They were to eat the lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
  • They were to eat fully dressed for travel.
  • From the 14th to the 21st there was to be no leaven in their homes, and they were to eat only unleavened bread.
  • It was expected that in years to come, the children would ask what the purpose was of the feast, providing them with an opportunity to tell them about God’s provision.

If we keep reading through verse 49, we also find that

  • All insiders, but no outsiders, were to eat the Passover.  However, one could become a circumcised part of Israel and be made an insider who eats the Passover.  (As Christians are now grafted into Israel, we are now among the insiders.)

Note that God has said this is the “beginning of months.”  That is, this is the first month of the year.  Passover is the first of the feasts on the biblical calendar.  God calls it His Passover.

This is true later on, as well, when God establishes and describes His feasts in Leviticus 23.

“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: “The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts…

These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. 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.”‘…So Moses declared to the children of Israel the feasts of the Lord.”  (Leviticus 23:1-2, 4-8, 44)

Passover, like the others, is one of God’s feasts.

Passover Basics in Early Judaism

As is the case with many things, there were traditions added to the keeping of Passover along the way.  Although these aren’t biblical in origin, they help form the backdrop of the New Testament’s unfolding drama, so it can be helpful to be aware of them.

One of the most significant of these additions is the five cups of wine.  There are four cups that are poured — and drunk — during the Passover meal (called a “seder,”  for “order” — like an “order of service”).  These may or may not be four entire cups; it may be useful to think of them as somewhat akin to four “toasts.”  Traditionally, these correspond to four redemptive promises God made in Exodus 6:

  1. I will bring you out.
  2. I will rescue you (from Egyptian bondage).
  3. I will redeem you.
  4. I will take you (as My people).

A fifth cup, referred to as the Cup of Elijah, is set aside entirely and never consumed.  It’s symbolic, and after dinner, it is usually just poured back into the bottle.  No one seems to be quite sure how this originated, although some think it may correspond to the promise to “bring you into the land,” but this may be the cup Jesus picked up “after supper” in the Gospels.

At some point after the destruction of the Temple, Jews stopped (in most cases) eating lamb at Passover, an egg was added to the seder plate (there are multiple theories of why, but it may have been a pagan introduction), a dish of saltwater is usually used for dipping the herbs in (representative of the enslaved Israelites’ tears), and charoset is usually consumed as part of the dinner.  (Charoset being an apple-nut-honey-cinnamon sort of chutney or fruit relish, reminiscent of mortar.)

The exact origins of these additions are pretty fuzzy, but most of them at least have obvious literary connections to the (true) story being retold.

It’s also traditional for the youngest child present (who’s able) to ask “the Four Questions.”  These questions seem to be an expansion of application on the instruction in Exodus 12 that “when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ that you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord…”

The Four Questions are all summarized in one: “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

  1. On all other nights we eat leavened and unleavened bread.  Why on this night only unleavened (matzah)?
  2. On all other nights we eat all vegetables.  Why on this night only bitter herbs?
  3. On all other nights, we don’t dip our food even once.  Why on this night do we dip twice?  (Vegetables into the salt water “tears,” and bitter herbs into the sweet charoset.)
  4. On all other nights we eat sitting or reclining.  Why on this night do we only recline?

In other words, why are we doing this?  What do these traditions mean?

What Does Passover Celebrate for Christians?

Why are we doing this?  What do these traditions mean…now, today?  What does Passover celebrate for Christians?

It does, indeed, look back, as it always did.  God — our God — is faithful.  He provides.  That’s worth remembering.  He redeemed His people; that’s worth remembering.  But that redemption points us to another, greater redemption: the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  For those who knew to look for it, it always did.

It was Passover when Jesus took the cup, blessed it (quite possibly with the traditional Jewish blessing over wine), and distributed it to His Disciples.  It was Passover when Jesus took the bread (which would have been unleavened!), blessed it (again, quite possibly with the traditional blessing), and said it was His broken body before passing it around.  And it was Passover when Jesus “took the cup after supper” and indicated that it was “the new covenant in [His] blood.”  (Have you ever noticed that Luke describes Jesus taking the cup twice?)

(If you’re looking this up for the Jewish blessings, you may find Passover called “Pesach,” which is the Jewish name for it.  It’s pronounced like PAY-sock.)

More Passover Bible Verses

Paul also appeals to the Passover in 1 Corinthians 5.  Right after, interestingly, having told the Corinthians they are “puffed up” in their tolerance of sexual immorality, he tells them that:

“Your glorying 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. 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.” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8)

This is, of course, an exhortation to be pure, living out the untaintedness the unleavened bread represents, just as we acknowledge the redemption Christ’s sacrifice represents.

We then see it again, indirectly, in both 1 Corinthians 10 (vv. 15-22) and 11 (vv. 17-34), as Paul expounds on the Lord’s Supper, which Jesus instituted in Matthew, Mark, & Luke on the foundation of Passover.

And, finally, we have this verse from Hebrews, commending Moses among the examples of faith:

“By faith [Moses] kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them.” (Hebrews 11:28)

So what does all this mean for us?  It means that we can celebrate not only what God did 4000-ish years ago in Egypt, but also what He did roughly 2000 years ago in Jerusalem.  It means that we can have a Passover seder, and every element of it will have greater depth and more layers of meaning than the average, non-Messianic Jew even realizes.

The Meaning of Passover in the Bible (for Christians)

Some of the traditional elements of Passover are largely historical remembrances.  If you dip your herbs in salt water, to represent the tears of the Israelite slaves, and the bitter herbs into charoset to indicate the sweetness God brings even amid bitterness, you’re remembering the historical events and God’s goodness.

If you tell the story of the Ten Plagues and the Exodus, you’re remembering the historical events and God’s faithfulness.

As you eat the lamb (we eat lamb, even though it isn’t typical anymore, because its one of the things God specified), unleavened bread, and bitter herbs, you’re recalling history…and also obeying God’s earlier instructions.

If you have your little ones ask the Four Questions (or something like them), you’re honoring God’s instruction to use this as an object lesson for our children.

If you drink the four cups of wine (or four toasts), you’re remembering God’s promises — and His faithfulness to them.

And then, of course, both the bread and the wine find their fullness in the New Testament with the Body and Blood of Christ.  He Himself is the Lamb whose blood sprinkled us clean and enables God to “pass over” us.  He is the firstborn who was destroyed while we were/are not.

We know that we are to be without the leaven of pride and sin, because Jesus has purged us clean.

So let us return to the original question, with a different emphasis: why don’t (more) Christians celebrate Passover?



This post first appeared on Titus 2 Homemaker - Hope And Help For The Domestic, please read the originial post: here

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Why Don’t Christians Celebrate Passover?

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