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This is Passover week. The festival of the Passover has been celebrated by Jews for thousands of years. It is the retelling of the great story of how God redeemed the Jewish nation from enslavement in Egypt. The original celebration centered around the Passover lamb, which was sacrificed and its blood put over the doorposts as a sign of faith, so that the Lord passed over the houses of the Jews during the last plague poured out on the Egyptians – the killing of every firstborn.
I want to share with you how the Jewish culture was taught to celebrate the spring festivals. The main focus will be Passover week. Passover begins tonight Wednesday the 8th, 2020 at sundown. On the Jewish calendar, today’s date is Nissan 14th. However, the date changes at sundown to Nissan 15th.
Jewish Calendar
The Jewish calendar is based on three astronomical phenomena: the rotation of the Earth about its axis (a day); the revolution of the moon about the Earth (a month); and the revolution of the Earth about the sun (a year). These three phenomena are independent of each other, so there is no direct correlation between them. On average, the moon revolves around the Earth in about 29½ days. The Earth revolves around the sun in about 365¼ days, that is, about 12.4 lunar months.
The Jewish “day” starts at sunset, rather than at midnight. Accordingly, most sources use 6 PM of the preceding evening as the “zero hour.”
Genesis 1:3 (MEV) states, “So the evening and the morning were the first day.”
God’s Festivals
We find in Leviticus 23:2, what most call the “Jewish festivals” are actually God’s festivals.
“Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: Concerning the feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My appointed feasts.” (Leviticus 23:2 (MEV), emphasis added).
The festivals that Yahweh declared from Exodus 23 and Leviticus 23 to be celebrated are:
- Passover (Pesach) – Spring – Nissan 14-15
- Unleavened Bread (Matzah) – Spring – Nissan 15-22
- Firstfruits (Bikkurim) – Spring – Nissan 16-17
- Pentecost (Shavuot) – Spring – Sivan 6-7
- Tabernacles (Sukkot) – Fall – Tishri 1
- Trumpets (Teruah) – Fall – Tishri 10
- the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) – Fall – Tishri 15-22
Seven Appointed Mo‘edim
The seven festivals were designed by God to be “appointments,” the primary meaning of the Hebrew word mo‘edim. The word mo‘edim can also be translated as “rehearsals.” Therefore, the seven festivals are also considered rehearsals that point to the unfolding of the Messianic prophecy concerning Jesus Christ.
Daily Passover Week Readings
If you have never had the opportunity to attend a Seder meal and learn the rich meaning behind this tradition you are in for a treat! Each day of the Passover week, I will take a look at the scripture reading and share my thoughts with you. We will also look at how Jesus fulfilled the many aspects of the Passover celebration. My prayer is you will Be Encouraged as you consider all that the Messiah Jesus Christ accomplished in this most-holy Passover week. Click the graphic below to view the Haggadah PDF.
Haggadah PDF: https://hebrew4christians.com/Holidays/Spring_Holidays/Pesach/Seder/H4C_Passover_Seder.pdf
Passover Seder Meal
You can read more about the Seder meal here.
Messianic Jews
What is a messianic Jew? This is a Jewish person who accepted Jesus Christ as the long-awaited Messiah. After all, never forget Jesus WAS A JEW! We do not lose our nationality just because we accept Jesus Christ. There were and are Jewish believers and Gentile believers. The scriptures tell us that:
“There is [now no distinction in regard to salvation] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you [who believe] are all one in Christ Jesus [no one can claim a spiritual superiority]”… Galatians 3:28 (AMP)
When it comes to the traditional Passover festivals the Jewish believers add portions from the Brit Chadashah (New Testament) to the daily readings.
Jesus the Lamb of God
What some fail to realize is that our Savior Jesus Christ fulfilled the Passover week traditions that were laid out for the nation of Israel to follow, Jesus has fulfilled all the spring festivals, Therefore, it stands to reason that He will fulfill the remaining three fall festivals.
How did he fulfill the spring festivals? Glad you asked!
The Passover Lamb
- Exodus 12:3 (AMP) – “On the tenth [day] of this month they are to take a lamb or young goat for themselves, according to [the size of] the household…”
- Exodus 12:5 (AMP) – “Your lamb or young goat shall be [perfect] without blemish or bodily defect”
- Exodus 12:5 (AMP) – “a male a year old”
- Exodus 12:6 (AMP) – “You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it at twilight.”
The Lamb of God
- “The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” – John 1:29 (AMP)
- “and he looked at Jesus as He walked along, and said, “Look! The Lamb of God!” – John 1:36 (AMP)
- “Worthy and deserving is the Lamb that was sacrificed to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” – Revelation 5:12 (AMP)
Feast of Unleavened Bread
- Exodus 12:15 (AMP) – “[In the celebration of the Passover in future years,] seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove the leaven from your houses [because it represents the spread of sin]…”
- Exodus 12:18 (AMP) – “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, [and continue] until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.”
- Leviticus 23:6 (AMP) – “The Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord is on the fifteenth day of the same month; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.”
For Believers in Christ, this is a representation of a holy walk before our Lord. Leaven represents sin. Therefore the nation of Israel was to get rid of all leaven and be sinless before the Lord. Moreover, we also are to get rid of the sins that encumber us.
Feast of First Fruits
The third feast, the holy day called First Fruits, is the day that Jesus Christ rose from the grave. Our Lord, Jesus Christ was not resurrected on a day called “Easter”.
Leviticus 23:10-11 (AMP) – “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘When you enter the land which I am giving you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord so that you may be accepted; the priest shall wave it on the day after the Sabbath.“
Zola Levitt in an article on First Fruits explained: Where Easter is concerned, however, we have confused a pagan ritual with First Fruits. Each spring, the Babylonians saw the genuine first fruits and assumed it would be a fine time to ask their goddess, a goddess of war and sexual love called Ishtar. (Easter), for new babies. They worshipped the things in nature which represented fertility, such as the rabbit and the egg. Today, we continue the Babylonian rite with our Easter Bunny and our painted eggs and our new outfits.
The Feast of Weeks
The Feast of Weeks consists of fifty days. The counting of the fifty days is the countdown to receiving the Torah on Shavuot. The days and weeks of this period are counted, from 1 to 49. The counting is done the night before each day, beginning this year on April 9, 2020, and ending on May 27, 2020. This is called the counting of the Omar.
An omer is a unit of measure. On the second day of Passover, in the days of the Temple, an omer of barley was cut down and brought to the Temple as an offering on the day of First Fruits. This grain offering was referred to as the Omer.
Shavuot / Pentecost
Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai seven weeks after the exodus from Egypt. Followers of Christ recognize this day as the day the Holy Spirit was given as our comforter and empowerer. The holiday of Shavuot is a two-day holiday, beginning at sundown of the 5th of Sivan and lasting until nightfall of the 7th of Sivan. In Israel it is a one-day holiday, ending at nightfall of the 6th of Sivan. This year Shavuot occurs at sunset May 28, 2020 – Nightfall May 30, 2020.
I hope you have enjoyed looking into the spring Feats of the Lord. His mo‘edim, His appointed festivals. Each day, God willing we will look closer at Passover week and the work of Jesus Christ during these festivals. I hope you will Be Encouraged by what you learn!
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