Scripture Readings for the Feasts of Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread, and for Firstfruits:
Exodus 12:1-51; 13:12 – 34:26; Numbers 28:16-31
Joshua 5:2-6; 2 Kings 23:1-9; 21-25; Ezekiel 36:37 – 37;14; 2 Samuel 22:1-51
John 13:1 – 17:26; 19:31 – 20:1; Luke 22:1-7; 24:13-52; 1 Corinthians 5:1-8; 15:20-23
For days now, the snow has been falling afresh every morning here around our home in the Cascades of Oregon. Morning by morning, beautiful white snow covers the majestic trees around us. Reminds me that we are like clean trees of righteousness (Psalm 92:12, Proverbs 11:30).
The Father of Creation reminds Leslie and I daily that though our sins were as scarlet, they are as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). Ho damo shel Yeshua! Oh the blood of Yeshua, it washes white as snow! At this time of the spring feasts, may we build ourselves up in the most holy faith in our Savior and His cleansing blood, praying in the Holy Spirit (Jude 1:20).
Holy Are All Who Touch Him
As we enter into the festivals of Passover and Unleavened Bread, remember that regarding the offering of unleavened bread that the priests ate, all who touched them were made holy (Lev 6:15-18). We learned this just last Shabbat from the Torah portion Tsav. We also learned that the unleavened bread offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering YHWH calls ‘most holy.’ ‘Qodesh ha’qodeshim’ are the same Hebrew words for what is called ‘the Holy of Holies’ where the glorious Presence of YHWH resided in the most set-apart sanctuary of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. The Most Holy sanctifies the believer through sacrifice.
The only way sacrifices can be called ‘qodesh he’qodeshim’ is if they represent the sacrifice of the Most Holy One. How do these sacrifices represent that of the God of Israel Himself?
Being the God of Israel, Yeshua is the Most Holy offering of sacrifice to the Father on our behalf. He is ‘Qodesh ha’Qodeshim.’ The Messiah was found flawless and perfect in word, deeds, and character through the trials before religious and government rulers before His crucifixion.
The Messiah offered Himself up as unleavened bread, as our sin offering, and as our guilt offering. Let’s take a look at each one of these offerings in relation to the Lamb of God:
Like grain is bruised and crushed to become flour, the Messiah was ‘wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities.’ Yet being humble as a lamb to the slaughter, He was in no way puffed up with pride, nor agitated to take vengeance upon His enemies. Our Messiah was perfectly unleavened. He suffered and died as the pure, spotless Lamb of God.
Being our sin offering, the Lamb of God carried all our sins to the cross to remove the leaven of sin from the souls of whoever would believe in Him. The Hebrew for ‘sin offering’ is ‘chata’at,’ spelled ‘chet, tet, alef, tav.’ For those who missed outside (chet) the mark of the Torah (tet), for all have sinned, He is the Alef Tav, the One Who redeemed us by the power of the cross and has made a new covenant with the believer.
Being our guilt offering, not only did He remove our sins as far as the east is from the west, we learned that He removed all guilt and shame for missing the mark, even from our conscience, yes, from our very sub-conscience. No blood of sacrificial animals could ever do that. Only the blood of the Lamb can cleanse the conscience and remove the burden of a guilt-laden soul. Praise Yeshua for that!
Common Threads with the First of the Spring Feasts
Are you seeing the common thread connections to what we will be soon observing together at Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread? May each of us partake of the Unleavened Bread and drink of the cup of the New Covenant. By eating the matzah and drinking the fruit of the vine, may we touch Him and trust that He makes us holy and set-apart from dead works unto righteous works, living by faith in the Son of God.
Let us remember our first ‘Passover experience,’ when we were first born again and made new creatures in Messiah (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). Thanks be to Yah that we are now reconciled, joined to Abba through Yeshua the Messiah!
We now have the Ministry of Reconciliation given to us. We all have a responsibility to share our testimonies of how He saved us from sin, the world, and the devil and brought us into His Kingdom of Light and Love. We have Good News to share!
Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! His love ran red! His love lifted me!
For those of us who started in Christianity, have you noticed that in Hebrew Roots we don’t talk about grace as much as we used to? At least that’s what I have noticed.
Grace and peace be to you from God the Father and Messiah Yeshua our Lord! We can find the greeting of grace and peace 18 times in the apostolic writings. Eighteen is the number of the blessing of life. Grace is a beautiful word describing the selfless, undeserving love that our Savior Yeshua gave us through the work of the cross.
Abiding in His love by grace brings shalom to the soul like nothing else. May the grace of our Lord Yeshua be what makes our Passover gatherings intimate and meaningful.
Through Him Loving Us
But in all these things we more than conquer through Him loving us. Romans 8:37, LITV
I like this literal translation because others put His love in the past with ‘through Him Who loved us.’ The active grace of the Messiah is at work in our lives fighting for us and enabling us, giving us the power and protection to ‘more than conquer.’
Consider a common thread with Passover on how to become overcomers in these end times. It’s amazing to me on all three counts how they relate to the themes of Passover:
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. Revelation 12:11, NASB
The plan of YHWH is not for the tribulation saints to merely survive and hope we live through great tribulation, but for His servants to more than conquer and to overcome the adversary! If our mentality is that we can only try to eke out surviving all the death and destruction in these end times, I don’t believe we’ll survive, nor make it to the Promised Land.
Do we believe in the prophecies of the greater exodus or do we not? Just what do we believe our Messiah and Savior is doing and going to do out of love for us during these days of tribulation?
Who exactly is the adversary that these saints overcome? Hear the loud voice from heaven declare:
“Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.” Revelation 12:10
First, how does the blood of the Lamb overcome the accuser of our brethren? The blood of Yeshua speaks better things than Abel’s blood and cries for vengeance. (Heb 12:24) His blood was sprinkled on the Mercy seat of the Throne of Heaven and cries, “Mercy!” His blood obliterates the accusations of the adversary against us because He had become both our sin offering and our guilt offering. We can overcome any accusation against us, even if true, by pleading the blood of the Lamb in the courtroom of Heaven. Now that’s something to remember when we partake of the cup this Passover!
Yes, I was guilty, but now I am forgiven and redeemed. I don’t even have to pay the penalty of carrying guilt over my sin. My guilt and shame are reduced to ashes by His holy fire! I am free to walk in righteousness and to more than conquer every accusation railed against me!
I put on the breastplate of righteousness in Messiah and put on the shield of faith to quench every fiery dart the accuser hurls my way. No weapon of accusation will penetrate and sting my heart! With the helmet of Salvation on, no accusing, guilt-ridden thought can destroy my thought life. HalleluYah!
Second, how does the word of our testimony overcome the accuser? On Passover, the Scriptures command us to tell our children our story of how we were delivered from the land of misery (Mitsrayim) and out of the house of bondage. Not just our forefathers back in Moses’ day, but we are to testify of our first Passovers on how we were saved and born again when we first applied the blood of the cross upon the doorposts of our hearts.
Those testimonies obliterate the devil’s accusations and allegations of sin and wrongdoing against us from our past. We believe and testify by the Word of faith that we don’t belong under the accuser’s jurisdiction anymore. We are no longer slaves under his jurisdiction of sin and death. We declare that we are free from his tyranny over our hearts and minds! HalleluYah!
Third, how about ‘they did not love their life even when faced with death’? How does that line up with Passover?
Yeshua didn’t love His earthly life in the flesh enough to not die on the cross for us. How could He do that? What motivated Him to suffer and die like that for us?
He loved His Father and the whole world so much so, that He gave His life willingly to reconcile and join us to the Father. What amazing grace! Oh, to experience that kind of love!
The Messiah is our example and motivation to lay down our lives for the brethren as well out of selfless love for them. Selfless love is the only way to overcome evil in our day. Yeshua said if we try to preserve our lives out of self-love then we will lose our lives. (Mat 10:39; 16:25) Sure, we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves; but notice that our neighbor comes first in this second of the greatest two commandments. That means our love needs to be selfless like Yeshua’s love suffering and dying, laying down His life for His friends.
May we all remember Yeshua and build up ourselves in the most holy faith this Passover. May we all renew our love for Him, for He first loved us, and in turn, share the selfless love and grace towards one another. Then may we continue to partake of the Most Holy, set-apart nature of our Messiah as we eat of the Unleavened Bread and gather for the first of the spring feasts of YHWH.
Grace and shalom to you from Yeshua, our Savior, and Messiah,
David