Relevance of Passover Original Passover Order of events

Relevance of Passover

Original Passover - Order of events • Day 10 (Ex 12: 3 -5) • Take 1 lamb per household • If household too small, combine households based on how much people could eat • Must be w/out blemish, male, 1 st year, from sheep or goats • Keep it until 14 th day of month • Day 14 (Ex 12: 6 - 13) • Kill the lamb in the evening of the 14 th day • Take blood and apply to all 3 door posts of house where eating Passover - sides & top • Using a 'bunch of hyssop' (Ex 12: 22) • Cook lamb that night • Roast over fire (no boiling, not raw) • Had to be whole - including head, legs, entrails • Eat the lamb • Eat with unleavened bread and bitter herbs • Burn leftovers in the fire - nothing remain until the morning • Eat quickly!! • Loins girded, shoes on feet, staff in hand • God would pass through land of Egypt that night to kill firstborn of man/animal • Exception: houses with blood on posts would be passed over and no one die inside • Had to stay inside house until the morning!! (Ex 12: 22)

Feast of Unleavened Bread • Day 15 - 21 (Ex 12: 16 -20; 34: 18; Lev 23: 6 -8; Deut 16: 3 -4) - Feast of Unleavened Bread • Remove leaven from entire house (Ex 12: 15; 34: 25; Deut 16: 3 -4) • Anyone eating leaven during this time period cut off from people! • No work was allowed on 1 st or 7 th day (Ex 12: 16; Lev 23: 7 -8; Num 28: 18, 25; Deut 16: 8) • Every day, a series of offerings made (Num 28: 24) • Special: 2 young bullocks, 1 ram, 7 lambs of 1 st year, 1 goat for sin offering (Num 28: 19, 22) - all w/out blemish • Meal offering: flour mingled with oil in different increments w/ each offering (Num 28: 20 -21) • Standard: 'the daily' = the 'continual burnt offering' & drink offering (Num 28: 23 -24) • Only unleavened bread - no leaven! • Applied to all in congregation (stranger or native Israelite) Feast of Unleavened Bread was implemented at a later point after the Exodus

Symbols & their meaning (1 Cor 5: 6 -8) • Passover Lamb = Jesus Christ (1 Cor 5: 7) • Leaven = sin & its pervasive effects… 'malice and wickedness' (1 Cor 5: 6 -7) • Cleaning Leaven from house = removing sin from our lives to make us new (1 Cor 5: 7) • Unleavened Bread = Sincerity and Truth in worship (1 Cor 5: 8) • Called 'bread of affliction' (Deut 16: 3) - God had seen their affliction (Ex 3: 17, 17; 4: 31) and would deliver them from their taskmasters. • Remind them of the affliction that they were delivered from on the night of the Passover • Blood on doorpost = removal/forgiveness of sin (Heb 9: 22). • No blood = death & bearing of sin (Num 9: 13) • Hyssop = cleansing (leprosy - Lev 14: 2 -4; dead – Num 19: 4 -9; sin – Psa 51: 7) Passover pointed forward to redemptive work of Jesus Christ

Principles of the Passover • Removing leaven from our lives • Forgiveness / Deliverance only available in Christ (baptism - Gal 3: 27; Heb 9: 14) • Those not in covenant will be cut off (Num 9: 13)… God would not ‘pass over’ • ‘Haste’ - Ready at all times to leave Egypt! • "Looking for and hasting unto the coming day of God…" (2 Pet 3: 12) • Girded loins • gird up the loins of your mind (1 Pet 1: 13) - a clear allusion to Passover • Loins girt with truth (Eph 6: 14) • Therefore, our minds must be filled and prepared with truth!! Is this what we are filling our minds with during this time? Are we focused? • Shoes on feet • Feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace (Eph 6: 15) Remove Evil, Get Baptized into Christ, Be Ready for Christ

Why every year? ? • This was to help them remember God's deliverance, all the days of their life (Ex 12: 14; 13: 3, 9; Deut 16: 3) and His expectation from them as a result • Personal: "And this day shall be unto you for a memorial" (Ex 12: 14) • Teaching Next Generation: • Feast itself: • "When your children shall say unto you, what mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses And the people bowed the head and worshipped. " (Ex 12: 26 -27) • "And thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying, this is done because of that which the LORD did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt" (Ex 13: 8) • Dedication of firstborn: • "And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, what is this? That thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the LORD brough us out of rom Egypt, from the house of bondage: And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the LORD slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man, and the firstborn of beast: therefore I sacrifice to the LORD all that openeth the matrix, being males; but all the firstborn of my children I redeem. " (Ex 13: 11 -16) cp. to Num 8: 16 -19 God expects us to remember and respond to His loving kindness

Ezra’s Passover (Ezra 6: 19 -22) • Remove Evil: • Purified themselves (v. 20), 'separated themselves from the filthiness of the heathen of the land' (v. 21) • Seek Good: • Seek the LORD God of Israel (v. 21) • Kept Passover • Killed the Passover… all who had separated themselves… did eat (v. 20 -21) • Joyful Attitude (v. 22) • Kept the feast… with joy… LORD had made the joyful This is the model to follow in our lives!

Jesus – the true Passover • • Jesus entered Jerusalem on 10 th day of the month (Matt 21: 7 -10) Told his disciples, ‘take, eat, this is by body given for you (1 Cor 11: 24) Jesus is called ‘our Passover’ (1 Cor 5: 7) Jesus was perfect – without blemish – thoroughly examined by HP and Pilate • 5 times, ‘I find no fault in him at all’ (Jn 18: 38; Lk 23: 4, 14, 22; Jn 19: 4) • Jesus died at same time Passover lamb was put to death (Mk 15: 34; Mt 27: 45 -50) • Participation in Christ’s sacrifice requires self-examination (like searching for leaven) – ‘so let a man examine himself’ (1 Cor 11: 28) • Both involved blood on posts – doorposts/cross • Neither sacrifice had a bone broken (Ex 12: 46 cp to Jn 19: 31 -36) • Both meals would be remembered in safety of Promised Land • When Yahweh shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites (Ex 13: 5) • Until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God (Lk 22: 16 -18) Everything points forward to Jesus Christ