Christ Our Passover
by Gale Futterman
For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed [for us]. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
1 Cor 5:7-8 NEB
Paul wrote these words to the church at Corinth, a port city on a trade route, a diverse "melting pot" of people from many nations. Although the church in that day was still made up mostly of Jewish believers, in Corinth there would have been an ethnic and cultural tapestry, which may have accounted in part for why Paul used so much of his letter to help the people learn how to get along with each other.
In the midst of Paul's corrective epistle came this reminder that Jesus Christ, our Passover lamb, has been crucified for us. Paul did not need to explain about Passover because the early church, both Jews and Gentiles, celebrated the biblical holidays. Some of the New Testament writers had celebrated them with Jesus. The early believers knew that they did not thereby earn righteousness by celebrating them. They understood that the LORD's "appointed feasts" (Lev 23) were regular reminders of His constant presence in their lives. What they needed to understand was how Jesus Christ fulfilled and was represented in each holiday (Col 2:16, 17). After the ninth plague in Egypt, God instructed each family to select an unblemished, firstborn male lamb, take it into their home on the 10th day of the first month to examine it for four days for flaws, then sacrifice their spotless lamb on the 15th day and put the blood on the doorposts. Those who were obedient to His command were spared the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn.
Paul reminded them that in the spring thousands of years later, again on the 10th day of the first month, Jesus the Messiah, the firstborn Son of God, rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to be examined by the people and the religious leaders. He also was found to be spotless, without blemish. At the right time, also on the 15th day of the first month, Jesus was sacrificed so that all who believe in His sacrificial death on their behalf could be saved from a more grievous slavery, bondage to sin.
There was to be no work done on the Passover. That was a time to remember God's great deliverance. It also reminds us that we, like the Israelites, can not do anything to deliver ourselves. Without the blood of the lamb on the doorposts, the firstborn of the Hebrew slaves would have died right along with the Egyptians. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin (Lev 17:11, Heb 9:22). It is the blood of the firstborn Son of God, Jesus Christ alone, that redeems us (1 Pet 1:18-21),
Passover, like our walk with the Lord who gave Himself for us, required both faith and obedience. Failure to provide and prepare the lamb and place the blood on the doorposts in the prescribed manner had grave consequences. In Genesis 22, we read the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son Isaac, the son of promise, through whom every family of the earth was to be blessed. But verse 8 of Genesis 22, even though written so many years before Jesus came, reminds us that our hope is in Him. It literally reads, "God will provide Himself the lamb." Passover was God's provision of salvation for the Jews, but that freedom was purchased at a great price, the death of the firstborn. Our salvation came at an even greater price, the death of the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).
God knows that His people need reminders of who He is and of our relationship with Him. He often had altars built to remind His people of what He had done. It was during a Passover Seder dinner that Jesus held up the wine and said, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." The Biblical holidays serve as reminders of who God is and what He has done. Each of the three spring Biblical holidays is a picture of God the Son's first coming. Jesus was sacrificed for our sins on Passover, buried on Unleavened Bread, and arose on First fruits. Passover remembers the deliverance of the Israelites and the "mixed multitude with them" from Egyptian slavery, but also foreshadows a greater deliverance by Y'Shua Ha'Machiach, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who redeemed us from slavery to sin.
A good way for your family to learn more about Jesus in the Biblical holidays is a helpful book called A Family Guide to the Biblical Holidays, with activities for all ages, published by Family Christian Press. The authors, Scarlata and Pierce, tell about the purpose for the holidays, how they were celebrated in Bible days, how they are celebrated today, and about their Messianic significance, in other words, how they are a picture of Jesus.