I Thought I Understood the Passover and then I Read it Like This
By: Tom Stone
Tags: Christianity, Spirituality, Judaism, Religion, Community

Deuteronomy 16: 1–8

Having spent the best part of two chapters reviewing God’s economic policies, Moses now shifts his focus to re-capping 3 of God’s appointed festivals.

The festivals serve as 3 distinctive points in the year to remind themselves of slavery and celebrate their freedom. Three moments in the calendar to stop and re-calibrate. Moments to re-align themselves, both socially and individually, with the Emancipator God who is in the business of slave-redemption.

A Creator in the business of liberating His treasured creation.

Passover

(Deuteronomy 16:1–8, see also Leviticus 23:4–8)

Naturally, the first festival that Moses divulges is Passover: the historical moment the Jews became a nation in their own right. The beginning of their calendar year and their nation’s timeline. The most defining moment in Jewish history to this day.

The Israelites were to celebrate this festival with a week of set-aside, sacred behaviours. The opening night, to this day, is the pinnacle; the timeless link between contemporary Jews in any historical context and those about to leave the shadow of Pharaoh’s Pyramids. It’s the opening night that remembers that moment: the First Exodus (note the use of the word ‘first’). The moment God’s people became the nation He had called them to be: Yahweh’s planet-redeeming people. His treasured possession, who were called to be a set-apart people, a different kind of people who would demonstrate God’s unconditional love to the rest of the world. The ones who would showcase the true character of the Father to the world, and embody the real meaning of the word ‘human’. The ones called to create Eden-on-Earth.

Israelite freedom from slavery was supposed to foreshadow the freedom of the human race. Their story was intended to foreshadow our story; our story is made possible because of their actions. Their contribution. Their following of God’s rules.

The Passover: the moment the Israelites became their own nation and the preceding event to the glorious revelation of God’s law. The Passover was necessary for Sinai to take place. No Passover — no Sinai. God’s community-orientated, love-centred law would not have been revealed had the Exodus not happened. God’s kingdom, His Heaven-on-Earth Kingdom, would not have been possible if the Exodus hadn’t happened. This is why it remains the most defining moment in Jewish history.

The Passover is the celebration that God chose to intervene in human history and He chose the Israelites to act through.

What does it tell you about the Father that he chose a slave-nation to tell His story through?

What does it say about His character that He chose the ugly and forgotten to tell His beautiful story of unconditional love?

This is the God we worship:

The God who ignores messed-up human values and brings His kingdom-on-earth through the mouths of little children.

The God who champions the cause of the orphan and the widow.

The God who manifests Himself in homeless people and refugees.

The God who has mercy on the broken, and blesses the meek.

Whether the Israelites realised at the time, but their epoch-altering day also foreshadowed another event. As the end of Deuteronomy indicates, the sinful, self-obsessed nature of human beings would always prevent us from living up to the call of Deuteronomy: slavery to sin and the powers of this world would always exist. Even though the Israelites were free from Pharaoh, the impact of Adam and Eve’s rejection of love still resided in their hearts. They were not free. They would never be free unless the Exodus from Egypt foreshadowed an even greater Exodus.

The Second Exodus.

The moment the Son of God took the unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, of slavery (Deuteronomy 16:3), and broke it, claiming this was His body. His very body broken in two, like those animals that Abram cut up in Genesis 15 (see Prequel part 2). Did you feel goosebumps as you read those words? I just experienced them as I wrote them. The same God who signed a blood covenant with Abram in Genesis 15 was the same God who sat around the Passover with His 12 disciples and broke the unleavened bread in front of them, quoting His favourite planet-redeeming, sin-shattering moment. Salvation through suffering.

Restoration of the human race, God’s treasure buried in a field, achieved through the spilling of the Passover lamb: Jesus the Messiah. The anointed one. The one whom took His blood and painted it on the doorposts of our homes so eternal death would pass-over our door. The one who split himself in two so the 2nd exodus took place and the Kingdom of God can come on Earth as in Heaven forever. Unconditional love would not allow anything else but sin-destroying, self-sacrifice.

As Jesus hung on the cross do you think he remembered walking out of Egypt with His beloved people? Do you think he recounted singing Miriam’s song of freedom? Do you think He wondered would it be like to hold your hand and walk you out of your addiction to sin?

Do you think He wondered if you would accept His invitation to the 2nd Exodus?

The 2nd institution of Passover, the one given in the upper room, is Jesus’ invitation to you to take part in a global exodus. The exodus of human beings from this sin-contaminated world. The exodus of God’s beloved people, His treasured buried in a field, to inherit their true promised land: the New Earth. The New Earth free from sin. Free from Satan. Free from slavery.

A whole earth liberated.

The Emancipator God in the business of setting slaves free, asks you: Would you like freedom too? Would you like to be part of His Kingdom, on Earth and in Heaven? Would you accept his invitation to dinner?

A meal of broken, unleavened bread and blood-red wine served by a man in a servant’s outfit with holes in his hands.

The meal that foreshadows the wedding feast of Passover lamb in God’s triumphant Kingdom.

Will you sit, eat and drink to remember the first Exodus, accept your part in the Second and be there when it's all revealed?

Will you?