3 16 26 – Some Passover Thoughts

Every major event in the life of Yeshua happened on a biblical holiday. For example, He died as the Passover Lamb. The last meal He ate before His death is known as the Last Supper, but for many, it is actually a Passover seder that He celebrated with His disciples.

Probably the most famous picture of the Last Supper is the one painted by Leonardo da Vinci. But when you look at it, you realize there are a lot of things in it that are not quite kosher. Think about it for a moment: this was a Passover seder, and the people sitting around the table were white Europeans—they were not Middle Eastern. What were they eating as the main course? They should have been eating the Passover lamb, but they are actually eating fish, because the painter was a nice Catholic boy, and they ate fish on Fridays during Lent. And when you look at the bread they were eating—come on—it is actually fluffy loaves of white bread. If there is anything you do not eat on the Feast of Passover/Unleavened Bread, it is fluffy loaves of white bread—the kind that the Queen of Moldavia would make, or Wonder Bread.

Israel was in Egypt for hundreds of years when God raised up Moses to go to Pharaoh and say, "Let My people go." Pharaoh hardened his heart, and God brought ten plagues upon the Egyptians. The worst plague was the last plague, which was the death of the firstborn. Only those who put the blood on the doorposts of their homes were spared the horrible fate of the firstborn child.

But the question is: why did God have Moses tell the children of Israel to slaughter a lamb and use its blood? What is so significant about a male lamb—also known as a ram lamb? We have to understand that in Egyptian culture and religion, the ram was a symbol of some of their deities, and rams were used in the temples as sacred animals. They even had a whole temple in Egypt that was dedicated to the god of the ram.

So can you imagine when the children of Israel put the blood on the doorposts of their houses? It was basically telling the Egyptians that their gods were worthless, helpless, and completely powerless to deliver them from the face of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The Passover lamb had to be ultimately without spot or blemish. In Hebrew, tamid.

The numerical value of tamid is 490. 490 is also the numerical value of Bethlehem. Do you see the connection? It ultimately points to Messiah Yeshua, who was the spotless, blameless Passover Lamb—490—who was born in Bethlehem—490—to give His life for us, so that we might be redeemed by His blood, just as the children of Israel were spared in Egypt.

Passover this year will occur on April 1, which is the fourteenth day of the first month. Oh, I wish you were coming up, but I am not counting on it (my heart is aching).

As I have shared with you before, Hebrew is alphanumeric—you write letters with numbers. The way you write 14 in Hebrew is with two letters: a yud and a dalet. Those two letters literally spell yad, which means "hand." God redeemed the children of Israel on the fourteenth day of the month of Nissan because He was demonstrating His mighty hand of redemption, as He promised: "I will take you out of Egypt with a yad—with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm" (zaroa natia).

Do you see how this ties directly to Messiah, who had His hands pierced at the Passover? In John chapter 10:28, Yeshua says this: "My sheep hear My voice. I give them eternal life, and no one can snatch them out of My hand."

Yeshua, in John chapter 10, connects His hand with the hand of redemption that was revealed at the Passover. No one can deliver us or snatch us out of the hand of our Messiah. We are truly safe in His hand. Ultimately, at the second coming, God is going to reveal His hand a second time. He is going to reveal Himself to the children of Israel and redeem them, and ultimately bring salvation to Israel and the nations. What a day that will be!

I hope this begins to whet your appetite for Passover.

Thought for the Night

While in Egypt, God told the children of Israel to put the blood on the doorposts of their homes so that when He saw the blood, He would pass over, and death would not come to the firstborn. The blood on the doorposts of their home actually formed a Hebrew letter. It was the letter tav, which in ancient times was written in the shape of a cross. So what has become the symbol of Christianity—the cross—actually started out as a Hebrew symbol. The letter tav is also, in Jewish thought, the sign and seal of ownership.

Horses and camels in ancient times had a cross written on them to show that they were owned and that they were not wild. This makes perfect sense as to why that was the blood seal on the doorposts of the homes: because the children of Israel had been owned for hundreds of years by Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and their ownership was being transferred. They were now going to belong to the Lord (1 Cor. 6:19–20).

The idea of redemption literally means to buy a slave off the auction block. And we have also read the verse: "You have been bought and paid for with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body." The wages of sin is death. Yeshua has paid the price to buy us from the world, the flesh, and the devil, and now we belong to Him. We have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

In the book of Ezekiel, we read how God tells the angels to go mark the people in the city—those who cry out, the righteous—and they will be spared judgment. They were marked with a sign. In Hebrew, the word for "sign" is tav. That means those individuals who were spared judgment literally had a cross placed upon their head—from Egypt to the days of Ezekiel to the coming of Yeshua.

The cross has always been the sign and seal of God's redemption and His mark on His people that they belong solely to Him.

We also have to understand that the tav is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. That means it is the seal—some call it the seal of truth—but it also symbolizes the end. He is called the Alpha and Omega, but in Hebrew He is the Aleph and the Tav. He is the beginning and the end. That is so significant. Think about it: the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet was in the shape of a cross in ancient times. The One who redeemed us is the Aleph and the Tav, who gave His life on the cross, which was in the form of the letter tav (Rev. 1:8).

We are sealed by the blood of the Lamb, just as Israel was sealed in Egypt. We are marked with the Messianic seal of truth.