Passover in the New Testament

Passover and the Church

We have a very interesting text in a very interesting setting in the first letter to the Corinthians. And we must remember that Paul spent quite a bit of time in Corinth. He spent time in Corinth and wrote two letters to the believers in Corinth. In this letter, there is a lot of interesting laws and things. And one of the things that is very interesting, and it is ignored by majority of all Christians, is a command about the Passover.

But let me give you a little bit of background. We're talking about 1st Corinthians chapter 5. First Corinthians chapter 5 starts with this horrible sin that existed in the congregation, in the community of believers in Corinth. There was a man that had a sexual relationship with his mother-in-law. My dear, one couldn't be any stupider and dumber than a person like this.

However, he must have been a wealthy, powerful man because the church didn't do much about it. I'm sure if it was some John Doe, the believers would have done something about it immediately. But he must have been a man with means and power, and they kind of ignored it and didn't want to get into it and deal with it.

So the Apostle Paul writes them a very strong reprimand, tells them what to do with this man—essentially, to excommunicate him, to throw him out. And in this context, it must have been springtime or just before Passover. And in verse 6 of chapter 5 of First Corinthians, he enters into the Passover theme. He said,

I'm gonna stop here for a minute and analyze this text. He's using a Passover paradigm of cleaning the leaven from the house. Who does that? Only people who celebrate the Passover. If they don't celebrate the Passover, they know nothing about it. They're not going to clean every morsel, every crumb of leaven, or leavened bread, or cookies, or Burekas, or whatever you want that is made out of dough that is leavened dough—has to be cleaned out of the house, from the cupboards, from under the cupboards, from everywhere. If you ate a sandwich while you're in bed, you have to change the sheets and wash them before the Passover so there's no leaven in the house.

So he said, listen, the principle is that a little leaven leavens the whole lump and makes the whole house leavened. Therefore, clean the leaven. Take out the old leaven so you become a new lump. What kind of lump? A lump of truly and unleavened bread. And he says, you are this unleavened bread. You are people without leaven, without sin. And therefore, you've got to keep the communities without sin. You've got to keep the community pure from that leaven that is sin. And then he tells you why: for indeed, the Messiah, the Christ, is our passover.

Our Passover Lamb

Do we as disciples of Yeshua have a Passover? Of course, we have a Passover lamb. The Messiah is our Passover lamb. It's very interesting. If I go back to Exodus 12 and read the beginning of the chapter, I find out a great, great mystery when it says every household should have a lamb, and every household should slaughter that lamb at the doorpost and put the blood on the doorpost.

And then it says, and all Israel slaughter their lamb—one lamb—the lamb collectively. Of course, in the time of the Passover itself and centuries later, each household had their own lamb. But that text is a mystery text because it is impossible. But it is possible when we think about the Yeshua as the Lamb of God.

But back to this text in the New Testament. The Messiah is indeed our Passover, who was sacrificed for us. Who is the Passover lamb. Now, Jewish people haven't sacrificed on the altar since 70 AD. It has been almost two thousand years since the temple was destroyed, since we don't have any sacrificial services other than giving money, like Christians do, to the church and charity. But we still have a Passover lamb that is alive, was sacrificed for us, resurrected after the third day.

It was not by accident—crucified on the eve of Passover folks. It was all pre-planned, it was all prophesied by the prophets of Israel. And so, we have a Passover. It is the Christ, the Messiah himself. And then in verse 8 of First Corinthians, the Apostle says very clearly in an emphatic command—and in Greek, it is very command language—

Cleaning Our Homes & Our Hearts

A few years ago, I talked to a rabbi, who is our neighbor across the street from our building, and he was cleaning his car very meticulously from any crumb, everything. And we talked about, "I'm gonna wait till next week because I, you know, don't want to bring in bread when I go shopping to the supermarket, everything back into the car."

So I told him, "yes, you cleaning your car, I'm sure you cleaning your house very meticulously. We need to clean our hearts as well from malice and instead of malice and wickedness, put in sincerity and truth." He said, "yes, I agree. And our rabbis taught the same thing." I didn't tell him at that point yet that this is from the Apostle Paul in the New Testament.

Yeah, but notice the command is: "let us therefore keep the Feast." How can Christians read this and say the opposite—"let us not keep the feast"? When I started keeping the Passover, I was fired in the States from the congregation that I was working with. Wasn't fired for long. The same day I was fired, the same day I was reinstated because I knew how to argue and teach the Word of God and tell them: 'listen, you're wrong.' Because Christians think, oh, if you celebrate the Passover you're doing it to be redeemed, to be saved, to have your sins forgiven. It has nothing to do with the sins forgiven. It has to do the historical event that was the greatest event of redemption in history.

A Feast for All Peoples

And there were not only Jews there. There was a mixed multitude of a lot of Gentiles. We know some of the tribes that joined the Israelites, like the Kenites and the Meherites and others—the Cahanites—that joined with Israel and entered the Land of Israel and had a part of the inheritance of the land together with Israel.

So the Passover was not only for the Jews, for Israelites, for the 12 tribes. It was for all those sojourners, pilgrims that joined Israel and inherited with Israel the land and lived in the land. And the Word of God in the five books of Moses and the Torah takes them into account and actually encourages them to join and to celebrate the Passover with Israel.

Paul, that the same thing in First Corinthians. Christians are missing out because they are still tied by their umbilical-cord to Rome. And Rome worked hard to eradicate everything that is biblical and replace it with everything that is pagan. And so, yes my dear brothers and sisters, Paul commands the church in Corinth—which was made up of Jews and non-Jews—"let us therefore keep the feast." Christian tradition said, let us not keep the feasts. They replaced it with a pagan holiday.

Yes, resurrection was a very important day and a very important celebration. It happened in Passover. It didn't happen in Easter—named after some Babylonian goddess, Ishtar. Yeah, it happened in Passover, on the third day of Passover. Yeshua resurrected from the dead. The day of the harvest had started, and Yeshua got out of the grave on his own. And He wasn't in panic. Yeah, He took the time to fold His grave clothes and put them at the top of the marble slab where His body was laid.

We too don't need to be in panic, but we need to know that the part of the restoration of the church and the restoration of Israel is a return to the Word of God, to the biblical pattern, and leaving behind all that false teaching that came from tradition of Rome. This is not Judaizing. Paul wrote it. Paul wrote it to Gentiles and Jews in the church in Corinth, and he meant it.

And we too, folks, need to start doing more of what the Bible says and coming home spiritually, because the Messiah is coming back. And when he comes back, he's going to ask you and me what he asked Peter before he was crucified:

I say yes, he will—you and me and thousands of others who are coming back home spiritually. And the Jews are coming back home physically and will come home spiritually as well.