Passover and Easter 4/9/17

PASSOVER and EASTER

(All Scripture will be quoted from the One New Man translation unless otherwise noted.)

April 09, 2017

by Pastor Kim Hickcox 

As the Gentile church celebrates Good Friday and Easter Sunday, our Jewish brother and sisters (both Messianic and not) are still celebrating Passover, as this is when and why it happened. See we (Christians – Christ followers) don’t have any legitimate holidays. This made conversion very difficult when Emperor Constantine decided that Christianity should be the “religion of the empire”, because now it was a requirement to avoid persecution. The Holy Spirit was suddenly not the One Who was drawing people to Christ, fear was – the fear of being killed as a traitor of the State. 

So, over the centuries, the Bishops of Rome (whom we now refer to as Popes) created two major holidays for us: Christmas and Easter. The celebration of the incarnation of Messiah is celebrated on Dec 25th, which was during the pagan winter solstice celebration. This was/is where we get the idea of a Christmas tree with its decorations and lights. And save for the overwhelming Santa commercialism, it has pretty much been successfully converted into a Christian holiday. This is why there is so much controversy over it being called Christmas, and nativity scenes, etc. 

Easter however, in my humble opinion, in many ways has been kept a successful pagan celebration with its constant symbols of bunnies and eggs, and seems to be getting more and more in tune with its sexual roots. Ishtar was the Babylonian fertility goddess that was celebrated in the spring. This signified the earth coming back to life after its dormancy of winter. The Greek spelling of Ishtar is Easter, which is why I refer to it as Resurrection Sunday.

There have also been much prejudices and persecutions in the past forcing an incredibly strong wedge between the Jewish and Gentile brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ, much to the devil’s elation. There is the lie that the Jews killed Jesus and some faithful Christians don’t even know that He is Jewish! When the Lord brought Paul to preach to the Gentiles because Y’shua did indeed die for the sins of EVERYBODY, we just sort of took over after a while, and it is now thought of as a totally separate “religion”. 

But today, as we remember and honor our resurrected Jewish Messiah let’s give the devil a black eye and bridge that gap between “them” and “us” right now, because the only real “them” and “us” are the saved and the unsaved. And one of our main missions in life needs to be living and praying so that there are less and less of “them” and more and more of “us”. So today we give total thanks, adoration and our undying love and devotion to “the Lamb of God, the One Who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29)

Isaiah 53:1-5 foretells of Y’shua. His arrival, His ordinary looks and station in life (i.e. He wasn’t born into a current royal, rich or influential family) and His ministry: 

“Who would have believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? ²For He grew up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He had no form or splendor, and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. ³He was despised and rejected by men, a Man of pains and having known about sickness, disease, and as one from Whom men hid their face: He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.” To esteem someone is to respect them and hold them in a place of importance in your heart.

“⁴Surely He has borne our sicknesses, our pains; He carried them, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. ⁵But He was wounded because of our transgressions,” our transgressions are the sins we committed with the intention of angering God. “…bruised because of our iniquities:” our iniquities are the sins we committed on purpose; you know, knowing its wrong and doing it any way for whatever justifying reasons we have. “… the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and we have been healed by His wounds.” Because Y’shua received wounds that did NOT heal before His death: physical, emotional and spiritual, we CAN be healed form ALL our wounds because His wounds healed them:

            Physical because of the brutal beating He took before His actual      death.

Emotional because of the pain, guilt, remorse, heartache and rage He felt when all of humanities sins were infused into Him so He could actually know what it felt like.

Spiritual because once He became sin for us, He was instantly separated from the Father because God cannot not stay in the presence of sin. This was His heart wrenching cry in Matthew 27:46, “Eli! Eli! L’mah sh’vaktani? My God! My God! Why have You utterly forsaken Me?” Notice that God was not addressed as His Father, in that instant He was only His God. A righteous God turning His back on His unrighteous Son Who had become sin for us, to pay the ransom God demanded for each soul the devil had stolen throughout time.

Isaiah 53:6-12 foretells of His reaction before Pilate and the Priests as well as God’s pleasure at what His mission would accomplish. It also foretells of His death:

“All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, each one, to his own way, and the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon Him.

“⁷He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth, like a lamb which is brought to the slaughter and like a sheep is mute before her shearers. ⁸He was taken away from rule and from judgment, and who will recount His life? For He was cut off of the land of the living. He was stricken because of the transgressions of My people. ⁹And one made His grave among the wicked and His tomb among the rich, although He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.” This tells us His of being hung between two thieves (Mark 15:27), and being buried in the new tomb of the rich Joseph of Arimathea (Matthew 27:57-66).

This last part is the part that really shakes me. Because it shows how much the Father loves us, and what He and His Son purposed to go through just to buy us back! Take this part personally to heart - read this with the full realization that it was done specifically for you. He knowingly did this just for you, so you could be with Him and know Him and receive His full unbridled love and forgiveness. So you could be with Him for ever and ever in heaven. Know that all these emotions are aimed specifically at you!

“¹⁰But it pleased the LORD to bruise Him. He had put Him to grief: if His very being will consider it a recompense for guilt, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD will succeed in His hand. ¹¹He will see the travail of His soul and be satisfied. By His knowledge My servant will justify the righteous before many, and He will bear their iniquities. ¹²Therefore I shall divide Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the spoil with the strong, because He has laid open His very being to death, and was numbered with transgressors and He took of the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.” This is just one of the prophetic messages about our Passover Lamb.

I hope this solidifies that Truth that He purposed to die for us. There are still, to this day, so many good and devout Christians who cannot love the Jewish people because they killed Jesus. Well, let’s check this theory out:

John 17:1-5 “Y’shua said these things and when He lifted up His eyes to heaven He said,‘Father, the time has come: You must now glorify Your Son, so Your Son could glorify You,²seeing that You gave Him authority over all flesh, so that He could give eternal life to everyone that You have given to Him. ³And this is eternal life, that they would know You, the only true God, and Whom You sent, Y’shua Messiah. ⁴I glorified You on earth, when I completed the work which You gave Me to do: ⁵and now You must glorify Me, Father, beside Yourself in the glory which I had beside You before the world was created.’”

John 18:33-37 “Then Pilate entered the praetorium again and called Y’shua and said to Him, ‘Are You the King of the Jewish Nation?’ ³⁴Y’shua answered, ‘Do you say this from yourself or have others told you about Me?’ ³⁵Pilate answered, ‘Am I Jewish?’ Your people and the high priests gave You over to me: what did You do?’ ³⁶Y’shua answered, ‘My dominion is not of this world: if My dominion were of this world, My attendants would have been fighting whomever so that I would not be given over to the Jewish leaders: but now My kingdom is not from here.’ ³⁷Then Pilate said to Him, ‘Therefore are You a king?’ Y’shua answered, ‘You say that I am a king. I have been born for this and have come into the world for this, so that I could bear witness to the truth: everyone who is from the truth hears My voice.’”

And I would also like to displace the image we so often have portrayed of our Messiah as the scrawny, pitiful looking man we so often see:

1.     He was a carpenter until He was 30 and started His ministry. Before electricity! Before pickup trucks to haul wood and table saws and power drills. Our Savior was pumped!

2.     For the next 3 years He walked everywhere and covered miles and miles before He was through, so it’s not like life got cushy after He handed His hammer to his brothers.

3.     After His back was literally ripped to shreds for us, and He had lost enough blood to weaken even Arnold Schwarzenegger (probably showed my age here), He carried that cross beam of his cross, which probably weighed around 70 pounds, as it had to be big enough to hold the weight of a grown man by just 2 nails, most of the way through and then out of the city.  

Does that sound like a pitiful weakling to you? And when the soldiers came fully armed, and there were 600 of them plus the religious leaders, servants, etc. Did He hide? Did He run? Did He cower? NO. Because “I have been born for this and have come into the world for this,”. So when everyone approached Him, He stepped up and asked them, “…‘Whom are you seeking?’⁵They answered Him, ‘Y’shua of Nazareth.’ He said to them, ‘I AM.’ And Judas, the one who was giving Him over, had also stood with them. Then as He said to them, ‘I AM,’ they went into those behind and they, the entire arresting party, fell to the ground.”   John 18:4-6

What just happened? The Great I AM, right there in person, spoke His eternal name. The name He gave Moses from the burning bush so many years before: “‘Certainly I shall be with you, and this will be a sign for you, that I AM has sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will serve God upon this mountain.’ ¹³And Moses said to God, ‘Behold, when I come to the children of Israel and will say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” then they will say to me, “What is His name?” What shall I say to them?’ ¹⁴And God said to Moses, ‘I AM THAT I AM!’^* And He said, ‘Thus will you say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.’ And God said further to Moses, ‘Thus you will say to the children of Israel, “The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.” This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations,’”   Exodus 3:12-15

Therefore when His eternal name was spoken by Him, all lost their strength and fell to the ground. We now call that being slain on the Spirit. It is when the power of Almighty God manifests itself to the point that you can no longer stand because you are in such close proximity to His Presence, that all your strength just disappears and you fall down under His sheer power! And when He withdraws to the point to where you can get up again – you are changed. Isaiah 55:11, “So My Word will go forth out of My mouth: it will not return to Me empty-handed, but it will accomplish that which I please and it will succeed wherever I send it.” This also goes for the Living Word too, in Whose Presence you were when you were slain in the Spirit.

When God instituted the first Passover meal, it was both for the preparation of His people to leave their place of enslavement the next morning and as a sign that told the Angel of Death to pass over each of their houses that night and NOT kill the first born that lived there. It was also a sign of the coming Savior! 

And what was the sign? The blood of the lamb that they were to kill for their meal that night. “Speak to the whole congregation of Israel saying, ‘On the tenth day of this month they will take for themselves – each man – a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for each house…⁵Your lamb will be without blemish, a male of the first year…⁶and the whole assembly of Israel will kill it at twilight. ⁷And they will take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses in which they will eat. ⁸And they will eat the flesh roasted in fire, and unleavened bread in that night…¹¹It is the LORD’s Passover.¹²For I shall pass through the land of Egypt this night and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and I shall execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt. I AM the LORD! ¹³And the blood shall be a token for you upon the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I shall pass over you and the plague will not be upon you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.’”  (Exodus 12:3-13, verse 7&13 in bold for emphasis)

Likewise, when we are “covered by His Blood” the plagues do not destroy us either. The plague of sin, the plague of unforgiveness, the plague of bitterness, the plague of transgression, the plague of iniquity, the plague of shame and self-condemnation. ALL of these can be overcome by the Blood of the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world. Let Him! Let Him take away your sin! Let Him take away your unforgiveness! Let Him take away your sorrow, your hopelessness, your fear. It’s what He came to do. And it is already a done deal. Absolutely everything you need or lack has already been provided by Him. Just go to Him and ask. We believe Lord, but help us with our unbelief. He can do that too, just read Mark 9:24.

When we take communion, most of us know that we are reenacting the last portion of Y’shua’s last Passover Seder with His disciples – hence the Christian label The Last Supper. But let’s just lightly walk through a Passover Seder to better understand where we get this from:

Cup 1 I will bring you out. The first cup of wine is called the Kiddush, meaning the sanctification. Since the Seder is a holy celebration, the table can literally serve as an altar for the celebration.

In Luke 22:17 when Y’shua drank this cup and gave the blessing, He said, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who creates the fruit of the vine.” And this blessing remains the same to this day.

Cup 2 I will rescue, deliver, you from their bondage. This cup is taken during the meal and the blessing Y’shua gave in Luke 22:19 before drinking it was “Blessed are You O Lord our God Who is bringing forth bread from the Earth.”

Cup 3 I will redeem you. The original redemption was from Egypt when their army perished in the Red Sea. However, this is known as the Cup of Redemption and is the one we use during our shortened version of the Seder called Communion because this is the cup Y’shua drank when He said in Luke 22:20 that this was the Renewed Covenant in His Blood. Each time we take communion, we are renewing our covenant with the King of the Universe and essentially telling Him that everything we have is His.

Cup 4 I will take you to Myself. Although this again originally spoke of their release from Egypt, this Spiritually the forth cup represents crossing into eternal life, and has for centuries been known as the Cup of Elijah. It is poured and never drunk.

The Cup of Elijah announces the Messianic reign (yet another reason why I think the 2 prophets in Revelation will be Enoch and Elijah) and therefore cannot be drunk until His Kingdom literally comes down to Earth!

The unleavened bread of course, is matzah.  And it symbolizes Messiah by the holes that it is pierced with (to keep it from rising) and the stripes is receives while being baked.

Passover this year starts at sunset on April 11^th and ends in the 18^th at sunset. If any of you would like to participate in any local Messianic Passover activities I would encourage you to find a Messianic Synagogue in your area and go! I have attached a flyer for those in the Orlando area.

Have fun and have a blessed Passover/Resurrection Season (or Holy Week if you prefer)!!

SHALOM

*This is Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, which literally means: I WILL BE AS I WILL BE. It is the most power-filled Name the Lord uses when He means business in no uncertain terms!