Passover...a day early

I celebrated the first evening of Passover last night, which technically is a day early since Passover begins tonight, Nisan 14 (Lev 23). So why a day early?

The first Passover night (Nisan 14) preceded the Exodus from Egypt, the Red Sea crossing, the Cloud that led the people by day & the Fire at night...

In Exodus 12, G-d instructs the people to select a lamb on Nisan 10, tend to that lamb til Nisan 14 when they were to: slaughter it & place its blood on their doorposts so that the L-rd would pass over their homes; then roast the lambs and eat the meat with unleavened bread, sharing within families and within the community. The very next morning they were led out of Egypt.

So in the Hebrew mindset Passover is celebrated to commemorate the going out of Egypt and the great miracles which the L-rd used to free the people. All of this beautiful and beyond understanding.

But there is so much more: G-d instructed His people to offer daily sacrifices of various kinds and for various purposes and much of those sacrifices were animals and that is because according to Leviticus 17:11 - "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul."

Yeshua is THE sacrificial Lamb, only His Blood is pure, holy, able to make atonement for ALL. And so He had to be crucified on Passover. But He also wanted to gather with His friends to celebrate Passover, commonly known as the Lord's Supper or the Last Supper. And during that Passover seder, it was after He washed their feet, told them to eat His Flesh & drink His Blood, and the prayers in the garden, that He was arrested and then beaten & crucified on the same day that the Passover lambs were to be slaughtered for Passover. Not incidentally, G-d instructed the people that they had to eat the entire lamb, NONE of it could be left over. All of this preparing the people, looking forward to when Yeshua would say:

John 6:53-58 "Then Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.'"

So that is why it's a beautiful thing to have a seder an evening earlier.

And that mark which those who celebrate Passover are marked with...is the Blood of the Messiah, Yeshua, which literally means God Saves.

a mark on hand & forehead

I was always familiar with the mark of the beast, aka 666. There are a number of movies that make allusion to this--probably most famously the Omen. And the idea of this mark comes from...

Rev 13:16-17 "He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."

And of course the mark of the beast refers to anti-christ, an anti-messiah. Christ & Messiah simply mean anointed of G-d as if dedicated to G-d, a servant. So anti-christ is anything that is anti-G-d, unanointed.

Now what's interesting about this is the mark of the beast is a sign on a right hand or forehead...and Passover (which begins April 8, 2009) is referred to the same way, as a mark...on your hand and forehead:

Exodus 13:7-10 "Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days. And no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters. And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, ‘This is done because of what the LORD did for me when I came up from Egypt.’ It shall be as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the LORD’s law may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the LORD has brought you out of Egypt. You shall therefore keep this ordinance in its season from year to year."

Since in the past, I only read Exodus like a history book and history was my worst subject in high school, I never saw this before: Passover is the true mark of G-d. Why? Because Yeshua who IS the anointed became the Passover Lamb. Each year that the Israelites celebrated Passover before His death, was simply a foreshadow of His ultimate sacrifice. They sacrificed lambs, He was the Lamb.

And then I was reminded of Deuternomy 6:8...where it says of G-d's Word: "You shall bind them (His commandments) as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes."

This speaks of the same concept: He is telling His people to so love the Word and live the Word, that it shall be like a mark on their hand and forehead, always present with and within them.

And so I just thought it was pretty neat how all these "marks" point to Yeshua and each reference is just a different way of saying the same thing: He is the Word that became flesh...and as believers we are marked by Him and so Passover, being that He became THE sacrifice, is THE MARK of the L-rd.

Chag Sameach!