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Did you know that…
- the Jewish holiday of Passover was instituted 3,400 years ago?
- what we now call Easter was originally celebrated by Christians at Passover?
- the Last Supper was a Passover seder?
- Did Jesus establish the sacrament of Communion at the Last Supper using elements from the Passover seder?
- the New Testament refers to Jesus as the Passover lamb?
- Is the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt symbolic of self-redemption, or of sin?
It’s not uncommon to hear someone say, “Isn’t it cool that Passover and Easter overlap this year?” This is the case this year, where the first day of Passover (which lasts eight days) falls on Wednesday evening, while Easter falls on this Sunday.
However, Jesus’ followers originally commemorated his death and resurrection on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nissan, the first day of Passover. So if Christians followed this original practice, Easter would have been observed on Wednesday of that year. But today, sometimes the two holidays overlap and sometimes they don’t.
Larry Stamm, a Jewish believer in Jesus who is the local pastor of Grace Fellowship Church in Johnson City, Tennessee, explains:
“Early in the history of the Church, particularly during the first two centuries, the followers of Jesus commemorated the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the same day as the Passover. Back then, Easter was known as pascha (Greek for Passover).
“In the second century, some Christians began to celebrate it on the Sunday following Passover. This caused a rift between Christians who wanted to commemorate Passover and Easter together and those who wanted to keep the two holidays separate. Victor, bishop of Rome, even went so far as to excommunicate anyone who observed Passover on Passover day. When Emperor Constantine ended the persecution of Christians in the fourth century, he declared pascha to be officially celebrated on the Sunday after Passover.
“Several centuries later, the holiday was no longer called pascha but Easter and the date was changed to align with the solar calendar.”
Passover commemorates the night of the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt around 3,400 years ago. According to the Hebrew Scriptures, the death angel destroyed all the firstborn in Egypt, but “passed over” all the Israelite houses protected by the blood of the Lamb, which God told the Jewish people to enforce doorjambs and lintels (crossbars) of their homes that night.
The word Passover comes from the Hebrew “Pesach”, which means “to pass over”.
Passover is celebrated in the Jewish home with the seder meal and the telling of the story of the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt from a book called the Haggadah (meaning “narrative”). The Haggadah sets out the order (seder) of the celebration.
When Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples, it was a Passover seder. Jesus used elements of the seder – unleavened bread (matzah) and wine – to commemorate his impending death (the bread represents his body, the wine his blood). This is why Christians communicate today.
Jesus is described as the paschal lamb in the New Testament. The apostle Paul wrote, “For Christ (the Messiah), our paschal lamb, was sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7).
For the Christian, the Passover symbolizes Jesus delivering those who trust him from slavery and the penalty of sin.
Rabbi Chaim Zaklos of Chabad Solano County sees a similar type of symbolism.
“Egypt is not just a geographical location,” he said. “It’s also a state of mind. When someone is in an Egyptian state of mind, he is automatically in exile. They are slaves… The person we are most enslaved to is ourselves, our ego. We are held captive by our animal selves… However, the human being also has a divine divine self where he can completely surrender his animal urges and attach himself completely to God… So this is freedom from captivity.
Zaklos said the seder, which has 15 sections, is a prescription for liberation.
“Seder means order,” he said. “It’s a 15-step order which are the steps to redeem yourself from yourself. Before there was a 12 step program, the Jewish people had a 15 step program… There is no original sin, but we are all originally created with split personalities. We all suffer from multiple personality disorder – our animalism and our piousness.
While most Christian theologians would disagree that there is no original sin, they would agree that God desires to free us from our selfish desires.
Pastor Greg Davidson of Trinity Baptist Church in Vacaville is Jewish and sees a very strong connection between the two holidays.
“There is a very deep connection,” he said. “The Jewish people were in horrible slavery, they were slaves to Egypt. It was just a very dark time for the nation of Israel.
“God sent Moses as the great deliverer of the Jewish people. But Pharaoh refused to listen to his pleas, so God sent plagues as judgment to the Egyptians to convince them to release this persecuted people. Pharaoh continued to resist, so God sent his final plague. The protection that the Jewish people could rely on against this judgment was that each household had to take a lamb and slaughter it, take its blood and put it on the door lintel and the doorposts. And that night when the angel of death came to kill the firstborn in the land, when he saw the blood on the posts, he passed over the Jewish house.
“Jesus was called in the scriptures our paschal lamb. Thus, the Passover was in fact the image of a Saviour, a Messiah, whom all the Jewish people longed for and sought. It was a picture that the Messiah would come, die on a cross, and his shed blood would cover their sins… When we, by faith, apply the blood of the Lamb to the lintel and doorposts of our hearts, then one day when the Angel of Death comes, he will see the blood and he will pass over us and we will go to heaven when we die.
