SIGN, SYMBOLS AND SIGNIFICANCE Holy Week - Passover

The season is full of feasts and celebrations! Let’s unpack them and hopefully gain a better understanding of the biblical account and apply the impact to our lives. 

Passover begins on Nisan 14 (sometime during March or April). Passover includes the feast of Unleavened Bread, the second day, followed by the festival of  Firstfruits, the third day. All three of these feasts are incorporated into the feast of  Pesach, or Passover. Any reference to Passover includes all of these. Passover is celebrated for eight days. The Lord commanded the Israelites to eat unleavened bread for eight days (Lev 23). 

The word Passover refers to the last of the deadly plagues that the Lord placed upon the

Pharaoh and the Egyptians. The Israelites, on the night before their big move out of Goshen, were required to kill a perfect lamb, sprinkle its blood on the doorposts and lintel, roast the lamb, and eat it. The blood on the doorposts signified to the Angel of Death to pass over the house and not kill the firstborn son. 

For the festival of Firstfruits the Israelites were required to bring a sheaf of barley to the Lord as an act of dedication of the spring harvest. On Passover, a marked sheaf of grain was bundled and left standing in the field. On the next day, the first day of Unleavened Bread, the sheaf was cut and prepared for the offering on the third day. The priest would then wave the sheaf before the Lord. Counting the omer begins on this day, 50 days, until Shavuot or Pentecost. This third day is also significant as it was the third day, this day, that Jesus rose from the dead.1 

The events that happened during this special week, today known as Holy Week,  are still incredibly significant as we celebrate the Great Triduum – Maundy  Thursday, Good Friday, and Resurrection Sunday.  

The symbols of the Passover meal – bitter herbs, apples and honey, unleavened bread, wine – also help tell the whole story of God’s redemptive plan, first for his chosen people and then to the whole world as he gave his Son to be the final sacrifice. 

As I celebrate this season, in all the fullness, I can see myself in the story. God’s people are my people, and I share in their story, the good, the bad, and the ugly. As a  Christ-follower, I am humbled and so very thankful for the great sacrifice that Jesus took my sin upon himself so that I might be redeemed. How about you? 

Yet it was our suffering he carried, 

our pain[c] and distress, our sick-to-the-soul-ness. 

We just figured that God had rejected him, 

that God was the reason he hurt so badly. 

5 But he was hurt because of us; he suffered so. 

Our wrongdoing wounded and crushed him. 

He endured the breaking that made us whole. 

The injuries he suffered became our healing. 

6 We all have wandered off, like shepherdless sheep, 

scattered by our aimless striving and endless pursuits; 

The Eternal One laid on him, this silent sufferer, 

the sins of us all (Isaiah 53:4-6). 

For God expressed His love for the world in this way: He gave His only Son so  that whoever believes in Him will not face everlasting destruction, but will have  everlasting life. Here’s the point. God didn’t send His Son into the world to judge it; instead, He is here to rescue a world headed toward certain destruction. 

No one who believes in Him has to fear condemnation, yet condemnation is  already the reality for everyone who refuses to believe because they reject the name of the only Son of God (John 3:16-18). 

Chag Pesach Sameach! 

Next year, in Jerusalem! Shalom! 

Dawn S Gilmore, DWS 

www.dawnsgilmore.com 

Dr. Dawn S Gilmore https://dawnsgilmore.substack.com/

1 Feasts of the Bible pamphlet. Rose Publishing. 2011.