Category Archives: Days and Times

Fast of the Firstborn – Before Passover

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Fast of the Firstborn – Before Passover

Because I am following the days of Passover I need to add this.  There is much in the Jewish feast that is a shadow of Jesus (which is the real reason I choose to follow the Jewish days).  I am not trying to lay blame on God’s chosen people!  It is a shame that Christians in the past thought that it was their duty to punish the physical descendants of Abraham.  I am confident that God had a plan and still does for the Jews!

One of the things that happen before Passover is the Fast of the Firstborn.  (I am using information from Chabad.org, the link is below.)  The reason for this day is found in Exodus 13 where God claims all firstborn as His.  The firstborn of Egypt became the sacrifice for the firstborn of Israel, this is in Numbers 3:11 – 51.  The purpose of this day is to create a bond between God and man.  It occurs the day before Passover.

I can see a shadow of this in the Christian practice of Lent, where we are encouraged to give up “something” during the days that precede Easter.

http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1723/jewish/Passover-Calendar.htm

Plagues – Before Passover

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Plagues – Before Passover

Exodus 7:14 – I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.

Since this is the week before Passover I am dealing with things that had to occur before that night.  As Christians, celebrating Easter, we don’t think much about the ten plagues that occurred to bring about the first Passover.  My guess is that before each of us had our personal “Passover” we had things going on in our life that opened our hearts to Him.

My purpose here is not to discuss the plagues in detail; I have lightly touched on them in The Wonders That Plagued Egypt, Reflections on the Judgments in Exodus, and Frogs in the Bible.   My focus is their connection to Passover.  I don’t think that it took more than a year to do all of these and God had a timetable to watch; He brought them out on the anniversary of their arrival – Exodus 12: 41.  This website was a good read on the subject:  http://jesusalive.cc/ques219.htm .

To me, it seems that the wonders that were done had to happen for two groups of people: the Egyptians and the Israelites.

Egyptians – Pharaoh was the primary target of the plagues.  The decision to release the people had to come through him, and he had an attitude problem.  The people had to be conditioned to WANT to give away their riches.  They gave away a lot of stuff.  Read about the quantities of materials that were needed to construct the Ark and the Tabernacle; they really did plunder Egypt.

Israelites – The community was affected by the first three plagues and could have been affected by the last one if they had not followed instructions; starting with the plague of the flies in Exodus 8:20 God did not bring the rest of the plagues on His people.  It seems like God was teaching His people about Himself and trying to build their faith in Him.  I know for sure that since they ushered in Passover and the Exodus, which was the turning point for them as a people, they were important.  The story is talked about in many other places in the Bible I put some of them in a post – The Exodus Story in Other Places.

pic from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amietophrynus_regularis#mediaviewer/File:Pantherkroete-04.jpg

Time – Days, Months, and a Year – Before Passover

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Time – Days, Months, and a Year – Before Passover

Biblical units of time are slightly different than the ones we use.  Genesis 1 gives day, night, seasons, days, and years; the first use of “months” are in the Flood story with Noah.  These units are important in the Passover story, but I am not going into them in depth. (I did a post about the Biblical Calendar; it takes a slightly different direction than what I need here but it is a good read.)

Day

The twenty-four-hour cycle is the same but biblically the day starts at sundown, not sunrise.  Joseph Prince said that allows us to start the day resting, think about it!  In Exodus 12, the Passover story, the Lamb is killed at twilight – the start of the day.  I am sure that I may slip up on specific days/dates; this is another reason that I chose to follow Passover and not Easter.

Year

In Exodus 12 God redefines the Israelite calendar picking a new first month.  They have gone back and added up all of the previous generations so their yearly number is over 5000.  Since this is marked off by seasons and lunar cycles there is an 11-day difference in length.  The High Priest could put in “leap years” to set the year back with the seasons.

Month

On the Jewish calendar, it is the month of Nissan.  I have read enough to know that there was a civil and religious calendar, and there are spots in scripture where the civil calendar is used – be careful if you are trying to make a specific point.

The other thing about the biblical month is that it follows the lunar cycle.  That makes some of the months 29 days long and some 30 days long.  The modern Jewish calendar is interesting; you should do a search and read on it.

The Lamb – Before Passover

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The Lamb – Before Passover

Exodus 12:3 – On the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family. (NIV)

That little lamb was the main course of the meal, a shelter from the death angel, and a representation of Jesus.  Father God was very specific about how many would eat from it, how it was to be cooked, what was to be served with it, how to eat it, and what to do if any was left.  I have to wonder if the Israelites fully realized what the next several hours would bring them.  Had the experience of the plagues built their faith?  Did their hearts race as Moses told them to be ready to leave? Were there questions in their minds about asking for the riches of Egypt?  Or were they happy with a great meal but tired at the thought of having to make bricks the next day!

The “tenth day” of Easter week would have been the Sunday ride into Jerusalem and the Monday clearing of the Temple.  The Gospels of Mark and Luke tell us of the day that Jesus cleared the Temple of the merchants (Mark 11:12 and Luke 19:45).  Both of these writers also include a statement about how the leaders of the people reacted – they picked Jesus to die and started looking for ways to do it.  The book of John (12:20 – 36) adds the details of Jesus predicting His own death and the Father answering Him as He prayed for glory to be given to God.  Even though the people turned on Jesus this was also the time when they “picked” their lamb.

Special Days – Before Passover

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Special Days – Before Passover

Saint Paul’s life as a Jew was built around a series of “special days.”  These are found in Leviticus 23; the major ones start with Passover which leads to the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) and ends with the Day of Atonement (there are other Jewish holidays).  We as Christians have days that we celebrate; the two most important holidays are Christmas and Easter.   Even though Paul warns the Galatian Church about the observation of special times (Galatians 4:10) I tend to believe that he was warning them not to make these things stumbling blocks or doctrinal (fellowship) issues.  After all, the Father did pick these special days and even ended His work of creation with the Sabbath.

As a child, we always had an Advent wreath and I have used this tradition to help me focus on the day we have chosen to celebrate Jesus’ birth.   In the next few weeks, I will focus on the time in Jesus’ earthly mission that went from Passover to Pentecost.  To Jews, this period is known as the “Counting of the Omer.”  We as Christians tend to forget this period until Ascension Sunday and then Pentecost.  This time period is important in the history of the Church, each of the four Gospels and Acts record events that occurred in these fifty days.  My hope is that this will help us focus on the “types and shadows” found in the Jewish holidays and to celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the start of Kingdom work.

I have chosen to write this series of posts to follow the Jewish holidays not the Christian days.  If you want to use these post from Easter to Pentecost Sunday wait a few days to start as they are not the exactly the same, this year Passover is several days before Easter.  Who is right?  Read Galatians 4:10.🙂