Category Archives: Passover to Pentecost

Yeast – Before Passover

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Yeast – Before Passover

“For seven days no yeast is to be found in your homes.” (Exodus 12: 19) NIV

God had prepared His people to be out of Egypt.  He had made the Egyptians weary of them and their God.  His Passover would be the final straw and He set the stage for them to go; He gave specific meal instructions.  It covered what to cook and eat and how it was to be done.  As Christians, we take a lot of symbolism from this meal and even more has come from Jewish traditions.  Getting rid of yeast is very important to the Passover Feast and is rich for us as Christians.  But why yeast!?

I like the spiritual lesson Chabad.org has in its post on Passover. (I am paraphrasing big time.)  The difference between crackers and bread is yeast.  It fills the dough with gas and makes it puffed up; while the cracker stays flat and humble.  Wow!  Yeast in most places of scripture carries a negative thought.

My question, “Why yeast” still stands?  Yes, we should take time and view our lives and houses and get rid of things that are not pleasing to God.  The Jews do this before Passover and they are serious about it.  How would these first participants in Passover make that connection when all yeast had ever done is make their bread rise?  For the most part, we Christians will say that yeast symbolizes sin, but Jesus compared yeast to the action of the Kingdom of God.  I believe that He would ban it on what it would come to shadow, but I also think more has been at play here.

In Exodus 12: 34 the people took their dough in the kneading troughs wrapped them in extra clothing and moved quickly out of town.  My second thought of “why” is the speed of their departure.  Adding yeast and letting it rise in order to bake can take time.  By the text, it sounds like they were leaving quickly and God knew they would be on the move for several days.  Flatbread cooks quicker than yeast bread.

A third “why” could be the Egyptian cult worship that involved yeast?  The frog goddess Heqet was also involved with yeast.  It was a bread-making/ beer cult and could have been one of the deities that Israel had become involved with. (See Frogs in the Bible)

Yeast in itself is not bad and could be used the rest of the year, but for this time period, it did pose a problem.  It could be one or all three of these or it may be something else, but for the trip out of Egypt, it had to go.  Please see my other posts on yeast: What I Learned From Studying Yeast;  Yeast, All Bad;  Yeast, A Model of Church Growth.

Take Away – A more “modern” custom that Jews may do in preparations for Passover is selling their yeast.  I see it as a picture of what Judas did to Jesus.  Jesus became our sin (yeast); Judas tried to give the money back but was refused.  Yes, modern Jews can buy back their yeast products after Passover.

http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1742/jewish/What-Is-Chametz.htm

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.