PASSOVER PAST & PRESENT: Jesus celebrated Passover – here are 4 reasons Evangelicals would be blessed to do so, too

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL – Tonight, upwards of 15 million Jews around the world, including some 8 million Israelis, will gather with family and friends to celebrate Passover.

Millions of Evangelical Christians – our family included – will also celebrate.

Gentile Christians are not mandated to do so in the New Testament.

But I believe Evangelical families will be deeply blessed if they do.

Here are four reasons why.

First, Jesus celebrated Passover with His disciples in the First Century and we are His disciples today.

Throughout the Gospel accounts, we see Jesus remembering and celebrating year after year God’s rescue and redemption of the Jewish people, the nation of Israel, from slavery and cruel oppression in Egypt.

He even did so in the final days of His earthly life.

In Matthew chapter 26, we read this: “Now on the first day of the Feast of the Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, ‘Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?’ And He said, ‘Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, “The Teacher says, ‘My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.’” So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them; and they prepared the Passover. When evening had come, He sat down with the twelve” (Matthew 26:17-20).

This story is shared also in Mark 14 and Luke 22.

The Apostle John records much more detail in chapters 13 through 17 of his account.

“Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that His hour had come to leave this world and return to His Father,” the account begins in John 13:1.

“He had loved His disciples during His ministry on earth, and now He loved them to the very end.”

‭Indeed, it is in that last supper – the last Passover Seder – that Jesus shares with his disciples, that there are some of the most profound truths about the Father’s love and forgiveness recorded in the scriptures.

Just one example: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

Shouldn’t it be true that what was important to Jesus should also be important to us?

Second, the Passover story is one of rescue and redemption, created by God for families to study and celebrate together, and especially for parents to share with their children.

Over and over again, God encourages His people to pass down biblical truths to the next generation.

This is especially true of the Passover story.

Notice the emphasis the Lord puts on helping children understand and internalize this story.

“This is a day to remember,” the Lord said through Moses. “Each year, from generation to generation, you must celebrate it as a special festival to the Lord. This is a law for all time” (Exodus‬ ‭12‬:‭14‬).

“So Moses said to the people, ‘This is a day to remember forever – the day you left Egypt, the place of your slavery. Today the Lord has brought you out by the power of his mighty hand’” (Exodus‬ ‭13‬:‭3‬).

“On the seventh day you must explain to your children, ‘I am celebrating what the Lord did for me when I left Egypt’” (Exodus‬ ‭13‬:‭8‬).

“And in the future, your children will ask you, ‘What does all this mean?’ Then you will tell them, ‘With the power of his mighty hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt, the place of our slavery” (Exodus‬ ‭13‬:‭14‬).

Third, the Passover saga helps us understand the sacrifice and forgiveness we have in Jesus, for the New Testament teaches us that Christ is our Passover lamb.

God’s supernatural rescue and redemption of the Jewish people from slavery and cruel oppression in Egypt is such a wonderful and powerful true story.

God requiring Jews to sacrifice a perfect lamb and have faith to cover their doors with the blood of that lamb – so the angel of death would pass over them – teaches us so much about God’s plan for eternal salvation.

Passover is a foreshadowing of the Messiah’s arrival and sacrifice for us.

“The next day John [the baptizer] saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” we read in the Apostle John’s gospel account.

“He is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘A man is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’ I did not recognize him as the Messiah, but I have been baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel” (John‬ ‭1‬:‭29‬-‭31‬).

The apostle John calls Jesus “the lamb of God.”

The apostle Paul says Jesus is our Passover sacrifice.

“For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed,” we read in 1 Corinthians 5:7.

In His love and mercy, God sent His only Son – Jesus – to be the final perfect lamb to be sacrificed on the cross for us.

If we truly repent of our sins and place our faith in God’s provision for us – in the blood of Jesus shed for us – then the angel of eternal death will pass over us when we physically die.

We will be completely forgiven of our sins and be granted eternal life in heaven with God, safe and free and healed and loved forever and ever.

The original Passover points us to Jesus – the lamb of God who takes away the sins of all those in the world who believe in His death and resurrection – and that’s another great reason to study and celebrate the Passover and share this special Biblical feast with our children and grandchildren.

Fourth, in the Passover story, we see that God sovereignly ensures justice against evil.

We read over and over again in the Biblical book of Exodus that Pharaoh resisted God, rejected God, and refused God.

The Lord gave Pharaoh multiple opportunities to do the right thing, many chances to repent and obey God’s commands.

But Pharaoh kept saying no.

So, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.

Then judgment fell upon this wicked leader and upon those following him and also rejecting the One True God.

Today, I believe God has hardened the hearts of Iranian leaders, too.

This is not just a human war.

As I share in this video, I believe we are witnessing a biblical judgment fall upon Iran’s wicked and evil regime, in keeping with ancient prophecies found in Jeremiah 49.

Am I right about what’s happening in Iran?

I’ll let you decide.

But for now, I encourage you to at least consider how God dealt with Pharaoh in ancient times.

Exodus 7:3-5 – “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. When Pharaoh does not listen to you, then I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring My hosts, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.”

Exodus 7:13 – “Yet Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had said.”

Exodus 7:22 – “…and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had said.”

Exodus 8:15 – “But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not listen to them, as the Lord had said.”

Exodus 8:32 – “But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and he did not let the people go.”

Exodus 9:7 – “But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.”

Exodus 9:12 – “And the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he didn’t listen to them, just as the Lord had spoken to Moses.”

Exodus 9:27 (after the hail, plague #7) – “I have sinned this time; the Lord is the righteous one, and I and my people are the wicked ones.”

Exodus 9:34-35 – “But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart….”

Exodus 10:1-3 (just before the locusts, plague #8) – “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them….Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me.’”

Exodus 10:16-17 – “Then Pharaoh hurriedly called for Moses and Aaron, and he said, ‘I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you. Now therefore, please forgive my sin this once, and make application to your God, that He would only remove this death from me.’”