Passover 2025

Intro

This week, in millions of homes around the world, Jewish families spent hours cleaning and cooking to prepare for one of the three biggest holidays of their calendar, Passover. Passover marks the beginning of the festival season for them and is a time of joy, remembrance, and reflection as they remember what God did for them almost 4000 years ago in the land of Egypt, delivering them from slavery. For the week prior to Passover, they will clean and scour every inch of their houses, removing every speck of dust and dirt they can find. Many will go so far as to throw away many common household items that are impossible to clean perfectly, such as toasters, just to ensure that not a single speck exists inside the house. Their obsession over cleanliness would make Danny Tanner proud. Then they will spend hours making a large, pita-like bread called matzah made simply with flour and water. They will make other certain staples, like Matzah ball soup, or charoset, a dessert made of apples, nuts, raisins, and spices. On the evening of passover, they will sit around a table and enjoy of special meal consisting of those foods, and some others; an animal bone, some horseradish, and passover-approved wine, among some other smaller elements of the traditional Jewish seder. During this meal, they will recount the story of the exodus, involving the children in some of it with the use of catechism and the afikomen, where one of three pieces of matzah used in the seder is hidden and the children must find it, to enjoy it as a dessert at the end of the meal. Each of the elements of the Jewish seder is meant to represent something specific relating to the Jewish story of the Exodus. The animal bone, usually that of a lamb is to represent the sacrifice that is no longer performed. The horseradish - their bitter lives of slavery. Five cups of wine are also served during the meal, each with their own significance.

For Christians, Passover takes on an even deeper meaning. It was on Passover that Jesus was crucified and buried.

Significance? Why on Passover?

Romans 5:6–9 ESV

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

God’s Plan A

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

It was very good

God gave Adam dominion with one stipulation:

Genesis 2:16–17 “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.””

Now we can discuss God’s reasons for why he allowed Adam to fall until the cows come home. But that is for another time. We still have to deal with the fact that God told Adam NOT to eat from the tree, and yet chose to disobey. He wasn’t some innocent bystander who didn’t know what his wife brought home from the grocery store. He was next to her, a passive participant, when the serpent deceived Eve. No! He WILLINGLY ate that fruit. Outright rebellion.

And what was God’s warning? Genesis 2:17 “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.””

Proverbs 17:15 “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.”

Numbers 23:19 “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”

Isaiah 55:10–11 ““For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

The fall of Adam did not take God by surprise. The work of Christ wasn’t just God’s Plan B. It wasn’t as if God created the perfect world, then Adam screwed it up and God responded, “well, crap, there goes that plan.” No. God is the ever watchful parent who has warned his kid to NOT touch the stove, yet is standing there with the first aid kit in hand, because he knows his child will touch the stove.

This was a blueprint, a plan, that was put in place before even time existed.

Titus 1:2 ESV

in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began

Matthew 25:34 ESV

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

1 Corinthians 2:7 ESV

But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

This is just a small sampling of passages that describe how God had already worked out your salvation before even creation existed.

But God.....

showed Adam mercy, and started giving hints as to his plan for saving us from His just judgment. His first promise came to Adam & Eve

Passover is not just a story about how the nation of Israel was rescued from slavery in Egypt. It actually displays God’s blueprint for the salvation of the world through the death, burial, & resurrection of the His Son, Jesus Christ. So t

Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.””

For roughly 4 millennia, God effectively lays out his plan. Yet he doesn’t leave us without hope.

Jesus the Point of Scripture

Old Testament > New Testament concealed

New Testament > Old Testament revealed

John 5:39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,”

John 5:46 “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.”

Old Testament is not just stories of Israel, or fables of morality meant to teach us how to live better lives.

Every story, every psalm, every prophecy, is meant to reveal Jesus to us in some way. Some are promises, like the one given to Adam, or Isaiah 53, which describes the work that Christ will do. Some are allusions, like the story of Joseph a man rejected by his brothers, yet whose rejection leads to their salvation, or David & Goliath. That’s right. You are not David. You, me, we are the fearful Israelites. Jesus is David, cutting off the head of the snake, defeating death & sin, our great enemies. A lot of the allusions and pictures of Christ are seen in the laws and traditions given to Moses at Mt. Sinai.

Karate Kid Wax On - Wax Off

God doesn’t need sacrifice, temple, priesthood, etc

Blood of bulls & goats not sufficient (Heb 9:12-14)

Passover

Exodus 12:1–14 ESV

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.

Exodus 12:21–28 ESV

Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped. Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

Slaves for generations