This is an extra post continuing the focus on the week of Passover as part of the Spring Feasts Series.

https://www.minimannamoments.com/palm-sunday-nisan-the-appointed-time-of-the-lamb/

https://www.minimannamoments.com/unleavened-bread-matzot-week/)

https://www.minimannamoments.com/not-passing-over-passover-week/

As there is so much information to be found on this season, the following merely scratches the surface and is in no way all encompassing. Its purpose is to whet your appetite for more of God. 

Lest we forget as we hurry forward after the Holy days of Passover week, (holidays) it was a little over 2000 years ago, that 12 men celebrating the Passover Seder in Jerusalem were told by their Rabbi/Teacher and Master, Yeshua (Jesus), that this would be their last Seder together.  He also explained that it had prophetic significance.

Pesach is Hebrew for Passover and has been celebrated faithfully for the last 3,300 years. The name of Passover derives from the fact that during the final plague,( the slaying of the firstborn) God passed over the Jewish homes.

The first night of Passover is celebrated with a Seder meal, meaning order. Because there are so many details to remember (there are 15 steps which will be listed later on their own page for easy reference.) The ‘order’, ‘Seder’, is set by a book called the Haggadah (The Telling).

Haggadah

huh-gah-duh ;

Sephardic Hebrew hah-gah-dah;

Ashkenazic Hebrew hah-gaw-duh

It refers to a book containing the order of service of the traditional Passover meal. It contains the narrative of the Exodus from Egypt that constitutes the main part of that service.

God’s deliverance of the Hebrew children of Israel from slavery under the Egyptians (Ex 5:12:42) is a very important Jewish festival and marks the establishment of Israel as a nation. God commanded His people to celebrate the Passover each year with the sacrifice of a lamb and the eating of only unleavened bread for eight days.

The present form of the celebration includes many symbols and traditions designed to help each generation of Israel’s children remember and understand this important part of their history.

Through narration and participation in the Seder, which is meant to be celebrated by each family in their own home as a participatory remembrance of the event, this helps them to understand the long term meaning of the exodus.

Modern table laid out  below

Passover feast included three symbolic elements:

lamb,

unleavened bread,

and

bitter herbs.

These elements were the essence of the Lord’s prescription for recalling the deliverance with the Lamb He had provided.  The means by which He may consider a household worthy of relationship with Him.

The Unleavened Bread symbolized the way in which His people should live their lives – “quickly following” His voice as they immediately left “without waiting for the bread to rise”, and “without sin”, since yeast (leaven) is a symbol for sin throughout the Scriptures.

Bitter herbs provided a reminder of the bitter life of slavery to anyone other than the Lord Himself, therefore causing them not to “look back” from whence they had come.

It seems that on the night before He died, as Messiah partook in the Last Supper, it was most likely a Passover Seder. In the middle of the meal He began to speak of His death, ‘one of you will betray Me’ He said. Then He gave them a sign, ‘He who dips his hand with Me in the dish will betray Me.’

The sign also revealed that it would be Messiah who freely gave Himself over to suffering and death and why the use of the word dipping was significant. The word in Greek is linked to the word baptism, which means to submerge or to overwhelm. This signified that Messiah’s life would be submerged in suffering, in our suffering, submerged in the cup of our judgment.

In this process He would be overwhelmed, but He willingly and deliberately submerged Himself in the cup of our judgment. The cup of our suffering and bitterness, so that our judgment, our tears and our punishment that should end in hell (eternal separation from the Father), would be taken away.

 

He dipped the matzah into the cup so that we would never have to.

Exodus 12:8  Matthew 26:20–25  Isaiah 53:4

“Do this (Passover meal) in remembrance of Me”

Jesus was adding to the already understood remembrance of God’s deliverance from physical bondage, an appreciation and remembrance of the spiritual deliverance He would soon offer mankind on the cross.         

He had previously explained in John chapter 3 that “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so too must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life”.

Passover, the feasts and other commandments serve to remind us in this life of how God delivers us physically and spiritually. In this  feast, we look back at how obedience to God delivered His people in the past.

He identified Himself as the Lamb (John 1:29).

Not only was the lamb of the Passover the element that provided the blood that caused the angel of death to “pass over” God’s people in Egypt, but Jesus’ blood shed on the cross is the mark that every believer trusts will deliver them from punishment and death in the lake of fire.

 

One of the foods you need for the Passover Seder is called charoset or kharoset. On the night of Passover the Jewish people eat the kharoset with bitter herbs as they commemorate their deliverance from Egypt. He used the bitter herbs as a sign of turning back to sin and the bitterness of such a turn. Judas was the one who “dipped” the bread in bitter herbs and then betrayed the Lord.    In like fashion, the same element was to remind those coming from Egypt of the bitterness of turning back to the life from which they had been delivered.

On Passover the Jewish people dipped a piece of matzah, unleavened bread, into the kharoset. No doubt that it was into a bowl such as this that Messiah and the disciple named Judas Yehuda dipped their bread that night.

It was then that the disciple named Judas Yehuda dipped his hand in the dish.

It is significant because the kharoset and bitter herbs represent bondage and suffering.  The betrayal was the delivering of the Messiah over to bondage and suffering. This sobering sign revealed that it would be Judas who would deliver Him to His suffering and death and yet Messiah also dipped into the cup acknowledging and accepting the prophetic fulfillment of His Fathers will.

Karpas – a Green, Spring vegetable could be a slice of onion celery boiled potato or sprigs of parsley, it symbolizes Springs bounty And a sign of new life. The Karpas is dipped into the salt water at the beginning of the seder representing the salty tears that were cried when they were slaves in Egypt and it also represents rebirth and growth.

Matzah – as the Israelites were fleeing Egypt/Mitzrayim, they did not have enough time to let the bread dough rise. They carried the unfinished dough on their backs and the hot sun baked it into a hard, flat matzah. For the eight days of Passover, no leaven (chametz) of any kind is eaten, in memory of their hasty flight.

Maror – Horseradish root. bitter herbs symbolizing the harsh suffering and bitterness of the hard times of oppression endured as slaves. For believers, it is a reminder of bitterness for being in bondage and in slavery to sin.

Chazeret or Korech the matzah and maror (Romaine Lettuce) this is the second portion of bitter herbs which is eaten during the Seder in a Matzah sandwich together with Maror reminding of atrocities. This reminds us of our Egypt days or worldly experience, first it is fun and exciting and lately we realize the error of our ways and begin to feel the bitterness in the ground without water, (which is without the Word of God) and speaks of spiritual dryness in our lives.

 

Reclining at a meal was symbolic of being free,no longer a slave.

Shulchan Orech (the meal is eaten).

Z’roah – strong arm – a roasted shank bone. The shankbone, or the z’roah זרוע , is one of the three basic requirements as a reminder of the Pesach offering used to bring to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem remembrance of Lamb which was slain symbolizing the sacrifices offered. It was the sacrifice on the last night.

What is the mystery of the Zeroah?

On virtually every Passover Seder plate there is something called the Zeroah . It just sits there on the plate and is never touched or rarely mentioned. What is it?

The Zeroah is the roasted shank bone of a lamb.  

The Zeroah is the full and almighty power of a Holy God.

In Isaiah 53 mystery is revealed. For it is written, “to whom has the Zeroah of the Lord been revealed?” The translation will read ‘Alm’, but the Hebrew is Zeroah, same word as the lambs bone. The Zeroah is Messiah, who is wounded for our sins, scourged and crushed for our punishment, and he goes to his death as a lamb.

By the Zeroah we are saved.

This is the true full power of the Almighty, the loving, gentle, merciful, giving and beautiful one who bore all things to save us. This is the Zeroah, the arm that saved your life. Trust in it, rest in it, reach for it, rejoice in it, and live by it, and nothing will be impossible for you. Today take some time to thank the Lord for the many blessings he has given you commit this day to rejoice in the Zeroah of your life.

Beitzah – A hard-boiled egg symbolizing the cycle of life representing a new life after Egypt and also. a reminder of the festival offering used to bring to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at Pesach. It is also a reminder of the additional lamb called the haggigah.

( note on haggigah: Yeshua ate the Passover (Luke 22:15). This Scripture passage refers specifically to the Lamb. Frequently, there were two sacrifices during the Feast of Passover. One lamb is the Passover lamb and the other lamb is called the haggigah or peace offering.

These sacrifices are referred to in Deuteronomy (Devarim) 16:2 where G-d required that the sacrifice be from both the flock and the herd. This was interpreted to mean that two sacrifices were needed. The Haggigah (the additional lamb) was offered in addition to the Pesach (the Passover lamb). The Pesach was required, but the Haggigah was not because it was a freewill offering. )

Charoset – a mixture of chopped apple walnuts, and red wine ground up together charoset resembles and therefore symbolizes the bricks and mortar Israelite slaves were forced to use to lay bricks in Egypt.  Of their toil and hard labour and reminds us that if we press on with God during your difficult times you will eventually begin to taste the sweetness of God in your life.

Tzafun (the afikomen that was hidden is found, ransomed, and then eaten).

The Passover element of Unleavened Bread is broken, hidden away, and brought back later, much as Jesus was at His death, burial and resurrection. This is the same bread we use at the communion table.

The Lord in instructing His disciples how to “Do this (Passover meal) in remembrance of Me” was to add to the already understood remembrance of God’s deliverance from physical bondage, an appreciation and remembrance of the spiritual deliverance He would soon offer mankind on the cross.  He had previously explained in John chapter 3 that “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so too must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life”.

In the Passover, our Lord shows us that what was previously true for people’s physical salvation would now be true in Him for their spiritual salvation.

It is equally important to recall that unleavened bread is called the “bread of affliction” (i.e., lechem oni, literally, “bread of humiliation” or “bread of humility”). Partaking of this bread means humbly identifying with the suffering and afflictions that Jesus/Yeshua performed

on our behalf…

Eating unleavened bread — the “bread of affliction” — is really to eat the bread of HIS affliction – and therefore testifies to our own powerlessness to effect righteousness.  It is eaten “in haste” – not the result of human ingenuity or planning. It is a commemoration that salvation is of the LORD – rather than a work of our own.

As the prophet Isaiah wrote about the Messiah, our Suffering Servant:
 Isaiah 53:4-5:

“Surely he has taken up our sicknesses and has carried our sorrowful pains;
yet we regarded him as stricken, beaten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our perversions;
upon him was the correction that brought our peace, and by his blows we are healed

אָכֵן חֳלָיֵנוּ הוּא נָשָׂא וּמַכְאבֵינוּ סְבָלָם
וַאֲנַחְנוּ חֲשַׁבְנֻהוּ נָגוּעַ מֻכֵּה אֱלהִים וּמְעֻנֶּה
וְהוּא מְחלָל מִפְּשָׁעֵנוּ מְדֻכָּא מֵעֲוֹנתֵינוּ
מוּסַר שְׁלוֹמֵנוּ עָלָיו וּבַחֲבֻרָתוֹ נִרְפָּא־לָנוּ

a·khen · cho·la·yei·nu · hu · na·sa · u·makh·o·vei·nu · se·va·lam
va·a·nach·nu · cha·shav·nu·hu · na·gu·a · mu·keh · E·lo·him · u·me·u·neh ve·hu · me·chol·lal · mi·pe·sha·ei·nu · me·du·kah · me·a·vo·no·tei·nu · mu·sar · she·lo·mei·nu · a·lav  · u·va·cha·vu·ra·to · nir·pa · la·nu

Notice that the word translated “blow” (i.e., חַבּוּרָה, “wound” or “stripe”) comes from the same root as the word “friend” (חָבֵר), and therefore we can read this as “in His friendship we are healed.” Yeshua gave up His life for us so that we could become His friends… As He later told us regarding His sacrifice: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends”( John 15:13) Indeed of Yeshua it may truly be said, Yesh ohev davek me’ach – “there is a friend who sticks (davek) closer than a brother”(Prov.18:24)

We do not become sanctified, in other words, by afflicting ourselves, but rather by sincerely trusting in the afflictions that our Friend Yeshua endured on our behalf.  Just as we are saved by God’s grace through faith, so are we sanctified. Sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit in our lives just as miraculous as regeneration itself (1 Cor.6:11). We do not earn merit before the LORD through performing “good deeds” (Titus 3:5-6), but rather by humbling ourselves and trusting in the Messiah for righteousness. (John 6:28-29).

The idea that we can merit our own righteousness before God, that we are self-sufficient and do not need a Savior, is something Jesus/Yeshua regarded as a form of “spiritual leaven.” It is only when the ego is deflated (i.e., “unleavened”) that we are able to discern the truth of our inward condition.

Unleavened bread, then, signifies our identification with the Lord in His humility and afflictions, but it does not mean attempting to effect our own sanctity by means of self-styled affliction. We are sanctified by God’s grace, not by outward shows of religion. Remembering that all the “oughts” (i.e., commands) of the New Covenant are directed to the truth of who you are “in the Messiah,” that is, by virtue of His connection to you, and not to your former life and identity as a slave in Egypt…

During the celebration of Pesach, three cakes of unleavened bread (matzot) are placed one upon another, with a napkin between each cake.

At a certain point in the Seder service, the middle cake, known as the afikomen, or “that which come after,” is broken in two.

One piece is distributed among the people present, and the larger piece is hidden in a napkin. Toward the end of the Passover Seder, the hidden portion is brought to light and eaten by those surrounding the Passover table.

The Messianic understanding is that these three pieces of matzot represent G-d the Father, the Messiah Jesus/Yeshua, and the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh). The central piece, the afikomen, is broken, a portion is eaten, and the remainder hidden and then brought forth to testify of the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua.

The Bread and Cups of the Passover Seder

During the course of the Seder, the four cups of wine that are served and drunk at a specific point to the people present at the Seder are used in the following manner, and are called:

First The Cup of Blessing

(Luke 22:17; 1 Corinthians 10:16).

This cup is called the cup of sanctification, or the Kiddush. 

The Second is for Maggid,    The Cup of Wrath

(Luke 22:42-44).

This cup is not drunk, but is poured out on the table as the plagues of Egypt are recited. Jesus/Yeshua drank of this cup for us in the Garden of Gethsemane and when He died on the tree.

The Third is for Birkat Hamazon –   The cup of Blessing, Salvation, or Redemption.

(Psalm [Tehillim] 116:13)

This cup is filled to overflowing, symbolizing an overflowing salvation.

And the fourth is for Hallel – The cup of the kingdom

(Luke 22:18,20; Matthew [Mattityahu] 26:28-29).

Jesus/Yeshua spoke of eating and drinking afresh in the Messianic age with His disciples after His resurrection.

In addition to the four cups of wine served to the people, another cup, called the cup of Elijah (Eliyahu), is also a part of the Seder. This cup is poured out at the end of the Seder. Only Elijah (Eliyahu) himself, or one coming in the spirit and power of Elijah, or the Messiah, was allowed to drink of this cup. When Jesus/Yeshua referred to Himself drinking of this cup, He was saying in no uncertain terms that He was the Messiah.

The cup used was more likely to have looked like this one below, rather than an ornate silver goblet we are used to seeing.

The 4 cups represent the four expressions of deliverance promised by God as found in Exodus 6:7

I will bring you out

I will deliver

I will redeem

I will take

and these promises are still true for every believer today.