Passover Tidbit No. 21

New Beginnings

The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a wonderful time, the Pesach, First fruits, and Unleavened Bread feasts offer a week of reflection and looking forward. Many good lessons to keep for the coming years. These three in one feasts are a commemoration of promises kept for the for the children in Egypt, proof of YHVH goodness and His attention to His people. The most important prophecies in all of Scripture, now fulfilled, were right here live and in person and it is still thrilling to put ourselves in this place at that time.

It was a time of hardship and waning faith, a time of miracles on a scale unimaginable, promises too huge to comprehend and failure and weakness of heart. These days were for the Children in Egypt, but also for all that would come later. The promise of redemption and the hand of YHVH all wrapped into one amazing week.

We already know how on the 10^th day of the month all Yisrah-el’ were in the fields selecting the Pesach lamb when Y’shua rode into Yerushalaiym on a donkey just as Zakaryahu (Zechariah) promised us He would.

We know that on the 14^th day as lambs all over Yisrah-el’ were being sacrificed for the Pesach Seder, Y’shua was nailed to a Roman Cross. Our perfect, spotless, male, sacrifice was dying for us, to allow us to have an eternity with His father.

Most even know that on the 17^th day of the month, on the Feast of First fruits, as the first harvest of the year was being brought in, Y’shua, our First fruits rose form the grave defeating death and the enemy.

This is the day of course, all of denominational Christendom celebrates as Easter, although on the wrong day and in the wrong way. To Y’shua and YHVH the sacrifice is far more important than the resurrection, often when we follow man’s wisdom rather than YHVH’s words, some can miss the real message.

But this day, three days after the Pesach, the day of First fruits is also important for other reasons. It was on this day that Noah crashed the ark into Mt Ararat, a new beginning for all of mankind, just like the Son rising from the dead. Things would not be the same for humanity after the flood or after the resurrection of Y’shua, both new beginnings on the same day.

This was the day the Pharaoh gathered his army and set out to trap and kill all of Yisrah-el’. You may recall Moshe had followed exactly the instructions of Yahuah and led the children into the “mouth of the gorges”. They seemed trapped with mountains on both sides and the Red Sea in front. Yahuah had a different plan. He would trap and eliminate the enemies of Yisrah-el’ that day. But YHVH Himself provides another new beginning as He split the Red Sea and the children walked across on dry land. He eliminated the enemy of the people and the Elohiym of Yisrah-el’ and set them on a course to the Promised Land. A great and positive picture and promise for us to embrace.

It is the same picture of what would follow in 1500 or so years, when the disciples had given up hope, as their fathers had before the sea opened, and they thought Y’shua was dead. But on this day they learned He had instead, risen from the grave to show them that they too could defeat death if they would only follow and obey Him.

Also, later this same day, as two disciples left Yerushalaiym on foot, walking down the road to Emmaus, Y’shua joined them. As they walk, they ask Y’shua “Art thou only a stranger in Yerushalaiym, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?” Y’shua responds “What things? And proceeds to teach them all about the Messiah from the first pages of the TaNaKh. Words we too should be familiar with.

This is a day, not often considered as we share the Pesach account, a day lost in the pagan celebrations of Lent Good Friday and Easter, a day that clearly teaches we can expect a new beginning to our faith, that is, if we are not attached to the version man’s wisdom has written. Trust, faith, belief, and obedience are all hallmarks of the weeklong feast. Things we should never forget.

It is my desire that each of the people reading these words over the last three weeks can also find the joy and promises of the Feasts, the meaning, and the truth, and celebrate with us or other faithful this season.