Editors’ Journal

"Let the children of Israel also keep the passover at his appointed season."—Numbers 9:2

No feast has more significance than the ancient Passover rites of Israel. The feast has kept alive in Jewish minds not only the deliverance from Egypt in days of old but the ever-present reality that their God has been with them and will ultimately deliver them at the precise hour he has determined.

In Old Testament times, this favored nation of God slipped into the practices of idolatry again and again. Yet, repetitively, once they turned their hearts to him, Jehovah would deliver his people.

During their captivity in Babylon in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, their situation looked hopeless. But again, after a period of punishment "to fulfill threescore and ten years" (2 Chron. 36:21), God raised up Cyrus, king of Persia, who issued a decree that the Jews could not only return to their native land but could build a temple there (Ezra 1:1, 2).

Still a longer diaspora faced them after their two defeats by Rome in A.D. 70 and 135. For nearly two thousand years they wandered from country to country. Yet, in the last 120 years we have seen the Jewish people return to their homeland from all the nations of the earth. The horrors of the Holocaust did not stop but rather accelerated the return. The united efforts of their Arab neighbors failed to prevent the modern exodus to Israel.

A Deeper Meaning

For the Christian this holiday has a deeper meaning. On the eve of the Passover in the year A.D. 33 Jesus of Nazareth partook of his "last supper" on the last day of his earthly life (Luke 22:1). When the meal was finished he introduced a new ceremony as the antitype of the Jewish Passover by bringing forth the emblems of bread and wine, introducing them as pictures of his flesh and his blood. The Apostle Paul zeroed in on the meaning of this ceremony to the Christians with the simple statement, "Even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" (1 Cor. 5:7).

Many Christians celebrate this event annually, participating in ceremonial bread and wine, not only to remind them of the great sacrifice culminated at Calvary but also of their invitation to be co-participants with Christ. "Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16 NAS).

This issue of THE HERALD takes a closer look at the various details in the original passover ceremony, as ordained by God, and draws lessons from them for the Christian life.

The central theme of Israel’s Passover was the slaying of a lamb, sprinkling its blood on the doorposts and lintels of their houses, and then partaking of its flesh and bitter herbs. The article, Behold The Lamb of God, examines the symbolism of these events in depth.

Another feature of the Passover was the removing of all leaven from the houses of the Israelites and the preparation of unleavened bread for the feast. These issues are treated in two articles entitled Cleaning House and A Little Leaven.

With Staff in Hand takes a closer look at the haste with which Israel was to eat the original supper and the other preparations that they were to make to demonstrate their faith actually being delivered from Egyptian bondage that night.

Although only the firstborn children of Israel were passed over by the death angel, a larger passing would occur. The fleeing nation was delivered from the pursuing Egyptians by "passing over" a sea of reeds on dry ground. The account of this is found in Exodus 14 and is investigated in the verse by verse Bible study entitled, God Divideth the Sea.

So important was this ceremony, God changed the entire structure of the Hebrew year. The deliverance occurred in what would be normally considered the beginning of the seventh month of their year. Subsequently this month would be considered the first month of a religious year. The significance of this is called to our attention in the "Echoes from the Past," The Beginning of Months.

These articles examine features of the type, to be replaced by an antitypical memorial, commemorating not the death of a lamb but of the real Deliverer foreshadowed by that lamb, Jesus of Nazareth. This new memorial would use new symbols, bread and wine. The article, Eat Thy Bread, Drink Thy Wine, sets forth the Old Testament antecedents for these New Testament symbols.

The concluding article, Where is the Lamb?, looks at a different, though related, event. It relates the story of the offering of Isaac as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah by his father Abraham.

This is a specially sacred season to many Christians. We desire that each of us examine our own selves and thus eat and drink in a worthy manner of the symbols illustrating this great deliverance, not only for the Christian but ultimately for every member of the human race (1Cor. 11:27-29).