Get Yourselves Prayed Up, Part 2

If you go re-read “Get yourselves prayed up, people!” @ https://polination.wordpress.com/2022/06/16/get-yourselves-prayed-up-people/, you will note that I talked about how Our Lord fulfilled the first four Jewish feasts, but that I rather neglected to explain the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Today, I got inspired to look into it.

Because Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread overlap, people tend to think they are two names for the same holiday. But the Lord declared them to be two different feasts, no doubt because He intended Jesus to fulfill them in unique ways.

The Passover meal, or Seder, is eaten on Nisan 14 after sundown. It celebrates when the Jews, who were slaves in Egypt, slaughtered lambs and painted their blood on their lintels. By marking their homes in this way, the Angel of Death who was bringing the tenth plague knew not to kill the first born of their households.

The Passover lamb of the Old Testament was a foreshadowing of Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. He shed His blood on the cross even as the priests in the Temple were slaughtering the Passover lambs for the Seder meals. His death saved us not from mortal death, but from the far worse death that is eternal damnation.

Like Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread is celebrated for a week, but the main day is the first, which is on Nisan 15. This holiday is about remembering the Exodus when, following the tenth plague, Pharaoh finally relented and let their ancestors go. Because they had to flee quickly, lest he change his mind, they had no time to let yeast bread rise; hence, they ate unleavened bread.

The Exodus was a foreshadowing of what happened on Saturday, Nisan 15, 33 AD, as the dead body of Our Lord lay, like unleavened bread, in the tomb. Like Moses leading the faithful Jews out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, so Jesus, in His spiritual body, went to those who had died before Him to offer them salvation. Those who accepted Him, He took to Heaven.

In preparation for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, kosher families remove all traces of old bread from the house and eat only freshly baked, unleavened bread. St. Paul uses this image as a metaphor for the Christian life, in which Christ’s death (the true Passover) is followed by a purging of our old sinful ways.

The third Jewish holiday that God has fulfilled is the Feast of First Fruits. As described in Leviticus 23:9-14, on the day after the Sabbath (i.e., Sunday), during the week of Passover and Unleavened Bread, the Jews brought the first sheaf of their barley harvest to the priest, along with an unblemished yearling lamb, flour mixed with oil, and wine.

This holiday foreshadowed the Resurrection, when Jesus became the “the first-fruits of them that slept” – 1 Cor 15:20. When He rose, body and soul, from the dead, He showed us what we can look forward to – namely, glorified, perfected, and immortal bodies! We are reminded of this hope every time we celebrate the Eucharist, which brings together the First Fruits gifts of a lamb, unleavened bread, and wine.

The fourth Jewish holiday that God has fulfilled is Shavuot or the Feast of Weeks. It is always on Sivan 6, fifty days after Passover. (Pentecost is Greek for 50^th day.) Because Shavuot celebrates the day when God gave the Torah to Moses, it is essentially the birthday of the Old Testament church.

On Sunday, Sivan 6, 33 AD, the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles, thereby birthing the New Testament Church. And check this out. In 2020 AD, the Jewish dates are all on the same days of the week that they were in 33 AD! If you’ve read “Get yourselves prayed up, people!”, you’ll understand why this discovery gave me goosebumps!

• https://hebrewrootsmom.com/the-feast-of-unleavened-bread-vs-passover-whats-the-difference/
• https://www.compellingtruth.org/Passover-Lamb.html
• https://bible-menorah.jimdofree.com/english/calendar-and-feasts/barley-wheat-harvest-israel/
• http://www.cgsf.org/dbeattie/calendar/?roman=33
• http://www.cgsf.org/dbeattie/calendar/?roman=2022