Passover (Easter) Sunday

Several thousand years ago, God's people, the Israelites, were slaves in Egypt. Per God's direction, on the evening of the 14th day of their month of Nissan, they ate their unleavened bread, and spent the following morning (still the 14th as Hebrew days went from evening to morning) removing the leaven from their dwellings. In the afternoon they killed a passover lamb, put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their dwelling, and readied for the coming of the death angel into Egypt.

The death angel came the evening of the 15th of Nissan, and the Israelites ate their unleavened bread and lamb as the death angel passed over them, and cries of anguish were heard throughout Egypt where God's judgment fell.

About 1600 years later Jesus Christ sat with twelve disciples on the evening of the 14th day of their month Nissan, and ate their unleavened bread and drank the fruit of the vine. On the following afternoon of that same day, Jesus Christ, the passover lamb of God, was crucified, shedding His blood for the sins of the whole world. (Church tradition places the 15th of Nissan that year on Friday, and hence, our remembrance of Christ's crucifixion on 'Good Friday'.) Christ was our passover lamb, and shed the blood that will deliver us from God's judgment on sin and evil.

Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
(1Co 5:7)

But God's people were to have a new life! The lamb wasn't just slain so that the Israelites wouldn't be hurt by God's judgment, but so that the Israelites could be raised up as a people of God and brought into a new land. In the same way, Christ wasn't slain just so that we would be spared God's judgment on this world, but He was slain so that we could be raised in newness of life.

Jesus remained in the grave during the sabbath, but the day after the sabbath, on Passover Sunday, He rose from the grave! Christ was planted as a seed in the ground, and rose up as the firstfruits of resurrected life for mankind.

"But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. . . . For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming."
(1Co 15:20, 22-23)

Wow! We followers of Christ have been celebrating the resurrection of Jesus every Sunday ever since. But that first Passover (Easter) Sunday was the one that made eternal life possible for all of us. Those of us who are in Christ, will one day be changed, and be raised up just as Jesus was.

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP IN VICTORY." "O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING? O HADES, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY?" The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1Co 15:51-57)

Glory to God!!

Yours in Him,

Pastor B.