Jesus and Judaism-continued

blog #5
Previous blogs regarding Jesus and Judaism have discussed the Sabbath Day, Synagogue, and Circumcision. All of those are Jewish subjects and mentioned to some extent in New Testament source documents with involvement of Jesus. I want to mention another important subject which is Passover Observance as related in Luke 2:41-42. The text says that every year his parents went to the Feast of the Passover in Jerusalem. We read that his parents observed the “custom,” and that Jesus was 12 years old at the time.

God had commanded Moses in Exodus 23:14: Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto Me in the year. The next verses reveal that Unleavened Bread/Passover, Feast of Weeks, and Tabernacles were the three. The Hebrew terms are “shalosh regalim,” and in English are named “pilgrim Festivals”. Other names those feasts are known by are Passover, Pentecost, and Sukkot.

As a twelve year old boy, Jesus was yet learning and established in the practice of the Jewish religion of his day. He celebrated Passover with his family. In todays world, he would have been approaching the time of a Bar Mitzvah ceremony, and becoming a “son of the commandment.” Alfred Edersheim in his book, the Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, wrote; the legal age in this respect [for Bar Mitzvah] was anticipated by two years or at least by one (see Yoma 82a).

Accepting the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven, and choosing to obey God’s every teaching, was part of the 12 year old eagerness and willingness to become a mature adult. The normal Bar Mitzvah age was 13 years and one day, but Jesus during Passover in the Temple at twelve years of age, sat amidst the didaskalos/teachers, hearing, questioning, and amazing them with answers.

In later years during his ministry, he still observed Passover. Matthew 14:12 mentions a Passover meal wherein his disciples killed the lamb and prepared the meal at a selected guestchamber. It was in a large upper room, and the account tells how they broke and blessed the bread and ate.They also drank from the fruit of the vine, and then sang a hymn (Psalm).

Some Christians call this the “last supper,” but there can be no doubt that it was a celebration of the Passover. It was his last earthly Passover celebration.
The original Passover was intended to memorialize the deliverance of the nation of Israel from Egypt, and it was celebrated once every year at a specified calendar date. It took place during a time when Jews were permitted to eat only unleavened bread for 7 days. Jesus celebrated it every year once a year.

In Mark 14, after his last earthly Passover celebration, Jesus said this in Mark 14:25; Amen I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the Kingdom of God. Thus, the twofold celebration of Passover for the Christian is linked to Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, and symbolic of Christ’s body and lifegiving blood for the church.

The Church often stresses the second celebration rather than the first, which causes loss of the foundational and original meaning. Parables, symbols, and metaphors, only have real meaning when something is laid alongside a literal truth. A whole nation was delivered from death and bondage, when death skipped over homes where the blood was applied. The Passover message was Israel’s national miracle, just as much as the body and blood of Christ brings life to repentant sinners. We should celebrate what God has done at the Passover meal.