The Remembrance of Passover - A Messianic Jewish Perspective

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Yehuda Bachana.
Passover is one of the most important holidays in the Torah. The Exodus from Egypt formed Israel as a nation, and build its collective awareness more than any other event in the Scriptures.

We can go father and say, that the entire Bible is influenced by what happened during the Exodus. It is mentioned in the Torah, Prophets, Writings and in the New Testament more than any other historical event.

As a believer, I can easily understand why, as the Exodus from Egypt, or more accurately – the redemption of Egypt, is the prototype of the redemption of the world, which will come through Yeshua the Messiah some 1300 years later.

Similar elements are found in both - the redemption of Israel and the redemption of the world. There is the “Passover Lamb” or the “Lamb of God”, the blood that separates us from the others, the angel of death, who skip the houses of those, who are saved, and our freedom from slavery – this terminology used in Passover, is very similar to how we describe Yeshua’s redemption of the world.

God commanded us to remember the Passover:

“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.” (Exodus 12:14)

It’s not just one verse, but an example of many, that call us to remember it forever. We can say, that it is God, who made the memory of the Exodus so significant in our history.

Remembering the Exodus is important for many reasons, and I want to look at some of them today. The first reason is, that our nation’s morality was shaped and molded during the Exodus. Three months after leaving Egypt, God gave us the Torah, where he calls us to form our behavior and our social guidelines in light of the Exodus.

God commanded us to remember it, while we give loans, or treat strangers, slaves, widows or orphans. For example:

“‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them (…and continues…) Use honest scales and honest weights (…and why? Because…) I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:33-36)

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt.
Another reason for remembering is, that it gives an additional meaning to the day of rest, given to us by God. In ten commandments, as they appear in the book of Deuteronomy, God tells us:

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. (…and the God-given reason appears 3 verses later…) Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.” (Deuteronomy 5: 11+14)

Meaning, that the Sabbath must also remind us of exodus, freedom and rest, given to us by God. Everything comes together as pieces of the puzzle, when we understand that the Jewish tradition sees the Sabbath as a taste and a hint of the eternal rest, in the Kingdom of Heaven. The same tradition, that the Sabbath gives us the taste of the world to come, appears in the book of Hebrews, chapter 4.

The Exodus happened some 3300 years ago, and the question we ask ourselves, or should ask ourselves, is: how did we manage to keep this memory? and For whose sake?

The answer is, that God created a theater, a full performance, accompanied by ten plagues, by blood and sacrifices, by Israel’s escape from the Egyptian army, by miracles and wonders, including the parting of the Red sea, falling of the mana, by the pillar of fire and cloud, all these happened for the sake of our children, for the sake of future generations.

God stated clearly, that he did all these, in order to tell the story, as it is written:

“That you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.” (Exodus 10:2)

We have to teach our children, we have to tell them that we are here today, because of a miracle.

There is a God in heaven, he is faithful, he fulfills his promises, he took us out of Egypt and redeemed us with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. And with the same hand and by the same arm he gathered us from the four corners of the earth, and against all odds, brought us back to the Land of Israel.

He is the One, who sustains us to this day. That very God send his Son – Yeshua, in order to save and redeem us, and to lead us to his promised land.

During the Passover, our children taste the Maror - the bitterness of our life in Egypt, they eat Matza – the unleavened bread, for a week, so they will understand that the children of Israel had to leave Egypt in haste, and the dough had no time to rise.

From history we learn the answer to the important question: “Why did God command?”, why are we commanded to celebrate the Passover, the Feasts of Tabernacles or the Sabbath? God commanded us to keep the holidays in a certain way, because it is the best way to preserve our collective memory through the generations.

The book of Exodus begins with forgetting. The new Pharaoh did not know Joseph, he did not remember who Joseph was. But we, the descendants of Jacob, here today – we still remember.

Our story begins with an outstretched arm of God, with hope and freedom. We are tell our children about our responsibilities, our hope and our redemption.