What is passover for christians

To prepare for the tenth plague, God told His people to sacrifice a spotless lamb and paint their doorposts and lintels with its blood Exodus He then gave instructions on a special meal they should eat, a meal symbolic of readiness. I am the LORD. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.

God then gave instructions on how to celebrate Passover, which would commemorate this time and His deliverance. Passover occurs the of the Jewish month of Nissan, which is in March or April by our calendar. On these seven days, the Israelites were to eat nothing with leaven in it, to symbolize the haste with which the Hebrews left Egypt. Once Israel reached the Promised Land, they were to travel to Jerusalem each year to celebrate the Passover. You can learn more about the specifics of Passover here.

As a Jew, Jesus celebrated Passover. Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem every year for Passover, as God had directed Luke , and as an adult, Jesus continued to return to Jerusalem for the Passover and is recorded going more than once with His disciples John The Last Supper, before Jesus was arrested and put to death, was a Passover meal.

The first Christians were Jews, and as such, continued to worship in synagogues and partake in many Jewish customs. Paul, though an apostle to the Gentiles, appears to have continued celebrating Passover Acts ; Acts ; 1 Corinthians Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch — as you really are.

For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Sacrfice as the Passover to the Lord your God an animal from your flock or herd at the place the Lord will choose as a dwelling for his name. Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in hate - so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt Jones holds degrees from the University of Missouri and St.

Paul School of Theology. He is president of the Fellowship of Christian Newspapers. He may be reached at russ christianpress.

This article is part of our larger Holy Week and Easter resource library centered around the events leading up to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We hope these articles help you understand the meaning and story behind important Christian holidays and dates and encourage you as you take time to reflect on all that God has done for us through his son Jesus Christ!

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A Brief History Passover is the oldest and most important religious festival in Judaism, commemorating God's deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and His creation of the Israelite people. What every Christian needs to know about Passover As many prepare to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, knowing the cultural Jewish soil on which Jesus walked is important to a mature and growing Christian faith.

In particular, knowing more about the Seder helps Christians explore the Jewish background of the Last Supper celebrated by Jesus, whom we know was a first-century Jewish teacher, and his disciples, who were also Jewish. Both Jesus and his disciples would have grown up observing the Passover in whatever fashion Jewish people living at the time observed the feast. We agree with the rabbis regarding the importance of caution in the way the sacred traditions of the Jewish faith are handled.

We also agree that Jesus did not celebrate the Passover the way Jewish people commonly observe the festival in the 21st century. However, the Last Supper accounts in the Gospels record a number of themes and practices held in common with the Passover Seder. Perhaps the Last Supper should be viewed as a primitive Seder, which was used by Yeshua as the backdrop for his claim to be the fulfillment of the types and prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures for a greater Lamb, a greater redemption from bondage to sin , and a new perspective on salvation through his shed blood.

In the introduction to a new book entitled Messiah in the Passover , which we edited, Christian readers in particular are encouraged to both study and celebrate the Passover as a way to deepen their appreciation for the Jewishness of the Savior.

Yet, we point out where we do find striking parallels between the religious customs observed by Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper with later Jewish religious developments, and so many of our authors will suggest that these traditions could have been practiced during the Last Supper.

Luke —18, The breaking of bread, which should be understood as matzah, unleavened bread, as we know this meal took place on Passover. Yeshua says,. In the Lucan version, the bread is his body and the wine pictures his blood shed for his disciples.

The allusion to establishing a covenant Mark or a new covenant Luke also assumes a sacrifice and the shedding of blood Heb. In places within the meal and service where you would naturally expect to hear about the deliverance of Israel through the first Exodus, we see Jesus pointing his disciples to his substitutionary death for sinners—a second and even greater Exodus deliverance.

The foot washing that takes place alludes to the various washings in the context of the Passover meal John — Both the significance of the ritual and the timing as taking place during the meal goes beyond the usual custom of foot washing upon entry to a Jewish home. The dipping of the morsel seems to be more ceremonial than part of a meal and could refer to one of the dippings of the Seder, albeit these were further developed in time to come.

We are suggesting that Jesus and his disciples celebrated the Passover the same way any other first-century Jewish family may have done at the time. It is understood that the Messiah did not celebrate what was created over multiple centuries. Yet oral traditions may have existed at the time that were eventually included in the Passover celebration. Christians read and believe the history of Israel recorded in the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament.

Jewish and non-Jewish followers of Jesus believe the Passover is a paradigm for salvation that finds its fulfillment at the Last Supper when Yeshua gave new meaning to what was observed at that time. Christians who observe the Passover almost always use an adapted version of the Haggadah that takes this Messianic fulfillment into consideration.

This is what Messianic Jews and various church groups and Christian church denominations encourage. The rabbis might very well misunderstand what transpires during a Christian or Messianic Jewish Passover Seder.