The Significance of Passover. How Jesus is the Fulfillment of the Passover Lamb.

Podcast Transcript: Interview with Laurie Vanderpool – 4/19/2019

In Episode 9, Jacklyn has Laurie Vanderpool explain in great detail the significance of Passover for Christians and how perfectly Jesus fulfilled our need for the perfect Passover Lamb.

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[00:00] JVB: Hello, everybody. And welcome back to another LiveBeyond podcast. My name is Jacklyn Vanderpool Barnett. And today I am so excited about what we’re going to be talking about. Today I have invited Mama Laurie to join me in talking about the significance of Passover. So, Mom, let’s just go ahead and jump right in and tell us a little bit about the history of Passover.

[00:20] LSV: Well, first of all, I’d like to say that that everybody’s looking forward to this weekend, to Sunday. Many people call it Easter Sunday. You can also refer to it is Resurrection Day, and it is a day that is celebrated around the world and throughout the Kingdom of God because it has the significance of remembering the day that Jesus rose from the dead. And Passover is very significantly aligned with that. We would not have Resurrection Day if we didn’t have Passover. So, I think that it is interesting and important for us to, to recognize that the two are absolutely combined. That Jesus was crucified as our Passover Lamb and He rose as our resurrected Lord and Savior. So, so it’s a thrilling weekend that we have coming up.

History of Passover

[01:17] JVB: So, tell us a little bit about the history of Passover going all the way back to when the Lord led the Israelites out of Egypt.

[01:25] LSV: Well, the feast is celebrated every year to remember that original “Passed Over.” And we use the word so easily these days that we forget that it really refers to the fact that the Angel of the Lord passed over the homes of the people who had put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. And Moses was leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. And the very last plague was that the Lord God was going to kill the first born of the Egyptians, and those who had put the blood of the lamb on their door would be saved. So, all of the Israelites also in order to be saved, had to put the blood of the lamb on the door post of their homes, and the death angel actually passed over their houses. And that’s why we now refer to this feast as Passover because it’s talking about the way that the death angel passed over their homes. So, when the Lord used Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, they stopped at Mount Sinai, and the Lord gave the command for the children of Israel to remember that the, that the death angel had passed over. So, every year they were commanded to celebrate the Passover, and it’s become just a, a wonderful feast with many traditions that, that refer to two major events in history. One was the first one. That was the foreshadowing of the second one. And that was that, that the children of Israel were brought from the kingdom of darkness, which was when they were slavery in Egypt, into the kingdom of God when they were brought into the Promised Land and brought out of slavery. Brought out of that, that darkness. But it was pointing to the ultimate picture of when Jesus Christ our Lamb was crucified so that we could be purchased by his blood and not destroyed by the death angel, that we would be transferred from the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light.

[03:44] JVB: Before we even get into a little bit of Jesus’s crucifixion and how that lines up with Passover, I want us to talk about the Passover Seder. Growing up, that was something that you and Dad always prioritized in our family. We always participated in the Seder, but I think a lot of people maybe don’t know a whole lot about it or have not participated. And so, can you give a little snip it a little picture of what the Seder is?

Passover Seder

[04:15] LSV: Well, it’s a wonderful experience, and you’re right, Jacklyn. Didn’t we have fun in those years that we would always looked forward to the Passover season? And, and that, that is always wrapped up with the resurrection of Jesus. So, we wanted to make sure that our children understood the importance of it, the practicality of it, and the beautiful picture that the Lord has painted for us in the Passover. The Seder just actually means “order.” So that’s a Hebrew word for order. So, it’s just sort of the order of events, the order of the service, the order of the celebration. And it starts off with them, you know what the family, all being there gathered around one another and, and there are certain things that you want to include. You want to have the, make sure that you’ve gotten all the yeast, all the leaven out of your house that you start off, lighting the candles. You have the Passover plate, which includes many different items that are all symbolic of the had the different events that happened to both with the original Passover and with Jesus’ death and and resurrection. So, you have a lamb bone that’s on this on this plate is called that the shank bone. You have the bitter herbs, which helps, helps us remember the bitterness that the children of Israel had while they were in slavery. You have the charoset, and that’s the mixture of apples and honey and nuts and wine and cinnamon, and you mix that all together. And that reminds us of the mortar that the children of Israel, that the Israelites used to make the bricks while they were slaves in Egypt. You have the karpas or the parsley, which reminds us of the hyssop or the big cleansing herb, which was what they actually dipped into the, to the lamb’s blood and use that to put it on, then to put the blood on the door post. It’s also what was offered up to Jesus when he was on the cross, the sponge of bitter gall that was offered to him. And the parsley also is green, so it reminds us of springtime and that that celebration of Passover is always in spring. Then there’s always the maror or the horseradish that we eat just a little bit of. And what does it make you do it? If you eat too much…

[06:50] JVB: Umm, makes you cry!

[06:53] LSV: It does. It makes you cry. So, so you’ve remembered that, that those were bitter days and bitter days for the Israelites when they were slaves. And it was also bitter, a bitter time or a very sad time when Jesus was in the grave and people didn’t understand that. But we also remember that at no time are we supposed to allow a root of bitterness to grow up into our heart. And there’s also the salt water, which, which represents the tears that were shed by the slaves and the tears shed by Jesus when he wept over Jerusalem. And then what kind of bread do you eat at Passover, Jacklyn?

[07:32] JVB: You eat the matzah!

[07:34] LSV: Lotsa matzah. And that is the bread that is made without any leaven. It reminds us that the reason we do it is because that Israelites were told to eat quickly to make their bread quickly and, and so their bread didn’t have time to rise. And so, it’s absolutely flat, unleavened bread. With that, we remember that Jesus is the Bread of Heaven and he is also sinless, which is without any leaven. So, so on the night of Passover, we actually break the bread and we are reminded of how Jesus broke, his body was broken. We look at it and we see then the holes that are pierced into the matzah and we remember that Jesus was pierced for our transgressions and we see the stripes that are on the bread and, and we remember with that that by his stripes we are healed. There are actually four cups of wine that we drink that the little children drink four cups of grape juice. But we have, there are four cups of wine that that you have and it’s the wine of blessing. There’s the are the cup of blessing and different cups with different with different symbolism. But we know that it was, was with one of these that Jesus actually held up the cup and he said, “This is the blood of my covenant.” And with that celebration he was instituting the new covenant that he was bringing in to, to his family.

The Afikomen

[09:13] JVB: Absolutely, and before we finished with this, I want to bring up the Afikomen because of the beautiful and clear significance that the Afikomen was talking about Jesus is Yeshua the Messiah, so talk a little bit about the Afikomen as well.

[09:30] LSV: Well the word Afikomen actually means the coming one or the one that is that is coming after. It’s the piece of bread that that you take, and something very special is done with this. When the leader of the Seder, the Passover Seder, is holding up the bread to be blessed, he always holds up three pieces of matzah, so three large pieces of unleavened bread, so the leader of the Seder holds up the plate of matzah. And on this plate there are always three matzah that are wrapped together, and the rabbis have always called these three pieces the unity, which I think is, is so fascinating because we can see the unity and the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And as I said, we see in the matzah that, that the way that Jesus is pierced and the way he has striped, for our transgressions. So, you always make a very important point to make sure that everybody sees that. But the middle piece, the very middle matzah, is taken, and it’s broken in half, which once again reminds us of what Jesus said, “This is my body that is broken for you.” So, you take half of that middle piece and you wrap it in a white sheet or white napkin or a white cloth, and then you hide it until the very end of the ceremony till the very end of the service. And at that point, a child is the one who goes and looks for it. All the children look for it and the father has hidden it somewhere in the house and when it is found, it’s brought back and, and everyone celebrates and they get to eat this last piece of bread. So, Jacklyn, you were often the one who would go off and who would look for the matzah, so what did you learn as the significance of why it was wrapped in white linen and why it was hidden and what it symbolized?

[11:37] JVB: Well, it’s such a beautiful picture of Jesus as our Messiah, and when He died, He was hidden away in a grave. He was wrapped in white linen, and He was laid to rest. But then He rose again and He came. And He is the coming one. He’s, He’s returning, He’s coming back. He rose from the dead. And so, it’s just such a beautiful picture of the resurrection of Jesus as the Messiah. The next question that I have for you is, the significance of Passover, and we kind of have been talking about that already and how it’s important to see how Passover, you know during the time of Moses and then Passover during the time of Jesus, how He is such a beautiful fulfillment of Passover and so maybe going into a little bit more detail about that.

How Yeshua (Jesus) Fulfills the Passover

[12:30] LSV: Well, good. There are three major feasts that the Lord commanded the Israelites to celebrate. The first one in the, in the year is Passover. The next one is Pentecost. And the third one is the Feast of Tabernacles. All three feasts are intertwined with other smaller feasts around them, but those are what they’re predominantly known as with those three names and each one of them has an incredible significance of the fulfillment, from, from what we would refer to as the Old Testament feast or the Old Testament commandments for a feast, the reason for a feast and then the fulfillment of it in the new covenant. Passover has, its significance of fulfillment in the burial, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pentecost, which happened fifty days after the resurrection, was the very same day as when the law was given to the Israelites. So just the law was given in the original setting, the fulfillment of that was when the outpouring and the giving of the Holy Spirit came upon the new believers. So, the Feast of Tabernacles is one that will get to talk about it a lot more detail in a podcast to come. But let’s do talk about the fulfillment of the way Jesus is so perfectly portrayed both in the original Passover and in his death, burial and resurrection. One thing that that is often used in in our time of celebrating Passover is to refer to Jesus by his Hebrew name, what he was actually called in the days of his flesh and still is called by the people who live in Israel and who, and who speak Hebrew. And that is Yeshua. So, it’s very easy for me to refer to Jesus, especially in this time of celebration that Jesus Yeshua is our Passover Lamb. From the very beginning of time, God had been saying to man that there was no way to approach Him except by a blood sacrifice. You know, when Adam and Eve first sinned, they didn’t know what death was like. They disobeyed God, and it’s fascinating to me that God had to sacrifice an animal to create the clothes to cover their sin. Bible didn’t tell us this, didn’t tell us this next part, but I just have to think that that was a lamb, that the Lord sacrificed to make their clothes. They had tried to cover themselves with fig leaves but the Lord covered them with the skin of an animal. And so, in my mind, the skin of the animal was a lamb. Cain and Abel were then required to bring a sacrifice to God. One had an acceptable sacrifice and one didn’t. And the one who had an acceptable sacrifice was Abel because he brought an animal to the Lord. We also know that when Abraham was, was told to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him that the Lord actually stopped Abraham’s hand and you looked over and there was a ram. Whose horns were caught in the thicket. And it’s just that right there is a perfect picture of Jesus, our sacrificed Lamb with the crown of thorns that was on his head. So, in the commandments for celebrating Passover, the Lord told each man to take a lamb. It didn’t have any spot didn’t have any defect. He was to select the lamb on the tenth day of the very first month of the year, and the family was supposed to watch this lamb for five days. They had to inspect it. Keep a close eye on it, watch it for five days. Make sure that there was absolutely no fault in it. And then they were supposed to bring the lambs in to be sacrificed. And the priests of the temple prepared the lambs for sacrifice at 9am, which was the third hour, then all the men killed their lambs, sacrificed their lambs at three o’clock in the afternoon, which was the ninth hour. According to the instructions that we have in scripture the entire lamb was to be roasted. It was all supposed to be consumed. Nothing could be left over for the next day. And then, also, when they were preparing the meal, not one bone of the lamb was to be broken and roasting the lamb, according to these instructions, required that its body is to be placed on the spit that was shaped like a cross bar. Could you just start to see the significance and start to see how this is projecting and looking forward to and casting the light to forward to Jesus? So, during the first Passover, each family in Israel that had their faith in God put the blood of the slaughtered lamb on the doorpost of their house. Then they went inside and ate the lamb. That night, the angel of death swept through Egypt. He looked for every house that did not have the blood on it, that he passed over every home that had applied the blood of the lamb to the door post. This blood was the seal that protected the people inside. Later, when the temple was built, instead of killing the lambs at the door posts, the people would bring the lambs into Jerusalem and have them slaughtered there at the temple. So, for fifteen hundred years, the people of Israel sacrifice lambs to, to the Lord God Almighty to remember that they were redeemed from Egypt. They knew that the blood of the lamb was required. But they also knew that it would just cover their sins. The prophets understood that one day God would send THE Lamb to redeem us from our sins. In fact, it was Isaiah and we have it in Isaiah 53, and he described Jesus this way, didn’t know exactly what he was describing. But he said, “Like a lamb that has led to slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before his shears. So he did not open his mouth. But the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief by his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, will justify the many as he will bear their sins. He himself for the sins of many.” So, one day in Bethlehem, which just happens to be not far from Jerusalem and is where they pasture, the lambs that are prepared, that are in holding, that are in waiting for Passover sacrifice, a little baby boy was born in a stable, the Lamb of God. In fact, when he was presented, John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus’ entire life was predestined, so that He would be the sacrificial lamb, exactly as God had instructed the Jews to practice for 1,500 years. For fifteen hundred years, the Israelites had been celebrating and, and practicing this and knowing that the Lamb was going to come. So, remember, on the tenth day of the month, the families were supposed to take the lamb, and they were supposed to inspect it for five days. On the tenth day of the month, Jesus entered Jerusalem and he was set aside as the Lamb of God said. So, the exact day that Jesus was riding into Jerusalem on a donkey was the day that the Jews were bringing their lambs in to be inspected and to be set aside for observation. For five days, the religious leaders of Israel tested Jesus. They tried to trick Him. They observed Him. They questioned His authority. They were looking for any defect in the Lamb. But Jesus always responded perfectly. They couldn’t find anything wrong with him. And finally, in desperation, they took him to Pilate, hoping that Pilate would see something wrong in him. And after interrogating Jesus and after beating Him, Pilate stood up and said, “I find no fault in him.” Isn’t that amazing? I mean, right there. We see that that perfect correlation that for five days, the lambs were supposed to be watched and inspected and check to make sure that they didn’t have any spot or defect. And that’s exactly what Jesus endured for those five days.

[22:27] JVB: And He stood before Pilate quiet, just like it says in Isaiah that He stood before the shearers. Silent. That just, I mean, just such a perfect correlation.

[22:43] LSV: It is, just absolutely perfect. So not only was Jesus crucified on the same day that the lambs were killed. But Jacklyn, you know what, it was even at the exact hour. The Book of Mark is so careful to say, “now it was the third hour when they crucified him.” Then, at the ninth hour, when all the lambs were being slaughtered at the temple, the Roman guards watched Jesus die. So, I want to make sure that I say that again. You know, make sure that I say it in a way that it is clear for everyone. They were to bring in their lambs on the third hour. And then on the ninth hour, there were to be slaughtered, and Mark was careful to say that at the third hour they put him on the cross. They crucified him. And on the ninth hour the Roman guards watched and saw that Jesus died. So once again, just the absolute perfect correlation. Just as we had said earlier, just as the lambs were prepared and put on a, on a crossbar over a spit. Jesus died on a cross. God declared that no bone of the Passover lamb was to be broken. And, and the book of John tells us that as the Roman soldiers were going through and, and they’re broke the legs of the other two thieves who were who were crucified there on the cross next to Jesus, they came to him and saw that he was already dead. So they did not break his legs. John saw this and he even wrote and he said “For these things were done that the Scriptures should be fulfilled. Not one of his bones should be broken.” Just as God had specifically instructed the Jews, to eat the whole lamb and not allow any of it to be left over for the next day. Once again, these instructions were followed out with Jesus. Because John tells us how the people were concerned that the bodies were not to be left on the cross. So Jesus, our sacrificial lamb allowed himself to be fully consumed for our sins. And his body was taken down, wrapped in a white linen cloth, and he was laid to rest in a nearby tomb. So, Jesus, his body lay in that tomb during Sabbath, the day of rest and the day after Sabbath, the day after the Sabbath of Passover. So, Passover could come on different days of the week. But the day after the Sabbath of Passover, which all this time just happened to be on the exact right day is what is called the Feast of First Fruits. And on this day, the priests are to wave the sheaves of the Bit Kurim are the first fruits of the harvest before God. So, they actually waved their arms and wave the sheaves up before The Lord, and Jesus fulfilled this feast when He rose from the grave. I can just see Him waving. And He was the first fruits from the dead. Listen to this. This is first Corinthians 15:20-23, “But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came by man, by man also came the resurrection from the dead. For us in Adam, all die. Even so in Christ, all shall be made alive but each one in his own order. Christ, the first fruits afterwards, those who are Christ’s will be at his coming.” So, Jesus, our Messiah is our Passover Lamb. He took the sin of the whole world upon Himself and He willingly became our sacrificial lamb. It’s His blood, the blood of Jesus, that we apply to our hearts and that blood, just as the original blood protected the people of Israel from the death Angel, the blood of Jesus protects us from judgment, protects us from death because Jesus, who was without sin, without leaven, is our perfect example of matzah, unleavened bread of life. He rose from the dead to be the perfect first fruit, the perfect wave offering before the Lord in the first fruit of the Resurrection. So, we bless the name of Jesus because he is our Passover Lamb.

[27:33] JVB: And hallelujah that it’s not the lamb of, the blood of a lamb to cover our sins but to completely wipe them away.

[27:43] LSV: Yes, absolutely.

[27:45] JVB: That He’s the last lamb that ever needed to be slaughtered for our sins.

[27:49] LSV: No more need of any sacrifice.

What Does All of This Mean?

[27:52] JVB: What does that mean for us now? How can we, with this knowledge, move forward? What? What does this change for us?

[28:00] LSV: You know, that’s a big question. But I think that that that we have to start off with saying that this gives us absolute hope and confidence in God. That no matter what the circumstance is, that it is within God’s plan. That he did something that was celebrated and remembered for 1,500 years before the fulfillment of it came. So that gives me incredible confidence in the Lord God. I know that He is absolutely in control. It is my place to be humble, to be submitted to him, to be in a position where I’m putting myself in front of Him for His will to be done. So, so number one, it gives me confidence in Him. Number two. I think that we need to remember that, that just as Jesus is the Lamb of God, we’re also now made to be lambs of God. And so, we get to join in His sufferings. We get to put ourselves in a position where we’re laying down our lives for other people. That, that if we call ourselves Christians, we call ourselves Messianics, which means “little Christs,” you know, the, the small version of the Messiah that we take on that role and that we will, that we will always be putting ourselves in a position that we are looking for ways to, to bring others from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light. And I think that one, one problem that I’m very concerned about for the body of Christ right now is that we’re always looking for things that God can do for us. And we forget we are the servants, He’s the master, and we are the ones who are to be serving Him, and serving other people is the way we serve Him. So, so we find ways that we can actually join in with Paul, as he said, “I want to know Christ. I want to know the power of his rising. I want to share in his sufferings, and I want to even die a death like he did.” He goes on in that, in that same chapter and he says “All mature people feel this way. And you know what? If you don’t understand it yet God will reveal it to you sooner or later.” But that is that is a mature thought that that we’re not just always looking for something that God will do for us. He’s already done it all. We just need to be constantly telling him, “Thank You,” for all that he’s done and then submitting ourselves to be in His servants to go out in and know that we will never be able to sacrifice and be the Lamb of God, who has covered the sins of all the world. But that we have our ways that we can go out and be lambs.

[31:16] JVB: That’s so beautiful, So beautiful. Well, Mom, thank you so much for joining us today. And I know that it is with great expectation that we get to celebrate this weekend. That we get to celebrate Friday and know that, that was the day that Jesus gave everything for us. But that we get to really celebrate on Sunday. This is risen, Son of God, our Savior and the One who conquers, who rose again and that death could not hold Him back and that He has cleansed us of all of our sins. And it is a great day of rejoicing. And so, thank you for joining us. We’re so grateful to hear from you and to get to learn a little bit about some of the teaching and your insight on Passover. Well, everybody, thank you so much for joining me today. If you’re interested in learning a little bit more about LiveBeyond, you can go online to www.livebeyond.org. We have all of our 2019 and 2020 mission dates online, if you would like to join us and Thomazeau, Haiti. If you also feel like it’s been put on your heart, you can click the donate button and set up a one time or a recurring donation. Thank you so much for joining us. And don’t forget, go out and LiveBeyond!

Additional Resources

Hear more from Laurie here.

Watch an interview she did with Revive Israel, a Messianic Jewish ministry in Israel here.

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