Rabbi Schneider - Passover: The Lamb of God
It’s really interesting that the early church did not call the resurrection of Yeshua Easter. Instead, the celebration of Yeshua’s resurrection was connected to Passover. Today we have a culture that associates the resurrection of Yeshua with a day that we call Easter. But if you’ll research this on your own, some of you know this, some of you don’t. If you research this on your own, just do a quick Google search» where does the word Easter come from?» and you’ll see there’s no argument about this. This is not something that I’m pulling out of thin air.
You’ll see it for yourself in black and white when you research it. Easter was actually a pagan holiday that was associated with the sun being directly over the earth’s equator that happened in the springtime. But what happened was the early church began to Romanize the Christian faith, and they began to take traditional Jewish celebrations and connect them to pagan Roman culture. And that’s what happened with the resurrection of Jesus. You see, when we get into the New Testament, and when we connect the New Testament to the Old Testament, what we see is there’s no such mention of Easter. The Yeshua’s resurrection happened during the Passover season.
So that being said, we’re gonna go now to one of the most important chapters in the Torah. We’re gonna go to the book of Vayikra, which is the Hebrew word for Leviticus. In Leviticus chapter 23, the Lord gives to Moses Shabbat, Lord gives to Moses the celebration of the Sabbath, and what we call the seven appointed days of the Lord. Now, what is so important for God’s people today to understand is that these seven appointed days of the Lord were all connected, hand like a glove connected, to the ministry of Yeshua HaMashiach, our Savior.
Jesus was crucified on Passover. John points this out to the tee in his Gospel. The Spirit of God came on But then there’s two other feasts between Passover and Shavuot that are also connected to the ministry of Jesus when He walked the earth approximately 2,000 years ago that are a little bit more They’re the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which Yeshua was buried during, and then the Feast of First Fruits when Jesus rose from the dead. The Feast of First Fruits in Leviticus 23 took place on the day after the Sabbath that immediately followed Passover. So what day is the Sabbath? Sabbath is on Saturday. The day after the Sabbath is referred to in modern terms as Sunday, the first day of the week.
What day did Yeshua rise from the dead? On Sunday, the day after the Sabbath, the day of, listen now, in the Torah, First Fruits. What happened on First Fruits? The Israelite farmer would take the first crop of his field. He would bring that spring crop to the priest, the first of that spring harvest he brought to the priest. The priest then would take the Israelite farmer’s crop and wave it before the Lord. And in doing that, what was happening was that the entire harvest now of that Israelite farmer was considered sanctified because that farmer brought the first of his harvest to the priest to present it to the Lord. Now, also think about this interesting fact.
When did that first harvest come? It came… this is a spring holy day. The Feast of First Fruits is a spring holy day. Think about this. During the wintertime, the earth is not nearly as alive-looking as it is in the spring and the summer. In fact, in many parts of the world, during the wintertime, you look outside, everything is gray. A lot of times it’s cloudy and gloomy. There’s no flowers. There’s no leaves on so many of the trees. The earth often looks colorless during the winter. But in the springtime, when the rains come and the warm weather comes, the earth that looked dead during the winter time, that dead earth immediately sprouts up and comes to life. Flowers begin to break forth, right? Leaves break out from the trees.
So during the Feast of First Fruits, when that Israelite farmer’s harvest sprang forth, it’s like that earth that looked dead just a few months ago suddenly bam, the crops came forth, and it’s like that dead earth was raised to life. Again, Yeshua, my beloved friend, was raised during the Feast of First Fruits. What does this mean? That even as the earth looked dead in the winter and came to life in the spring, so Yeshua rose from the dead during First Fruits as the first of those, listen now, that are alive from the dead. That’s why He’s called, Paul refers to Jesus as Christ our First Fruits. And the scripture teaches that if Christ our first fruits has been raised, then you and I that are in union with Him will also be raised.
You and I are the second fruit, the third fruit, the fourth fruit. And so all of this is connected to the Hebrew roots of our faith. So when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, we’re connecting it to First Fruits even as was the custom of the early church because First Fruits is really part of the Passover season, even as Polycarp did, the Bishop of Smyrna and one of the apostolic leaders of the church. And so what we’re wanting to do is to restore God’s church back to the Jewish roots of her faith, of your faith. The term Easter, it’s really a pagan term. But our faith doesn’t come out of paganism, it’s the fulfillment of Judaism.
That’s why the first verse in the New Testament, Matthew 1:1 says this: «This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, » right? The very first verse of Matthew, the very first verse of the New Testament, the Brit Chadasha brings us back to the book of Genesis, to the Hebrew Scriptures. God wants to adorn us in His beauty by restoring to us the correct historicity of our faith and the beautiful anointing that comes upon us when we’re able to worship Him, not only in spirit, but also in truth.
And the truth is that your Savior, beloved, according to the flesh, is a Jew, and He’s coming back, according to the book of Revelation, as the offspring of David. And you’re going to a city called New Jerusalem whose gates are inscribed with the 12 apostles and the 12 tribes of Israel. This is a Jewish thing. So what I’m wanting to do today is to inspire you and to bless you and to help you and to encourage you that some of you have been walking with the Lord for a long time and sometimes you’re getting a little bored because you feel like, you know, you’ve already heard everything before. But for many of you discovering the Jewish roots of your faith, this is a brand new study in the Word of God that you’ve not yet delved into. I want to encourage you.
Dive deep in the Jewish roots of your faith. We’re not talking about legalism. We’re not talking about putting anybody under the law. But we’re talking about receiving God’s self-revelation that He gave us in the Hebrew Bible and being able to connect, beloved one, the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament. Because Jesus said, «Do not think I’ve come to abolish the Law in the Prophets. I’ve not come to abolish, but to fulfill, » or to fill the Hebrew Bible up with meaning. So I’m wanting to encourage you today. There are some years that the celebration of Passover and Easter are weeks apart. But in reality, Yeshua wasn’t crucified weeks after Passover was over or weeks before Passover began. Yeshua was crucified and rose from the dead during the Passover season. That’s why Paul referred to Him as Christ our Passover. Passover incorporates the death, burial, and resurrection of Messiah Yeshua.