Passover Points To A God Who Keeps His Promises
Dear friend in the Messiah,
I would like to wish you a Happy Passover and Easter.
Since the exodus, Jewish people have celebrated Passover as a memorial to God’s love, power, and plan for His chosen people. It is a reminder of how the Lord of the universe, against all odds, promised to deliver the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and bring them back to the land of Israel (Genesis 15:13–14). Passover reminds us God has not forgotten His promises to His people.
If God keeps His promises to Jewish people, then we have further confidence He will keep His promises to all those who have trusted in Jesus!
Each year, on the fourteenth day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar, God asks the people of Israel to stop whatever they are doing and observe the Passover—regardless of circumstances. The Jewish community observed the festival amid the darkest moments of Jewish history—the Crusades, pogroms in Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, and the wars following the formation of the modern State of Israel in 1948.
Despite the terrible loss of life on October 7, 2023, and the ongoing war we currently face in Israel, Jewish people will again remember God’s miraculous redemption and faithfulness revealed in the Passover! The observance of Passover is a higher priority than all other events or challenges we face as families and as Jewish individuals. Our busy schedules must bow to the Lord’s commands and plans—this is true not only for Jewish people but for every follower of Jesus as well!
The prioritizing of God’s will we learn from observing the Passover and other holidays is a critical lesson for those who want to follow the Lord. We need to be ready to drop what we are doing in order to obey the Lord and follow Him. This practice is an important lesson Christians can learn from Jewish people.
Passover: Hope for Shattered Trust
On October 7, most Israelis lost trust in the army and government, whose preparation for and response to the flagrant violation of Israel’s borders was insufficient at best. I cannot blame my fellow Jewish people living in Israel for feeling this way, as they were profoundly disappointed by those entrusted to protect them. When we draw back the curtains of history and look at the story of Passover, we see there is only One who merits our complete trust—God Himself.
Egypt trusted in their numerous gods, but the God of Israel proved Himself stronger than them all. The Lord delivered His people “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deuteronomy 26:8). Passover teaches us God shows up at the right time, even when it seems all odds are stacked against Jewish people. We trust in God alone for Israel’s ultimate deliverance from her enemies at the end of days.
The Bible teaches all humankind is damaged by sin, which clouds our judgment and often causes us to place the concerns of this world above God’s concerns. Even the people we love sometimes disappoint us because of sin. Sin also taints all human institutions, which ultimately disappoint us.
God warned Israel not to trust in man but rather in God:
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord! (Isaiah 31:1)
I understand this passage very personally, as I trusted in the world until the day I met the Jewish Messiah, who delivered me from my false reliance and enabled me to stand upon the rock of His faithfulness. Though it may take some time, and we may struggle with trusting in the Lord and not leaning on our own understanding—or the understanding of others—the Lord will always prove Himself trustworthy. My prayer for my people today is for this disenchantment with institutions and people to lead to a deeper trust in the God of Israel and His promises.
In God We Should Trust
When I think about the future of Jewish people, I think of passages in the prophets like Isaiah 62, Amos 9, and Jeremiah 31. Perhaps we can take a quick look at this last passage and remember God’s promises of Israel’s deliverance:
Thus says the Lord, “If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 31:37)
God’s faithfulness to His covenant with Abraham will not allow Him to stand by and watch the destruction of His chosen people. The Lord Himself will make sure Israel fulfills the purposes for which He created and chose them. Passover is an excellent example. For the Israelites to fulfill their divine calling, they had to dwell in the land of promise. Egypt’s power could not stand in the way, and God rescued His people with great signs. Passover is a reminder of God’s faithful track record. Because He has saved and sustained His people thus far, we can be confident He will continue.
We already see signs of Jesus’ soon return when all Israel will recognize Him as the Savior. Many Jewish people have returned to the land of Israel in unbelief and will one day experience the fullness of the Spirit of God. The dry bones of Ezekiel 37 will come alive! Yet, this fulfillment is only the beginning. Jewish people simply living in the land does not satisfy the totality of the Abrahamic promise, as Israel must inherit the land and dwell in peace with her neighbors:
In that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:24–25)
As we well know, this has yet to happen! However, it will come to pass when Jewish people turn to Jesus, and He returns to reign as King. Jerusalem, Israel, and the world will then be transformed.
Too often, we end Israel’s story at the cross and see Jewish people replaced by those who follow Jesus—including Jewish people and Gentile nations—without understanding the day will come when Jewish people return to the Lord and Messiah. Only then will the world be blessed as the Holy One promised to Abraham (Genesis 12:3).
Darrell Bock, a New Testament scholar, often says the inclusion of the Gentiles does not demand the exclusion of the Jewish people from the purposes of God (Romans 11:17–18).
Another incredible blessing we look forward to when Jesus returns is God Himself will once again rule over His creation without the limitations the fall caused. As Jeremiah wrote:
They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. (Jeremiah 31:34)
For those who follow Jesus, part of this verse has already come to pass, as God has forgiven all our sins because of our faith in the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. However, this prophecy has obviously yet to be fulfilled entirely. Nevertheless, I believe the universal reign of the one true King is one of the glorious results of the second coming of Jesus!
Passover not only reminds Jewish people of God’s plan of redemption but also reminds those who love the Jewish Messiah today He will come again to deliver our beautiful-but-broken world from the darkness and frailty of sin once and for all.
Passover makes me cry out: “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).
Happy Easter and Passover from your Chosen People Ministries family,
P.S. My heart still breaks for the hostages. We must not forget about them but continue to pray for their release from captivity, especially during Passover!
