My spiritual DNA is Hebrew. That's true of all Christians. "... because salvation is from the Jews." Jesus said that to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. (John 4:22) Before he left Samaria, she and her neighbors came to realize they had met the prophesied Messiah.
Christians believe Jesus was indeed the mashiach, or in Greek, Christos or "the Christ," "the anointed," "the chosen." Adonai or the Lord, Yahweh, the Creator of the universe had long promised a savior to His chosen people, the Israelites.
So, at this time each year, there is a fascinating intertwining of spiritual roots, vines and branches. The weeklong Jewish Passover and feast of unleavened bread with Christianity's Holy Week that culminates in Easter.
“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer ..." Jesus said as he prepared to begin his passion, death and resurrection. (Luke 22:15) It was there, the Last Supper, that a new Passover began for Christian believers.
The first Passover came thousands of years earlier, at a time in Egypt not unlike our current global circumstances and pandemic. Jews who ate that first Seder meal, stood with sandals on their feet, girded loins, and carrying staffs in their hands. They hastily dined on roasted lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They were in a hurry to escape from bondage. No time to wait for loaves to rise.
That Passover marked the 10th of ten plagues inflicted on Pharaoh and his people who had enslaved and oppressed the Israelite nation for more than 400 years. Locusts, flesh infesting boils, swarms of frogs and a Nile River that ran red like blood horrified the Egyptian nation. None was more devastating than the 10th, the angel of death sent by Adonai to take the life of every first-born Egyptian, including their beasts.
But Moses, the chosen mediator for his people had prepared them. Each Hebrew family had slaughtered a lamb for that first Passover of the Lord, and saved its blood to mark their outer doorways as a sign of faith. It was this mark, the blood of the lamb that would protect them from the deadliest plague. For them, the 10 afflictions would be replaced by Ten Commandments. Moses received this spiritual and moral code from God, as his rescued people wandered in the desert in search of their freedom and divine inheritance -- the promised land.
Centuries later, when Jesus celebrated Passover in Jerusalem, thousands gathered for priests to slay their sacrificial lambs and kid goats at the Temple. They captured the blood in bowls, splashing it on a massive altar. This spectacle commemorated the miracle of mercy for a nation, when the divine shattered Egyptian shackles and set Israel free, saved by the sign of blood -- God's very life force in animals and humans.
Today, we wander our streets, navigating unseen danger in social deserts across the world. Like pilgrims seeking refuge, we wear medical masks, many homemade, to ward of an invisible virus and protect others -- if we might be carrying COVID-19, this modern day plague.
Yet, we know that if we escape this evil, there will be another time when we must "passover" from the temporary to the eternal. From this life into the next. Death will come and we will inherit the everlasting. A place where time is not kept.
That was the promise Jesus offered. Not a global cure of earthly suffering. But an inner peace built on the knowledge that the death of lamb of God was a final Passover sacrifice that would mark every nation, and every person for safe passage to the promised land.
B' Shalom.
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