How the Passover Foreshadows Easter

Show Notes

Ever since the Hebrew children escaped slavery in Egypt, the Jewish people have celebrated the Passover. In this episode of the Barbara Rainey Podcast, Barbara points out a few of the ways the Passover meal points to Jesus and the events surrounding Easter. Hear ideas for how you can bring those details into your own celebration.

What is The Barbara Rainey Podcast?

Barbara Rainey mentors women in their most important relationships. She loves encouraging women to believe God and experience Him in every area of their lives.

Michelle: Today, on the Barbara Rainey Podcast:

Barbara: As Jesus was being led to the hill carrying His cross, the fathers of families were bringing their lambs into the city of Jerusalem to take them to the temple. As He was nailed to the cross, the lambs were being taken into the temple. As the lambs were being slaughtered in the temple, Jesus was hanging on the cross, and He was dying.

Michelle: We’ll take a closer look at some of the connections between the Old Testament festival of Passover and Easter.
Welcome to the Barbara Rainey Podcast, helping you be changed by Jesus which will, in turn, transform your home. Thanks for listening!

MUSIC

Michelle: If she’s said it once, she’s said it a thousand times: Easter is about a lot more than pastel colors, the Easter Bunny, and new clothes. And as the mother of six and grandmother to many more, Barbara has often pondered how to raise the bar, so to speak, when it came to Easter.

Barbara: As I look at my own children who are now grown and have their own kids, it reminds me of what it was like when I was in their shoes and wanted to make Easter more meaningful but didn’t know what to do.

The culture doesn’t help us because kids are usually in school. A lot of them are even in school on Good Friday. There’s no break. We used to have spring break the week before Easter in a lot of school districts. Sometimes that’s the case, but not always, so it doesn’t have the cultural help.

We don’t have the free time like we do at Christmas to be able to think about what to do. So it’s harder for our families today to be able to figure out how to make Easter meaningful. How do I elevate this with my family? What do I do, because what’s in the stores has nothing to do with Jesus?

It’s an uphill climb for us as believers, but I really believe God wants us to do this because it’s our witness.So it’s a real uphill climb to help families make something meaningful out of Easter.

Michelle: An uphill climb… but the view from the top is so worth it! What we observe on Good Friday, and what we celebrate on Resurrection Sunday are the events at the very heart of the gospel. So it’s key for parents to pass these truths on to their children, and for Christians in every season of life to meditate on them. Barbara says that doesn’t just happen by itself.

Barbara: We have to take the time to look at it. We have to take the time to talk about it and read about it so that we can turn our minds. We can’t turn our minds without being focused. But I really believe God wants us to do this, because it’s our witness. We can’t talk about Christ without the cross. Our conversation would be meaningless if Christ hadn’t died and purchased our salvation. So we have to celebrate this pinnacle event of our faith for our conversations to have meaning when we talk to people who don’t know Him.

Michelle: To aid folks in understanding and thinking about the significance of Easter, Barbara designed a set of eight Resurrection Day cards. They help you understand the background and events surrounding the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The thinking is that you could set one at each place at your dinner table, or display them somewhere in the home. I’ll let you know how you can get a set later in this episode, along with a beautiful table setting.

The first card talks about Jesus as the Light of the world. Barbara explains that in Bible times, the Jews would take annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem for festivals like Passover.

Barbara: They were familiar with that concept of light. And one of the reasons they were was because there were these two enormous gold candelabras in the temple.

Michelle: Think of the height of a seven-story building.

Barbara: Seventy feet high. They were enormous. We think of a candelabra that can sit on top of a table, if we even know what one is.

But these were in what’s called the court of the women, these giant candelabra. And it’s said in some old writings that when the candelabra were lit, they were so bright that the light spilled outside of the temple and into the surrounding neighborhoods all around the temple.

Michelle: In our world of electricity and lights and power and cables and “light pollution,” it’s easy to forget how amazing it must have been to see the glow from miles away. Barbara reminds us that Jesus connected that theme of light to Himself.

Barbara: I think for us to appreciate, not just Jesus’ words, and not just what He did, but everything that He communicated to us. It helps us to understand and appreciate it if we can go back to the time in which He lived and the setting in which He spoke these words.

So, for instance, in this particular card, it talks about how Jesus went into the temple. He was very familiar with the temple. And those candelabra were symbolic of God being the Light of the world. And Jesus, then, stood there and said, “I am the Light of the world.”

He tied Himself verbally and visually to something the Jewish people understood because they were very familiar with these candelabra. So when He said that, He was connecting Himself to their tradition that had been for several thousand years, and He was saying to them, “I am the Light of the world. I am God. And in Me you will find light.”

It was not just a nice statement that He made—and I think we hear it, and we think, Oh, that’s really nice. That’s really sweet. But it’s got layers and layers and layers of meaning. And the more we look at those layers of meaning, then we say, “Oh, now I see.”

In the Passover meal, that lighting of the candle was symbolic of God being the Light of the world, and that God is the one who brought light. It says in Genesis, “God said, ‘Let there be light’” (Gen. 1:3 NIV). There wasn’t light in the darkness, and He said, “Let there be light.”

I think it’s really wonderful that this is the way it’s always been in the Passover meal—but the mother of the house is the one who has the privilege of lighting that candle on the Passover table. It’s because the Jewish tradition said that the light of the world came through the woman. And, in fact, it’s true, because Mary gave birth to Jesus, who was the Light of the world.

Even that little, small detail helps us understand that nothing with God is accidental. There’s meaning in everything that He chose to do, because it’s all on purpose, and it’s all intended to communicate with us so that we can know Him. He wants us to know Him, so He shows us in all kinds of different ways how we can.

Michelle: The second of the Resurrection Day devotional cards references “Hidden Bread.” Barbara explains.

Barbara: Well, this is a fun one, and I think children would have enjoyed this one because this is the story of the Passover meal. The Passover meal is still celebrated this way today. So if you went and experienced a Passover meal, a Seder dinner with Jewish friends or in your local Jewish temple, they will still do this same thing.

They will take the bread, and the father, after he says the blessing, will break the bread into three pieces. He takes the middle piece, and he wraps it in a napkin. He gets up from the table, and he goes and hides it.

It’s interesting; it’s the middle portion, which is symbolic of who Jesus is, because He’s the second member of the Trinity.

So the middle piece of bread is symbolic of Jesus. It’s wrapped in a napkin, which is a symbol of Jesus being wrapped in the linen cloths when He was buried, and the father takes it and hides it.

Then later on during the meal, the children get to go find it. Whoever finds it brings it to the father, and the father gives him some coins to buy it back from, which is also a symbol that took place in Easter.

Michelle: The Biblical concept of “buying back” is captured in the word “redemption.” When Jesus died, He was redeeming, paying the price to purchase His people from their slavery to sin and the devil.

Barbara says she wrote the cards partly to help young ones feel the emotions surrounding Passover.

Barbara: I love this story. I love reading it. I think, for children, it’s engaging enough that children can hear it and pick up on the excitement of what the Passover feast used to be like and how every detail of the Passover feast, the Passover dinner, that Jews for centuries have been celebrating together year after year after year point to Jesus.

When you read this together as a family, you begin to see how all of that wove together, leading to Jesus.

Michelle: Do you remember what Jesus did that night after He and the disciples ate the Passover meal, just hours before He was arrested and eventually crucified?

It says he took the bread, broke it, gave thanks, and then He told the disciples, “This is my body, which is for you” (1 Cor. 11:24).

So comparing Jesus to bread is a metaphor He himself used on more than one occasion. And it’s captured on the Resurrection Day cards in a way that’s simple enough for children to grasp and meaningful enough for all to appreciate.

Barbara: That’s why I think families will enjoy this because I think, again, as I’ve said, we want to make Easter special. We want to elevate it and do something that’s beyond the ordinary, but we don’t know how. So this is a very easy way for you to do this with your family or with friends or with whoever you might gather with at Easter.

Just to read these short—very, very short—little stories about what Jesus accomplished for us . . . And I hope it will do for you what it’s done for me, which is bring me to worship. When I read what He did, the intricate details that were portrayed for me, I just am in awe of what God did.

I think that’s the experience God wants us to have on Resurrection Day, to be in awe of what He did for us.

Michelle: Another card speaks about the cup of redemption.

Barbara: During the Passover meal there were always four cups of wine that they shared around the table. And interestingly, during the Passover feast that Jesus had with His disciples before He went to the cross, they passed the cup around. Jesus said, “I will not drink of this until I drink of it again in My Father’s house.” And so even that is a symbol of it.

And, of course, then He said, “This is My blood that is spilled for you.” And then He talked about drinking His blood. It’s a picture of how we have to take in Him. We take Jesus into our lives. He feeds us, and His blood cleanses us.

And so, understanding about that is really pivotal for understanding Easter. I think the whole blood aspect is what makes people shy away from Easter. Everybody loves babies, and Christmas is about a newborn baby.

But people don’t know what to do about blood. We don’t like it. The sight of it makes a lot of us cringe, turns people’s stomachs. And Easter is about blood. That’s a real hard concept for us to know even what to do with.

But for a believer, once you understand the meaning and the blood that Christ shed for us and the redemption that it purchased for us, then we can celebrate it. We can celebrate what Christ did for us by shedding His blood on the cross. Yes, it was gory; yes, it was horrible, but He did it out of love for us. When we can understand that, again that brings us to worship and to awe for what He did. And . . . it changes our lives.

Michelle: We’re looking at pictures of Jesus that were planted by God in the Jewish celebration of Passover— metaphors that foreshadowed Christ. Another is the sacrifice of the Passover lamb.

Barbara: Well, honestly, just looking at this card and hearing you talk about it, it just gives me chills. I mean, I just felt it running up and down me. I thought, This is absolutely the coolest thing in the world.

I started doing some reading from some old Jewish writers who wrote about what it was like in those days. I was amazed at the parallels with Jesus.

As Jesus was being led to the hill carrying His cross, the fathers of families were bringing their lambs into the city of Jerusalem to take them to the temple.

The lambs are raised in Bethlehem, which is even cooler. Bethlehem is the city because it was very near Jerusalem. On the hills where the shepherds heard the angels announcing Jesus’ birth, that’s what they were doing. They were raising lambs for sacrifices.

So those very lambs that came from Bethlehem were being led into the city as Jesus, the Lamb of God, was being led through the city to the hill to be nailed to the cross. As He was nailed to the cross, the lambs were being taken into the temple. And as the lambs were being slaughtered in the temple, Jesus was hanging on the cross, and He was dying.

It’s just such an incredible picture of the timing, because at 9 a.m. in the morning was when He was hammered on the cross, and that’s when the lambs were being slaughtered.

I don’t think anybody put two and two together. I don’t think anybody got it because the Jewish people were so tradition-bound. They were so soaked in what they’d been doing for thousands of years that they were just going about their business.

Michelle: For six hours, Jesus hung on that cross. Then, at 3 PM…

Barbara: The soldier came to Jesus, and He pierced His right side, and, as we know, blood and water spilled to the ground. At the same time, the priests in the temple were trying to clean up the blood.

What they would do was they’d take these big pitchers of water, and they would slosh it on the altar, which was dripping with blood. Out the side of the temple flowed water and blood mixed together, which was a perfect picture of the water and the blood coming out of Jesus’ right side.

When I read that the first time, I don’t remember weeping, but I remember just being in awe of the precision that God orchestrated in those details lining up with such perfection that whole day. I just think it, again, brings us to worship when we realize what Jesus accomplished on the cross and how for centuries He had been telling His people through the Passover sacrifice, through the Passover meal, “Look for Jesus. Look for someone who looks like this.”

God was saying, “I’m bringing Someone who’s going to do this so that you don’t have to do it over and over again. Someday Someone will come, and He will be your sacrifice, once and for all.”

Michelle: That’s Barbara Rainey, sharing some of what you’ll find on the Resurrection Day cards. With Easter just around the corner, you’ll want to order your set as soon as possible. It’s available from Ever Thine Home for your gift of $50 or more.

I also want to let you know about the beautiful Easter tablescape from Ever Thine Home. This Easter tablescape will help you plan an Easter celebration that is worthy of our risen Lord. It includes:

Eight napkins that unveil Jesus' journey to the cross. You can read them during your Easter dinner and be amazed by the work of Christ.
There are four placemats, each with a different “Hallelujah” phrase about Jesus' victory. The placemats are printed in gold on white cotton, and they create the foundation for your Christ centered Easter celebration.
And finally, the tablescape includes a Redeemer Cross. It can serve as a centerpiece for your table. The whole bundle is available for a donation of $250 or more.

Supplies are limited so go to our website.

EverThineHome.com/Easter. The Resurrection Day cards and the Easter Tablescape are both listed there. Once again, the web address is EverThineHome.com/Easter.

Thank you for listening today. May your Easter be full of joy and worship as you celebrate what Christ has done for us.

I’m Michelle Hill, inviting you back next time, for another edition of The Barbara Rainey Podcast, from Ever Thine Home.