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Lent Part 1&2

In several weeks, we will be honoring the crucifixion of Yeshua (Jesus). On the Christian calendar this is done on Good Friday, but more accurately it should be on the Jewish calendar on the 14th day of the first month, also known as the month of Nisan, which begins the Passover season at sundown. It is also the night of the Seder Meal. The Seder Meal is when Yeshua took the piece of matzah called the afikomen and broke it and said, “This is My body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.” One half of the afikomen is wrapped in a white napkin and is hidden until later in the Seder. Then He took the cup which is called the Cup of Redemption and said, “This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in My blood.”

Paul tells us that Yeshua is our Passover Lamb and that we are to keep the feast with unleavened bread, for we are now unleavened. Leaven represents sin. The day after the crucifixion begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This is why we Christians should be celebrating these feast days. Why? Because Yeshua died for our sins and now we should be unleavened (without sin). Romans 6 tells us that we should now be dead to sin because our old self has been crucified with Him.

Over the next several weeks, we want to take a closer look at all of this because Lent is not about giving up cake and cookies, but about giving up the sins that keep us from walking in newness of life.

Transfer of Ownership

As we prepare during this time of Lent, we must understand what we are preparing for, and it’s not the Easter bunny and chocolate eggs. What we are actually preparing for is the second coming of Yeshua (Jesus).

You see, Yeshua told us to remember Him at the Seder Meal. So we must ask ourselves, “Why?” Why remember the crucifixion? Why remember Yeshua at this time, this time of Passover? We must understand what Passover is all about. It is about the Exodus of God’s people from slavery. It is about the transfer of ownership.

You see, Pharaoh was the owner of the Jewish people; that is what slavery is all about. God redeemed them; in other words, He paid for their freedom and they became His. That night, the blood of the Passover lamb covered them as the death angel passed over them, and so too the blood of our Passover Lamb, Yeshua, covers us and His redemption paid for us to now belong to God; we are no longer slaves to sin and death, all symbolic in the Exodus: Pharaoh (the devil), Egypt (the kingdom of darkness), leaven (sin), and as for the passing through the Red Sea, well, I will let Paul tell you in Romans 6:3-6: “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Messiah Yeshua have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Messiah was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might have newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.”

It’s hard for you to understand this if you are Catholic because Catholics baptize infants, though that was not always the case; but those who are baptized as adults are submersed into the water, for this is the Jewish way, which is the true meaning of the word baptismo, which then makes the illustration of Paul make more sense. When Israel went into the Red Sea, it was like being submersed (symbolic of death) and buried, and when they came out of the sea, it was like being resurrected.

So the Passover story is for everyone, for Yeshua came as our Passover Lamb and redeemed us from the Kingdom of darkness and brought us into His own Kingdom of Light. We have experienced our own exodus, and we too have experienced a death—a death to sin—and we are no longer slaves to sin because we have died to it. Now we are alive in newness of life.

The question is, are you living in that newness of life or are you still a slave to darkness? We will continue to take a closer look at this question of what we are preparing for throughout this Lenten Season.