The Objective of this study is:

To examine how Jesus fulfilled the prophetic symbolism of the Passover Festival

To examine how a Jewish time perspective affects the chronology of events.

​

For more than 1700 years the Christian world has had a tradition that Jesus was crucified on Friday and raised from the dead Sunday morning.

“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be
three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Matt 12:40, see also Luke 11:29

 

Question:
How do you get three days and three nights from Friday evening to Sunday Morning?

 

The fact that you cannot get three days and three nights from Friday evening to Sunday morning may cause a small crisis in your mind. If Jesus did not fulfill this prophecy, how can I depend upon the rest of his teachings? As it turns out, there is no need to panic. We shall see that Jesus beautifully fulfills this prophecy, as well as other prophecies from the Old Testament scriptures.

 

A Return to God’s Worldview

The original context of the Passion Week of Christ is a Feast of Yahweh (God) called Passover.  Passover is a meal which begins a 7-day festival called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Is it quite impossible to understand the full significance of the Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection if we separate Jesus from the prophetic symbolism contained in Passover.

 

“For Christ, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.” 1 Corinthians 5:7-8

 

Christianity, via the Catholic Church, long ago relegated the Festivals of God, such as the Passover, to the dustbins of Old Testament Judaism and replaced them with "Christianized" pagan overlays such as Good Friday (fish day) and Easter (Ishtar the Goddess). The organized Church did this to ease pagan conversion. Other examples of pagan culture "converted" for Christian use include  Christmas and the Mexican "day of the dead". This method of evangelism is called "cultural assimilation".  Unfortunately, the long-term result is that the original prophetic context in which Jesus' death, burial and resurrection took place is "glossed over" and pushed far into the background.  

 

What happened to Passover? Is it really just an old Jewish tradition best left to scholars and historians?

I hope you will find, as I have, that remembering how Jesus fulfilled the Passover brings the Gospel message to life in a very powerful way.