Holidays; Holy and Pagan: Passover and Easter

Passover and Easter

Same thing right? I mean we as believers in Messiah Yeshua all know that the Passover recounts the miraculous Exodus of the Children of Israel from Egyptian bondage and how God defeated Egypt and her gods by the 10 plagues. Now fast forward to the Renewed Covenant (New Testament), Yeshua and His disciples were celebrating this Feast in what we know as the Last Supper, and Yeshua applied the celebration of freedom from physical Egyptian bondage to Him, as the Deliverer and our Exodus from the spiritual bondage of sin and satan. Easter just commemorates this by acknowledging His victory over death in the resurrection. Simple, right? So what’s the beef?

Lots! They are indeed, as we shall see, sadly, not the same thing at all, in any way, shape or form.

Let’s first take a look at Passover and then compare it to Easter.

Passover

The Scriptural Command and Account:

⁵ In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord's passover.

⁶ And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.

⁷ In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.

⁸ But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. – Lev. 23:5-8

1 And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying,

² This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.

³ Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:

⁴ And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.

⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:

⁶ And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

⁷ And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.

⁸ And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

⁹ Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof.

¹⁰ And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.

¹¹ And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord's passover.

¹² For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord.

¹³ And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.

¹⁴ And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.

¹⁵ Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

¹⁶ And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.

¹⁷ And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever.

¹⁸ In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.

¹⁹ Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land.

²⁰ Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread.

²¹ Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover.

²² And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.

²³ For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.

²⁴ And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever.

²⁵ And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the Lord will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service.

²⁶ And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service?

²⁷ That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.

²⁸ And the children of Israel went away, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they. – Exd. 12:1-28

Biblical Month: Nissan

Secular Month: March/April

As we have read in the Scripture passages above, Passover was a week long celebration commanded by the ADONAI to be observed forever after, meaning there was never to be a time when we wouldn’t celebrate it, no matter where the Children of Israel ended up on the planet. The Passover meal is one night, but 7 days after one is to observe it by eating matzah, that is, unleavened bread. And so this observance didn’t ended with the advent of the coming of Messiah, if anything it established and solidified this Biblical Feast further! This Feast was to commemorate, as we have said earlier, the defeat of the Egyptian gods via the 10 plagues and the Exodus and escape of Israel from Egyptian slavery. This is done by reenactment. We reenact the last meal, called the Passover Seder, meaning, the Order of Passover, that they had as the Death Angel “Passed Over” them and before they left Egypt in route to the Promised Land. We see Yeshua Himself and His disciples observe this very Feast, but Christians know it in its very condensed form as, “the Last Supper,” or Communion. A traditional Passover Seder can last anywhere from 2-6 hours and Communion only lasts five minutes to a half hour at the most.

Do not be fooled into thinking this Feast is only for the descendants of Abraham  (the Children of Israel), but it is for all peoples. Why? Because, not only Israel left Egypt, but the Scriptures tell us that a “mixed multitude” went with them (Exd. 12:38). The mixed multitude was made up of a representative from all 70 root nations from which all the peoples of the world sprang. So, everyone’s ancestor participated in the Exodus, it is as much Israel’s Feast as it is the peoples of the world. The mixed multitude, they too participated in this Passover meal. If they were circumcised, they ate the sacrificial Passover Lamb, if they were not, they did not partake of the Lamb. Today we have no Temple and thus no sacrificial Passover Lamb to eat, and for this reason we don’t even eat lamb at the Passover Seder, and so you don’t have to be circumcised to participate in a Passover Seder as it is today.

Prior to the Passover festivities ones entire house is emptied of goods that contain any leavening agents so as to fulfill the command of not having any leaven within ones borders and to commemorate the Children of Israel having to eat unleavened bread as they left Egypt (Exd. 12:39, 13:3-10). This is actually the origins of Spring Cleaning. Another reason leaven is removed from the home is because it represents leaving of ones sins and becoming pure (I Cor. 5:7-8).

The Passover Seder as it is today is an elaborate meal with family and friends with no expenses spared. The best dinnerware is laid out, one dresses in their best clothes and of course the elaborate meal itself. Seeing as it’s a reenactment, there is a “script,” if you will, called the Haggadah, it is program that everyone follows along with as the Passover Seder progresses, it aids in the reenactment of the last meal before the Exodus. All Haggadah’s have the same basic elements in them but each one is a little different depending on what sect of Judaism one is from. The traditions and customs of the Passover meal have been well established and have, for the most part, stayed virtually the same since the days of Yeshua and His disciples. 

Here is a short breakdown of the Passover meal. You have the Haggadah, the program on how the meal is to unfold. You have four cups of wine, matzah (unleavened bread) and the Seder Plate, with the elements representing the events of the Passover and the last meal of the Israelites before the Exodus. This plate consists of, a Lamb’s shank bone, to represent the Passover Lamb, seeing as we no longer have lamb at the Seder due to there being no Temple standing in which we can slaughter a Passover Lamb. Second, we have bitter herbs; usually parsley and a dish of Maror (horse radish). Then you have salt water which represents the tears of slavery and the Red Sea which the Children of Israel crossed. You also have the Charoset, which is a nut, honey and applesauce mixture which represents the mortar the Children of Israel used as they were forced to build building and monuments for Pharaoh as slaves. Some Seder plates have a roasted egg, supposedly representing Spring and new life, but this is clearly a pagan intrusion and allusion to Easter and has no Scriptural precedence or connection to the events of the Exodus at all or in anyway. 

Yeshua: Good Friday, the Crucifixion and Resurrection

The Brit Chadasha, what Christians call the “New Testament,” in most Bibles comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew and Aramaic texts into English and thus can be problematic. So not only do you lose things in translation, but ones who translated the Greek were far removed from the Hebraic culture and was so steeped in their own brand of Christianity which was antinomian (anti-Mosaic Law), anti-Semitic (Anti-Jewish) and culturally bias and as a result that becomes apparent in English translation of the Greek texts. So it’s almost like a double whammy.

Not only that, but with the Arba Besorah (the Four Gospels), you have four separate accounts regarding the same man, Yeshua Messiah, written with a different emphasis to different audiences, highlighting different things and this can appear at times to produce contradictions.

It can be likened to four blind men at four different points of an elephant, one at the trunk, one at the tail, one at the foot and one at the belly, all touching the same elephant but all coming up with different and seemingly contradictory reports of this one thing they are touching.

Or take a car accident at an intersection witnesses by a four persons, one at each quadrant of the intersection seeing the same accident but each given a slightly different account of the same event.

Such is like some seeming contradictions we encounter in the Arba Besorah (Four Gospels) in regards to Yeshua’s Last Seder (Last Supper) with His Talmidim (Disciples).

Reading the four different accounts this begs the question, did Yeshua eat the Passover early?

We find that the night before Passover (Jn. 13:1) Yeshua was having His Passover Seder with His Talmidim (Disciples) because He knew what was about to ensue regarding His death, and this is why they had their Passover meal early. This actually wasn’t all that uncommon to have a pre-Seder Seder, a dry run so to speak, before the actual Seder at Passover, almost like a rehearsal.

Also, the Pharisees, which Yeshua sided with in every area but divorce and manmade traditions which nullified the Torah (Law), celebrated the Passover at this time, while Sadducees celebrated the next night. Both observances are celebrated between the evenings and both are technically held on the 14^th of Nissan/Aviv.

Matt. 26:17 would seem to contradict this in the English, but the DuTillet, Munster and Shem Tov Hebrew text of Matthew and the Aramaic Peshitta text both read, “On the day before” which would place the crucifixion on Pesach (Passover) in agreement with John 13:1 and 19:24 as well as Sanhedrin 43a of the Talmud, contradicting the Greek Synoptic Gospels, but returning to the Hebrew and Aramaic versions we see the problem rectified as I explained with Matt. 26:17.

Also knowing that the sundown of Nissan/Aviv 14 which officially begins Passover, is a High Holy Day and treated as and considered as a Sabbath with all the prohibitions that go with it. So one could understand Luke 22:7 to mean, and I paraphrase, “Then came the part of the season of Unleavened Bread when the Passover Lamb must be slain.” Why? Because only a Kohen (Priests) at the Temple could do this, you cannot slaughter or cook on Passover Itself because it is reckoned and treated just as a Sabbath.

Since they had their Seder prior to Pesach (Passover) Itself, this is why John 13:21-30 records Yehudah (Judas) leaving the Seder to possibly buy something for tomorrows Seder or to give tzedakah (Charity/Alms) to the poor, which is a very common practice in Judaism even today.

Why did Yehudah have the money bag? He was like the treasurer of the group. Why would you give your funds to a “zealot” to hold, like a Muslim extremist, isn’t there a fear he would funnel the funds into his insurrectionist causes? Here again is another issue Christianity has confused. In the HRV footnotes regarding “Judas the Zealot” it says the Hebrew reads “Canaanite” or “Merchant” while the Aramaic reads “Zealot” complicating the issue is that the root word in Hebrew “zealous” in the Aramaic means “to purchase”, so it is very possible Yehudah was a “zealous merchant” and therefore perceived as good with handling money.

Back to the whole Passover issue at hand, because Messiah and His Talmidim (Disciples) had their Seder beforehand, this is why it reads in John 18:28 that the Jews who arrested Yeshua and was bringing Him before Pilate would not enter the Goyish (Gentile) rulers home for fear of becoming unclean and therefore would be unable to participate in the Passover Seder that evening. In like manner before Kefa’s (Peter’s) vision wouldn’t have gone to Cornelius’ house for fear of becoming unclean.

In 2006 the “Holy Week” fell just as it did when Yeshua was crucified. We must remember that Passover goes by the God ordained, commanded and created lunar calendar and Easter which has its roots in Babylonian and Roman pagan religion and NOT Jewish or Christian in origin in any way, and goes by the man-made Gregorian solar calendar, and so Easter and the week of Passover rarely falls together. In 2005 they were almost a whole month apart!

·       Nissan 13 after sunset Yeshua had His Passover Seder early with His Talmidim (Disciples) because He knew He was to die the 14^th of Nissan when the Passover lambs were slain for Passover that night. That night after their Seder he was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and betrayed by Yehudah (Judas) and the kangaroo court with the Sanhedrin.

·       Nissan 14  6am-8am: Yeshua sent to Pilate.

·       Nissan 14  8am-9am: The Scourging.

·       Nissan 14  9am: Shimon from Cyrene carries Yeshua’s cross. Yeshua is led to the Place of the skull and is crucified. This is also what Scriptures call the 3^rd hour.

·       Nissan 14  9am-12pm: Yeshua is mocked.

·       Nissan 14  12pm-3pm: Darkness until the 9^th hour.

·       Nissan 14  3pm-5pm: The women keep vigil at the cross.

·       Nissan 14  5pm-6pm: Yeshua’s body is removed from the cross.

·       Nissan 14  6pm-7pm:  Yeshua’s body is prepared and put in the tomb.

·       Nissan 17 He was resurrected on the Feast of First Fruits (Nisan 17) which happened to fall on Saturday night, Sunday day that Year (Hebrew years are not the same as Gregorian).
- The Women discovered the empty tomb on Sunday morning (Nissan 17)
- Yeshua appeared to some of the Talmidim (Disciples) that day (Nisan 17).
-  We know He celebrated Passover before the crucifixion.
-  We know that is was to be 3 days & nights.
-  We know that the first day of Passover is Nisan 14
- We know that Hebrew days begin at sun down, to sundown.

Using these facts, the count is pretty straight forward:

·       His Last Passover evening (Nisan 13),

·       Executed Nisan 14, 9-3pm, buried before sundown (day 1),

·       In grave sundown to sunup (night 1, Nisan 15),

·       In grave sunup to sundown (day 2, Nisan 15),

·       In grave sundown to sunup (night 2, Nisan 16),

·       In grave sunup to sundown (day 3, Nisan 16),

·       In grave sundown to resurrection before sunup (night 3, Nisan 17) 

·       Tomb empty Seen resurrected (day 4, Nisan 17) 

In short the Crucifixion was on Thursday, day 1 and buried at approximately 6pm. He was in the Grave Thursday night to Saturday night equaling 3 days and 3 nights and was Resurrected Sunday slightly before the sun was up and was then seen by the Women.

The above count fits with Scripture perfectly. Thus Yeshua was mostly likely crucified on Thursday, not Friday!

Some point out the mention of the word “Easter” in Acts 12:4 (KJV) as validation to celebrate Easter, and that Easter replaced Passover, but the word Easter is not found in the original Greek text which actually has the word for, “the Days/Feast of Unleavened Bread.” The word Easter was a bias replacement by the scribes and translators of the King James Version of the Bible. Most other translations has corrected this error.

To get a deeper understanding and to learn more about Passover and how you can observe it I highly recommend, “God’s Appointed Times,” by Barney Kasdan and, “Handbook of Bible Festivals,” by Galen Peterson. Also, if you would like to participate in a Passover Seder for your church or community, I am sure they are Messianic Congregations in or near your area that may be willing to accommodate. Chosen People Ministries (www.chosenpeople.com) has a ministry that does just this, goes to churches and preforms Passover Seder. I’m telling you it’s a mind blowing, eye opening experience that will forever change you and you will never look at Communion the same way ever again! They tie all the prophetic elements of Scripture and the Seder itself and shows how Yeshua represents and fulfills it all!

If Yeshua our Messiah celebrated Passover and we are to be like Him, why wouldn’t anyone of His followers want to celebrate Passover also!?

Easter

A colorful egg laying rabbit, Easter egg hunts, Sunrise Service at Church, Hot Crossed Buns and Easter Ham; where does all this come from and does it have anything to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

Genesis 10:8-9 speaks of a descendant of Noah through Ham and Canaan, named Nimrod. He became the first world ruler, pagan priest and demi-god. Apocryphal literature (Jasher 7:23-33) has Nimrod dishonestly obtaining Adam’s animal skin garment ADONAI made him after Adam and Eve fell, tasting the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. This divinely made cloak was considered to have magical powers and whoever possessed it had the right to rule. 

Satan is the Father of Lies (John 8:44), and thus is the great counterfeiter. Satan tries to imitate and pervert everything God does. In this instance Nimrod, his wife (and also actually his mother), Simiramus (later known in Babylon as; Ishtar, where we get the word Easter from), and their son Tammuz becomes the counterfeit holy family and or trinity. Nimrod, Simiramus and their subjects, considered them to be gods. For you see, you have God the Father, the Holy Spirit, which grammatically is in the feminine in gender and represents the feminine aspects of God, and Yeshua the Son, the REAL Godhead and trinity.

Nimrod was eventually killed by his enemies and cut into pieces and was sent to various parts of the kingdom. Simiramus collected all the pieces, except his genitals which could not be found. This is why the phallic associations and symbols are so prominent and important in pagan religions. Seeing as all the body parts was not accounted for, he thus could not be resurrected and so she told the people that Nimrod ascended to heaven and became known as Baal the sun god.  Simiramus (Ishtar) eventually became the moon goddess, the Queen of Heaven (Jer. 7:18, 44:17), and Tammuz their son, whom she claimed to have had of miraculous conception by rays of the sun god, her dead husband Nimrod/Baal. Tammuz was later to be considered Nimrod reincarnated and became a type of false messiah, a god-man. Tammuz followed in his father’s footsteps and became a hunter but was killed by a wild boar and he too was deified, seeing as he could not be resurrected. Tammuz’s blood was said to have fallen on some evergreen stumps and they grew into full evergreen trees overnight and these trees have become a phallic symbol in this religion and this carries over into Christmas as we shall see later on. The people commemorated Tammuz’s demise by a 40 day fasting and weeping (Ezk. 8:14) which is now known as Lent. 40 days later on a Sunday they would rise early dressed in brand new white garments to face the sun as it rose. This is where buying new Easter outfits and Sunrise Service originated. During their worship of Tammuz, they would make the sign of the cross (a “T”) across their heart, and make cakes with a cross (“T”) marked on them, and this is where we get the hot crossed buns. On this day, Sunday, the day of the sun god Nimrod/Baal/Tammuz, then a consumption of a wild boar took place in retaliation for what the boar had done to their beloved god-man Tammuz. This is where we get the tradition of the Easter Ham from. Besides, Jesus was a Jew who never ate pork in His life, and if we are truly celebrating His resurrection, isn’t it kind of a slap in His face to eat ham on that day!? We have already clearly established in Get Back to the First Century that the dietary laws have not been done away with. Think about it.

Ishtar (Simiramus) being the moon goddess claimed the 28 day cycle of the moon represented her ovulation cycle and that she descended to the earth from the moon in an egg on the first full moon of the spring equinox. This became known as Ishtar’s egg, and this is where we get Easter eggs. Tammuz was said to be fond of rabbits and this is where the Easter bunny comes in. Where we get the colored eggs is later, when the religion Nimrod and Simiramus created evolved, the priests of this cult would dip eggs in the blood of sacrificed children. These eggs would then be hidden all around and if a golden egg was found during the hunt, the one who found it was said to have the favor of the goddess Ishtar upon them and they would be granted a special blessing by her. This is where we get Easter Egg hunts and their treats from.

Ishtar became a fertility cult in which the rabbit became the symbol of, due to it being one of the fastest and most reproducing animals around. The image and idols of Ishtar is a multi-breasted goddess, further denoting her motherhood and fertility.

Catholicism has taken this pagan Nimrodic and Babylonian religion and made it their own, just changing the names to God, Mary and Jesus. The parallels are all too obvious. Sadly, we see Protestant Christianity, which broke off from the Catholic Church, took this celebration and the various traditions thereof with them and still practice them today.

Alex Fierro of Freedom from Religion Foundation Member said,

“We freethinkers can show that the holidays mean more than just their names by reminding our Christian friends and loved ones to keep Eostre in Easter.

This is “our” holiday, to signify our beloved Germanic Paganist goddess of fertility Eostre as we celebrate the Spring Equinox and the bountiful crops with signs of fertility and rabbits.”

So as you can plainly see, Passover and Easter are two totally separate religious holidays that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. You cannot take something so satanic as Easter and simply attach Christian meaning to its symbolism and it be okay to celebrate in the eyes of God. This is the highest form of treason and idolatry (spiritual adultery) for which Israel was punished and exiled for (Deut. 28).

I do pray you will be brave and bold enough to swim against the religious and cultural current and peer pressure and reject this counterfeit religious holiday in favor of celebrating the Divinely Appointed Holy Day of Passover, the true celebration of Yeshua’s death and resurrection.