Passover

“ But as the Passover drew nigh, Jesus began to manifest himself less often to us; and he made known to us by the mouth of Peter and of other of the disciples that the time was at hand when he should ascend up to heaven. Then there arose a questioning among us whether we should go up to the Passover or not; for some said that Jerusalem was an accursed city (because the doom of our Lord had gone forth upon it) , and that we should not go up; but others said that we should go up; for the Lord would there reveal his will to us. ”

“ The Passover as a feast is a prophecy of the great Sacrifice, by virtue of whose sprinkled blood we all may be sheltered from the sweep of the divine judgment, and on which we all have to feed if there is to be any life in us. Our propitiation is our food. 'Christ for us' must become 'Christ in us,' received and appropriated by our faith as the strength of our lives. The Christian life is meant to be a joyful feast on the Sacrifice, and communion with God based upon it. ”

“ For He was surely God’s Lamb, and was slain at the Great, the last real Passover, dear Abraham, if only we all—our race—could see this. What the blood of that first Passover lamb, in Egypt, was in type, to our people in their bondage and Blood-deliverance, so Jesus was in reality. ”

“ But if a man be clean and not let in a journey, and yet was negligent to offer Passover, the same soul shall perish from his people, because he brought not an offering unto the LORD in his due season: and he shall bear his sin. And when a stranger dwelleth among you and will offer Passover unto the LORD, according to the ordinance of Passover and manner thereof shall he offer it. And ye shall have one law both for the stranger and for him that was born at home in the land. ”

“ Each token of perfection, each saying too pure for them, each undoubted miracle, only made them more furious, and for once they made common cause together. The Passover came. Herod Antipas came to Jerusalem to observe the feast, Pilate to keep the peace among the Jews; and Jerusalem saw her King coming, meek, and riding on an ass, and amid the Hosannas of the children, weeping at the vengeance that He foresaw for the favoured city where He had been despised and rejected, and where He was Himself about to become the true Passover, which should purchase everlasting Redemption. ”

“ The Passover was a purely memorial rite. You Christian people will understand the spirituality of the whole Gospel system, and the nature of the only bond which unites men to Jesus and brings spiritual blessings to them—viz. faith—all the better, the more you cling, in spite of all that is going on round us to-day, to that simple, intelligible, Scriptural notion that we commemorate the Sacrifice, not offer the Sacrifice. ”

“ The priests and Pharisees said, "We will keep this Passover with joy, as did our fathers in Egypt."
"Now," said Caiaphas, "let our triumphal procession go through the midst of Jerusalem."
"Where," asked the rabbi, "are his disciples? They are invited to cry Hosanna!"
Then rushed the multitude away, crying, "Up and away off to Golgotha! Come and see him perish on the cross! O delightful day, the enemy of Moses is overthrown! Ha! now he has his reward! So be it done to everyone who despises the law! He deserves the death on the cross! O happy Passover! Now joy will return to Israel! ”

“ Jill and I send our best wishes to everyone celebrating Passover in the United States, the State of Israel, and around the world.
At its heart, the Passover story is one of overcoming adversity and finding hope, of summoning the resilience and resolve to emerge from a long dark night to a brighter morning.
It’s a story of recognition that our own rights are bound up with the rights of our neighbors, and that none of us is free until all of us are free. ”

“ Nothing like it was ever known in the history of our world. It is not surprising that the children of Israel, through all their generations, should have kept that Passover feast with great interest—an interest that never died out, from age to age. Nor do we wonder that our blessed Saviour looked forward longingly to the occasion when, for the last time, he was to celebrate this Passover with his disciples. ”

“ The Passover, which Jesus ate with his disciples in the month Nisan, on the night before his crucifixion, was a mournful occasion, a sad supper, taken at the close of Sad repast. day, — in the twilight of a glorious career, with shadows fast falling around; and this supper closed forever Jesus' ritualism, or concessions to matter.
His followers, sorrowful and silent, — anticipating the hour of their Master's betrayal, — partook of Heavenly supplies. the heavenly manna, which of old had fed, in the wilderness, the persecuted followers of Truth. Their bread indeed came down from Heaven. ”

“ One reason for believing this is that this was the way in which similar words had been used in the Jewish Passover, which Jesus and his disciples were then keeping.
In the Passover service, when the head of the family distributed the bread, he always said—"This is the bread of affliction." When he distributed the flesh of the lamb, roasted for the occasion, he used to say—"This is the body of the Passover." ”

“ As the Passover was the type of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, so the feast of Weeks was the type of our Christian Pentecost, which took place fifty days after the resurrection, and on which the astonishing miracle was performed, of the gift of tongues to the Apostles. ”

“ And would that I might receive a voice that should rank with the Angel’s, and should sound through all the ends of the earth.
II. The Lord’s Passover, the Passover, and again I say the Passover to the honour of the Trinity. This is to us a Feast of feasts and a Solemnity of solemnities [5] as far exalted above all others (not only those which are merely human and creep on the ground, but even those which are of Christ Himself, and are celebrated in His honour) as the Sun is above the stars. ”

“ The complex of observances connected with the Passover and the very want of systemization observed in the literary sources would seem to vindicate the primitive character of the feast, which indeed is recognized by all inquirers.
At any rate the Samaritans have, throughout their history, observed the Passover with all its Pentateuchal ceremonial and still observe it down to the present day. They sacrifice the paschal lamb, which is probably the oldest religious rite that has been continuously kept up. ”

“ Among his own people joy and strength from God, in the great world a providential direction of the mind of the king—this was what faith now perceived, and the perception of so wonderful a Divine activity made the Passover a festival of boundless gladness. Wherever that ancient Hebrew faith is experienced in conjunction with the Passover spirit of separation from the leaven of sin religion always is a well of joy. ”

“ And as the Passover, which was celebrated by the Jews with the slaying of a lamb, prefigured the passion of our Lord and His departure from this world to the Father, yet the same Lord celebrated the same Passover with His disciples, when they reminded Him of it, saying, Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Passover? [7] so too He Himself also received the baptism of John, which formed a part of the latest foretelling of His coming. But as the Jews’ circumcision of the flesh is one thing, and the ceremony which we observe on the eighth day after persons are baptized is another ”

“ They had, we read, their loins girded, and their staff in their hands, and their shoes on their feet, and thus they ate the Passover. Awful and terrible mysteries, and of vast depth; and if so terrible in the type, how much more in the reality? They come forth out of Egypt, they eat the Passover. Attend. “Our Passover hath been sacrificed, even Christ,” it is said. Wherefore did they have their loins girded? Their guise is that of wayfarers; for their having shoes, and staves in their hands, and their eating standing, declares nothing else than this. ”

“ And I admit that this impression might probably be left upon the mind of one who read only the passages under consideration in the New Testament. But this impression is removed by reading any narrative of the mode in which the ancient or the modern Jews have kept the Passover. It is then perceived that the leading circumstances in the Gospels are only a faithful account of that ceremony. Jesus did not celebrate the Passover, and afterwards the Supper, but the Supper was the Passover. ”

“ Why has all Christendom accepted and ratified that selection, the other being thrown quite into the background, only furnishing an occasional simile to divines, being scarcely brought within the range of our sympathies even by the earnestness and genius of an adventurous and devout painter of our own day, while the lamb has been the favourite subject of Christian art in all ages? Surely these questions require to be considered. The Passover, I admit, does not suggest the thought of a sin-bearer. That thought is suggested to the conscience by the sense of sin, or rather is that sense. ”

“ The first lesson in the morning is the twelfth chapter of Exodus, in which is mentioned the institution of the Passover, proper for this day, the feast of the Passover: for, as St. Augustine observes, “we do in this feast not only call to mind the history of our Saviour’s resurrection, but also celebrate the mystery of ours.” That as Christ this day rose again from death to life, so by Christ, and the virtue of his resurrection, shall we be made alive, and rise from death to life eternal. ”

“ The old has given place to something wholly new. A different and better Passover sacrifice succeeds that of the Jews. The Jews had annually to partake of their offered sacrifice, but they were not thereby made holy nor pure from sin. Theirs was a sign or earnest of the true Passover to come, the Passover promised by God, in the shed blood of which we are washed from sin and wholly healed—a Passover the partaking whereof we must enjoy by faith. We have now one perpetual and eternal Easter festival, wherein faith is nourished, satisfied and gladdened ”

“ The Quadri-paschal theory contends for four Passovers and a ministry of from three to three and a half years. This theory follows from making John 5:1 a Passover or Purim before or Pentecost or Tabernacles after an unnamed Passover. This seems to be the more probable length of the Saviour's public work on earth. How short a space was even this to compass such a marvellous work. The ministry of Jesus seems crowded beyond our comprehension. It would be certain that the Saviour's public life lasted about three years and a half, if it was admitted that John 5:1 referred to a Passover. ”

“ Not very long after the miracle at Cana, we are told that "the Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem." The Law of Moses commanded, that at this feast every male among the Jews, should appear before the Lord in His holy temple; and Jesus, Who was to set an example of perfect obedience to all the commandments of God, journeyed from Capernaum up to Jerusalem, to keep the feast in the place which the Lord had chosen. When Jesus went up to this Passover, He drove the buyers and sellers out of the temple, an action repeated on a future occasion. ”

“ No more fiddle!
This Night
"To my dear Son,
"I send you—'roubles,' and beg of you, my dear son, to do me the favour, and come home for the Passover Festival. It is a disgrace to me in my old age. We have one son, an only child, and we are not worthy to see him. Your mother also asks me to beg of you to be sure to come home for the Passover. And you must know that Busie is to be congratulated. She is now betrothed. And if the Lord wills it, she is going to be married on the Sabbath after the Feast of Weeks. ”

“ And when Jesus explained that he had received consecration during the Passover, and that he was a finished student of the Nazareth schools, the teachers with one accord derisively replied, "We might have known; he is from Nazareth." ”

“ THE FIRST PASSOVER, AND CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE.
A.D. 28. AFTER a stay of not many days at Capernaum (Jn. ii. 12) the Redeemer and His five disciples turned their steps southward towards Jerusalem, to celebrate the first Passover of His public ministry (Jn. ii. 13) .
Strange and full of deep significance was the scene which the Holy City presented at this season. The streets were filled with multitudes of Jews and proselytes, who had come up from all quarters of the world to celebrate the Feast. The hills around were whitened with countless flocks of lambs259 and kids. ”