Numbers 7-9: The New Passover

Today is Holy Saturday. Yesterday our Lord paid the ultimate price by giving up His life for us; His body was laid in a tomb, and today we solemnly dwell on His passion and death. But we also eagerly await tomorrow, Easter Sunday, the day of His glorious Resurrection.

Coincidentally, my Bible reading today (Numbers 7-9) included a reminder of the importance of the Israelites' continuing to observe the Passover. We know from Exodus that the feast of the Pasch was introduced while God's people were still enslaved in Egypt. Now, His people being free and sojourning through the desert, God reveals the extreme importance of the Passover commemoration as the Israelites march toward their Promised Land. So what's the coincidence? The Christian Holy Week is the fulfillment of the Jewish Passover celebration. One of the most loaded statements Jesus Christ ever made was His last on the cross: "It is consummated" (John 19:30). What was consummated? Everything! The entire Old Law was immediately fulfilled, whilst the New Law was instituted. Everything that was foreshadowed in the Old Law was, at that moment, brought into the light, that all might know the true meaning behind God's past covenants. Part of this was the Passover, which, now that the events of Holy Week were finished, could finally be understood for what it really was -- a prefiguring of Jesus Christ's sacrifice. There is no possible way that the similarities between Passover and the events of Holy Week could have been either coincidental or man-made. Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, just as the paschal lamb was being selected for sacrifice; Jesus died on Good Friday, just as the paschal lamb was being killed; not a bone of Jesus's body was broken, just as not a bone of the paschal lamb could be broken; Jesus's blood saved the world, just as the blood of the paschal lamb saved the Israelites from death. Of course I cannot possibly capture the full scope and splendor of the connection between the Passover and Holy Week with my measly words (it has been described much more eloquently by more able writers than I). I only mention it here because it never ceases to affect me profoundly. The alignment of Christ's death to the Passover is one of the most truly remarkable aspects of Christianity. No one but God could have planned it that way!