Please scroll down for an article explaining why Passover applies to Christians instead of Easter. These documents are at the top of the page for the convenience of the brethren who look for them. The two files, available in both Microsoft Word and in PDF, are to help people who are learning to observe Yahweh’s festivals and have shed the pagan observances of mainstream Christianity. The first document is called The Night He Was Betrayed. This is a template for observing the night Yeshua was betrayed which is done the night before Passover. The second is called New Covenant Haggadah. This is a Passover Seder created for those who believe in Yeshua. Below the documents is an article explaining why Christians ought to be observing these things. If you want to know more, please contact us at info@thewordandtheway.net.
Do you believe Yeshua is the Messiah?
If the answer is yes, then you probably need to make some changes.
This is the question that begins our walk. The single most important piece of information available to mankind today is the identity of the Messiah, the Son of Yahweh. Those who accept this have come into life and escape the judgment. Those who believe Yeshua is the Messiah will attain to the first resurrection:
The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. (1Jn 5:10-12)
This is the dividing line between life and death, accepting Yeshua as the Messiah. So it is my hope your answer to the question in the title is “yes”. But after that “yes” things have to change. Knowledge of the Messiah must be followed by action. Salvation is a gift, don’t get me wrong, but the only way to show that you have accepted that gift is to use it and display it. Imagine if you gave you child a new bicycle as a present. It’s beautiful, chrome, shiny, and looks like a lot of fun. Your child is now a bike owner. You child tells you they like the bike and acknowledge it belongs to them. But they never use it. It sits in the garage collecting spider webs and dust. How do you feel? Did they really accept the gift? Technically yes, but if they don’t use the bike then your feelings are hurt and before long you and they forget about it. Perhaps a year passes and you give the bike to somebody else or your child sells it from lack of use.
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’ (Mat 7:21-23)
This is where the rubber meets the road. Believing Yeshua is the Messiah, the Son of God, means you have to then obey God’s Torah. Yahweh’s will is expressed in the commandments, the Torah. You have to use this knowledge to gain a closer relationship to Yahweh through the love of His Son. To do that, you have to change your life to match how they want us to live. And this is the week to begin. Even if you have believed in Yeshua (Jesus) from an early age, it’s very likely time to make a change and start doing what He and His Father want you to do. And that starts this Tuesday at dusk.
This Tuesday at dusk, April 7, 2020, is Abib 13 on the Hebrew calendar. This is the anniversary of the night Yeshua was betrayed.
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. (1Co 11:23-26)
Yeshua commanded His followers, which is now us, to do something specific and something new every year to remember His sacrifice and resurrection. He commanded us to wash each other’s feet, eat bread (leavened), drink wine, and sing a hymn on a particular day each year. I point out that they ate leavened bread here because there is an error in almost all assemblies to have unleavened bread at the Last Supper, what we at our assembly call The Night He was Betrayed. But if you look into the words for bread in the NT, they were eating “artos” which is Greek for normal, leavened bread. The Greek word for unleavened bread is “azumos” and is used when the NT speaks of the bread eaten at Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. So if you believe Yeshua is the Messiah then you should really be doing what He said to do. And you can start on Tuesday night.
Observing Passover is also something Yeshua and His Father, Yahweh, would have us do. This is a remembrance that traces all the way back to Abraham and Isaac, where Yahweh commanded Isaac to slay his son and then substituted a ram. Then, at the Exodus, Yahweh substituted a lamb for every firstborn in Egypt. Then Yahweh substituted His Son, the Lamb of God, as an offering for all of our sins on Abib 14 in the first century. Yeshua was crucified on Pesach (Passover) as the Lamb of God. This was to fulfill prophecy and prove He is the Messiah. We need to observe Passover also as a remembrance of what God did for us by giving His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish. So, this Wednesday, April 8 2020, our assembly will be observing a Messianic Passover. We have taken a Jewish Passover and reworked it to include Yeshua as the Messiah. Due to the corona virus, we have to observe this in our homes, which is where it should be in reality. But we will have our Zoom meeting going so anybody can observe with us. If you have never done this or if your normal observance is cancelled due to current events, we hope you will join us.
It is very important to note that nobody in the Bible ever celebrated Easter. Part of doing what Yahweh and Yeshua want us to do is to also not do what they do not want us to do. Easter is a totally pagan observance of a fertility goddess called Astarte, which is also called Artemis or Diana of the Ephesians. This goddess is referenced in Acts 19 starting about verse 23. She was worshipped with very similar practices to modern day Easter and about the same time, in spring, when things blossom. Paul started a riot getting people to stop worshiping this false goddess so we also ought to be very careful with our own observance. Easter became substituted for Passover a couple hundred years after Yeshua ascended due to anti-Semitism among other things. Many believers stopped this observance at the Reformation and we should not be practicing it today. Since we know the truth now, we need to observe Passover but to do it in a fashion that has Yeshua, the Messiah, at His proper place.
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Messiah our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1Co 5:6-8)
The next observance that believers in the Messiah are supposed to be following is what is called the Days of Unleavened Bread. This starts on April 9 (technically sundown April 8) and runs through April 15. This is where we have removed all leavening from our homes and eat unleavened bread, having a holy assembly on April 9 and 15, 2020. Paul write to the congregation at Corinth, one with many gentile believers, that they are to celebrate this feast. This congregation was established perhaps a decade after Yeshua ascended and Paul is telling them to observe this Torah commanded feast in such a way they we can understand they were already doing it. This is proof the first century Christians were keeping this festival in honor of Yeshua being the Messiah, so we need to do the same.
Brothers and sisters, if you accept Yeshua and the Messiah, also written as Jesus as the Christ, then understand that comes with a change. The change is away from the practices of the world and to accept the practices of Yahweh. This article briefly covers a lot of important topics. It is my prayer that it reaches many and causes them to study, prove these things, and adopt them. For those who already have, let’s rejoice together this Passover season!
Here is a teaching on how to prepare for Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread https://www.thewordandtheway.net/preparing-for-passover/