Passion Week and Passover 2020

All our lives have been severely impacted. All around the globe people of every tongue, tribe, and nation have been profoundly impacted. The coronavirus, with all its mystery, has ascended on humanity at a time when the holiest of days are commemorated by Christians and Jews. Beginning Palm Sunday (April 5, 2020) through Easter Sunday (April 12, 2020) Christians celebrate the first coming of Jesus, recognized as the Jewish Messiah, the Deliverer. Jewish faithful celebrate Passover which began April 8th and continues through April 16, 2020, commemorating the Deliverer, Moses, who was a foreshadow of the Messiah.

Many have lost loved ones. More have lost income and jobs. Fear and sickness characterize the realities of people all over the world, all at the same time. I’m am grateful most of us have come to a point of not trusting the mainstream media, because now we are in position to seek truth with all our hearts.

With belief that God is sovereign and intricately involved in the lives of humanity, we must recognize this somber time and earnestly seek to know what God is conveying in all we are experiencing worldwide.

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. What then, can we learn about our present reality from history and what can we recognize as our best course of action?

History tells us when God is worshiped and recognized as the Divine, the people thrive. When He is not, people suffer. The response of humanity toward God determines if we experience the goodness of His ever available blessings, or experience life without His beneficial presence. History recorded in the Old Testament is clear, when God’s people properly revere Him, they and people of other nations flourish. However, when God’s people turn away from Him, they bring suffering upon themselves and others. The Old Testament reveals when God’s people reject Him, He gives them over to their own choices, and allows them to suffer the consequences of their own depravity. However, motivated by His endless love, through His prophets, He offers the way back to Him and His many blessings, through repentance and faith in Him.

For the past several decades Christianity in America has been seriously declining. Many who call themselves Christians have not been living their lives consistent with the righteous standards Christ taught. The relatively few who do live righteously have been marginalized and their influence has been rejected. It seems apparent, we are experiencing the fruit of our own doing.

2 Chronicles 7:13-14 are highly significant scripture passages for this time. In speaking with King Solomon, God explained, “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn fro their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (ESV)

To properly understand this passage, we must know God does not send harmful conditions upon His people arbitrarily. People bring adversity upon themselves by their choices. Another way to understand this passage is to restate it: When My people reject Me they will experience the consequences of their choice. Out of My love for them, I will permit the suffering to bring them to their right minds, so they will repent and return to Me. When they pray to Me with repentant hearts, I will heal them and their land, without delay and without measure.

Consider events that led to the Hebrews becoming enslaved by the Egyptians. Because of the drought of the day, Hebrews living in Canaan migrated to Egypt where there was greater food supply, thanks to Joseph. Joseph was one of the many sons of Jacob (later named Israel) from which the twelve tribes of Israel descended. Instead of protecting their Hebrew culture as God’s covenant people, set apart  living in the land of Goshen, as Jacob requested of his sons, they migrated further into Egypt. Eventually, the Hebrews assimilated into the Egyptian culture, even intermarrying and worshiping Egypt’s gods.1 Exodus chapters 1-14 provide the back story. Thus, again God’s people turned away from Him and He gave them over to the consequences of their choice, which resulted in them being cruelly enslaved to the Egyptians. However, under the leadership of Moses, God is faithful to His covenant people and instructs them concerning the night of their escape from slavery.

The very first Passover required each family to be sequestered in their own home. In display of obedience and hearts turned back to God, they followed Gods instructions. The specific preparation of a lamb for slaughter, placing the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their home, roasting the lamb for their mail, being dressed ready for sudden departure, are all rich in meaning. With focus on God, worshiping Him inside the safety of their homes, they could hear the cries of the Egyptians. As God revealed through Moses, the last of the ten plagues to cause Pharaoh to release the Hebrews, was the death angel taking the life of the first born son from all houses where the blood of the lamb was not on the doorposts. That very night the Hebrews were released and God led them out of Egypt–no longer slaves and with an abundance of riches from the Egyptians.

Consider also the events leading up to the first Easter. Jesus, the second Person of the Triune Godhead, who had willingly taken upon Himself human form, referred to as the Lamb of God, was slain. He was sacrificed for our sin, which is rejecting God, which all humanity has done from birth. As descendants of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, who rejected God and brought sin into the human existence, we are all naturally born sinners–at enmity with God. However, those of us who respond to God’s cry to come back to Him, who repent of our disobedience and choose to place our faith in Jesus, the ultimate Prophet,  eternal death passes over us. Because of the blood of Jesus, by faith we are released from being slaves to sin and positioned in God’s covenant family.

This week as we make plans to celebrate Passover and Easter sequestered in our own homes, many of us being separated from our loved ones, may we respond with a somber heart, consistent with the worldwide reality. God is continually crying out to His people, wanting us to be released from the sin and suffering we endure. God has done everything necessary for His people to be released from the bondage of this world. I pray we all as humans made in God’s image, resolutely choose to place our faith in Jesus who is our only hope.

Tomb Empty With Shroud And Crucifixion At Sunrise – Resurrection Of Jesus

“For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all  your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore you fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you declares the Lord . . . ” (ESV)

1. Isaacs, Jacob “Israel’s Enslavement, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1551/jewish/Israels-Enslavement.htm and Shimon, Rav Avi, “The Exile in Egypt – Process or Punishment, https://www.etzion.org.il/en/exile-egypt-process-or-punishment

I welcome your comments. I also invite you to read more of my work with the 5th book in my multi award-winning series, Faith to Live By. Prepare for the Harvest! God’s Challenge to the Church Today, releases April 15th. Advance orders are being given 50% discount when purchased from my web store using the promo code: HARVEST

Also, for deeper consideration of the Easter holiday, please see my archived articles last year beginning with the first day of Lent through Easter Sunday. And as always, if ever there is a topic you want me to cover, please let me know.

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