God gave several yearly feasts for Israel to observe as a nation. All the biblical feasts center on remembering the work of God in the history of the Jews. Most of the feasts are celebrations and times of thanksgiving. (None of their holidays commemorate people like we do, such as remembering Noah building the ark or Moses at the burning bush.)
Their feasts can give us ideas of how we can give thanks to the Lord this month, or more often. Specifically, how does the Lord want us to remember Him? The yearly Feast of Passover gives us ideas on how we can remember God with a grateful heart this Thanksgiving. (Feast of Passover: Exodus 12:1-13, 21-25, 42).
While the Jews were slaves in Egypt, God told them through Moses that He was going to judge Pharaoh and bring them out of their bondage.
God was going to kill the firstborn in each household throughout Egypt. To protect the Jews, the Lord told them to kill a lamb and apply the lamb’s blood to either side of the doorposts to mark that house. When the Lord sees them trusting in the blood this way, He will pass over them, and the Angel of Death will be prevented from touching their firstborn.
On the appointed day, they were to eat their food with haste, ready to flee after the passover was eaten. When the Egyptians woke up to the deaths in their families, they urged the Jews to depart. Thus they were saved.
This feast foreshadows the work of Christ on the cross by which He set us free from slavery to the flesh and sin. Jesus is our Passover who was sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7). He is the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world (John 1:29), not of Israel alone. Those who put their faith in Him experience His saving work, and have freedom to honor and serve Him, something we couldn’t do before. We may look over our past and thank Him for turning us from idols to serve the true and living God.
Jesus told us how to celebrate the passover feast. Before He came, the Jews remembered the lamb that was slain to protect their families. Jesus applied a new meaning to the meal at the last supper with His disciples:
and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. (1 Cor. 11:24-26)
The bread, His body: We celebrate our Lord, who gave His body for us. As God told Moses at the burning bush, He saw the hard bondage the Jews were suffering, so He saw our suffering because of our sins, and came to us. We worship Him who offered himself as our sin offering that we might be set free. He who was spirit became flesh and blood. We can thank God for revealing Himself in the flesh as He interacted with the people. The Son of God is now forever in a risen glorified body. Thank God for His great sacrifice!
The cup, His blood: Through the blood, God redeemed the Jews, bringing them back to Himself. Through Jesus, God redeems us, purchases us by His blood. We are no longer our own, but His treasured possession. Through His blood, we also enter into a new covenant where the blessings come about by faith in God, not in our works. He sustains us by His grace, not our good deeds.
The Jews’ trust in the blood was enough to shield them from death. We thank God that trusting in the shed blood of the Lamb is enough to save us from sin and death. We are not evaluating ourselves by our works. Through faith in Him we enter into the salvation He won for us.
We don’t remember a lamb, but praise a Savior. We don’t celebrate a holiday, but with gratitude, we worship Him who demonstrated the love of God by His suffering and death. For while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Praise the Lord!
We worship Him because He not only died for our sins, but rose from the dead. With this historical fact firmly established, we know that He will raise us from the dead as well. Our hope rests on eternity, not this life.
“Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! For his mercy [steadfast love] endures forever.” (1 Chronicles 16:34).
