COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 125 - HOW GOD INSTITUTED PASSOVER AND THE FESTIVAL OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Soon the Egyptians noticed that they were affected by the plagues, but the people of Israel were not; and they gained a deeper respect for the Israelites because of how their God protected them.  These pagan people were seeing that SOME God had favor on the Israelites.  They began to treat the Israelites nicer.  Moses was greatly respected by Pharaoh’s men, and secretly they honored him even though they were still Pharaoh’s officials.  They were afraid not to; the fear of the God of Moses had come to Egypt.

God had another plan for one more plague.  Before He sent that plague He told the people to ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold.  Since the Egyptians were favorably disposed toward the people by now, they quickly gave them what they asked for; being afraid that their God would return vengeance upon them if they did not.  When the Israelites had received the gold and silver from the Egyptians; God once again spoke to Moses:

“I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt.  After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely.”

So Moses told the people:  “This is what the LORD says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt.  Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all of the firstborn of the cattle as well.  There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt – worse than there has ever been or ever will be again.  But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any person or animal.  Then you will know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.  All of these officials of yours will come to me, bowing down before me and saying, “Go, you and all the people who follow you!  After that I will leave.”

Remember Moses had been told never to return before Pharaoh?  Moses must have returned ONLY because God had given him this word; but Pharaoh refused to see him.  Moses hot with anger, left without seeing Pharaoh, just as God had predicted would happen.  Moses must have proclaimed the word of God to Pharaoh’s officials instead of the stuborn Pharaoh.  The message was delivered even if it was delivered indirectly, and the time was set for every firstborn son in the land, from the lowest to the highest to sleep the sleep of death at midnight.  Everyone would be affected except the Israelites.  God had warned that no harm would come to them.

Note that God is very slow to wrath.  He could have easily killed every single Egyptian right from the start of this story; but instead He sent warnings in the form of plagues.  He gave the Egyptians time to repent, acknowledge that He was the One and Only God and he allowed plenty of time for them to treat the Israelites differently.  All the Egyptians had to do to escape these plagues was to obey God.  

Even when God did show his wrath, it was limited to only what was needed for the occasion.  He sent the death angel only to the firstborn sons; not the whole community.  God is always merciful.  He is always waiting on us to truly turn and follow Him and mend our broken ways. 

Today Christians must act as bravely and boldly as Moses did.  

Moses’ faith is remembered in the New Testament writings in Hebrews 11:27 and it says; by faith Moses left Egypt, not fearing the kings anger; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.  Are we persevering in leaving the things of the world behind and following the ways of God?  We have known Him who is invisible and we have believed.  We must gather ourselves together and have the faith of Moses and come out of the Egypt of the world. 

Pharaoh’s heart remained hard, just as God had told Moses would happen.  God had warned him; and all Pharaoh’s people could do was prepare for the worst.  

At the same time that God warned the Egyptians, He also was lovingly preparing his people Israel.

God spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave the instructions for the very first Passover:  “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.  Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.  If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are.  You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.  The animals you choose must be year old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.  Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.  Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs.  That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast.  Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire – with the head, legs and internal organs.  Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it.  This is how you are to eat it:  with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand.  Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’s Passover.   On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.  I am the LORD.  The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.  No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.  This is a day you are to commemorate, for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD – a lasting ordinance.  For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast.  On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.  On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day.  Do not work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat that is all you may do.  Celebrate the festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt.  Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.  In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day.  For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses.  And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel.  Eat nothing made with yeast.  Where ever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”

Did you grasp those words from God speaking to His people?  Are we not His people today? Our Savior Jesus Christ has made us acceptable unto God and adopted sons of The Family of God.  Yes these instructions given so long ago have been fulfilled in Christ as our Passover Lamb, but did we forget what God originally instructed?   Did he not say this would be a lasting ordinance?  Did God not say to keep the seven day festival of unleavened bread and to remove the yeast from our homes before it started?  Yes it is all symbolic to us now of how the story has been fulfilled in Christ; but did God not give that command that it would be kept throughout ALL generations?  Do you not think He wanted us to do this so that we would NEVER forget how He showed us He was the One and ONLY GOD?  Do you celebrate Passover and keep the 7 day festival of Unleavened Bread?

Can we not have the faith of Moses and keep the feast in remembrance of how God by giving his firstborn son has given us freedom from bondage, first from physical bondage to false gods, and second from spiritual bondage from our own sins, and from Satan and his demons?  Surely we can keep a festival before God and remember as He commanded us to do so long ago!  Are we hard-hearted like Pharaoh?  

Each man must be accountable to God.  If someone is telling you none of this is important and it has all passed away; that person will not be standing before God in your place.  YOU are accountable to God for what you do in your own life; just as Pharaoh was accountable to God for making his country believe in false idols.     

One thing has changed in this observance and it's fulfillment.  Our hearts have been circumcised with the blood of Jesus.  The blood that the Israelites used to cover their door posts symbolizes the blood of Jesus that covers our hearts and blots our sins out so that God will not see them or remember them anymore.  They are no longer written down in the book of remembrance for those who have come to trust in Christ as their Passover lamb.  Praise God we are free at last!  Let us keep the festivals of freedom that God has decreed for us to honor Him with just as the Israelites kept them when they first gained their physical freedom.  

We now have spiritual freedom!  It is much greater and we have so much more to honor God with at our annual festivals now.  Let us honor Him with our whole heart by keeping his word and following his instructions; totally opposite to the Egyptians who did not listen to God’s instructions to Moses.  Let us not turn a deaf ear; but let us be hearing and doing!

Let us remove the leaven for seven days; just as God instructed in Exodus 12: 17-20!  Let us observe the Passover annually and remember that it is our God through Christ His Son who gives us freedom!  Whether we physically act this out or not; we will be just as saved because Christ died for our sins and if we are trusting and believing on Him we are forgiven.  However, it is the difference in cherishing and obeying what God has done and taking it for granted.  

So it was that Moses summoned the elders of Israel and said to them; “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb.  Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the door frame.  None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning.  When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the door frame and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.  Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants.  When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony.  And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?  Then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians."

After Moses spoke this, the people bowed down before God and worshiped.  The Israelites did just as God had commanded Moses and Aaron. 

Midnight arrived.  God struck down the firstborn of all of Egypt, from the house of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, as well as the firstborn of all of the Egyptian livestock that survived the plagues.  Pharaoh and his officials woke up during the night to the sound of loud wailing throughout Egypt.  There was not one house without someone dead, including Pharaoh's beloved firstborn son.

SEASONS - RANDOM THOUGHTS DURING THE SPRING HOLY DAYS

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Another Passover has happened, and we are approaching the end of the Seven Days of Unleavend Bread.  Again, as I have done for the last 25 years; I observed the days by honoring God in my home.    God has shown me so much in these past few days.

What has God shown you this year?  Is God speaking to your heart of new and different things?

I have found each time I observe the Holy Days God speaks to me in new and different ways, showing me things I’ve never seen before.  That is exciting to me!  I don’t know why I’m always surprised to find this out. 

There were several things that happened this year during the times of observance that felt different and new and unordinary to me.  I suppose the main thing I noticed is how much we didn’t miss using the regular bread this year.  We have taken extra steps all year long to improve our health and one of those steps was to almost eliminate bread from our diet.  So this year when I made sandwiches on flat unleavened pita bread, and left out the rolls for dinner, and forgot the biscuits for breakfast, and brought out the Matzoh tray with every meal; it did not feel like we were giving anything up.  It just felt good and nutritious.  I’m hoping that the spiritual symbolism of this is also true! 

The whole point of leaving out the things with leaven in them is to be symbolic of learning to live without sin.  Hopefully, we are sinning less and less and instead focusing our spirits toward God’s will more and more.  I realize men cannot quit sin without God’s help and anything that we do is only because it is God working through us.  I’ll take that accomplishment!  Come Lord Jesus and do your work in me!

CHOCOLATE COVERED MATZOH

I guess I’m trying to say I feel like God is working through our lives more and more these days, and the things of the world are becoming less and less important.  Focusing on the meanings of these holy days helps me to put the things of the world into the right 

perspective.  Thinking of how Jesus made atonement for us by giving his life like an early first fruits offering has set the stage to remind me that once Jesus was resurrected from the grave we all had new and different lives!  What a joyful reminder.  Once the Resurrection proved the power of God to bring new life, it really became easier for all of us to put the things of sin and the world aside because of the resurrection power of Jesus residing in our souls.  He makes all good things possible for us.  What a difference a Resurrected Messiah makes!  Nothing is the same again; all things are made new!

So no wonder we are continuing to eat the unleavened bread for seven days, it is so symbolic of how Jesus has given us the power to clean up our lives and help us to live in God’s will and BE His people.   Why would we be eating the leaven so symbolic of sin right after our risen Savior has proved the power of God for everlasting life?  The unleavened bread seems so appropriate as we remember.

Besides seeing the everyday evidence of so much symbolism as we progressed through these days, I have also enjoyed the delightful taste and the constant feeding of the unleavened bread.  I found myself looking forward to consuming it, even craving it.  This was a pretty new concept, compared to many years gone by.  In the past I have dreaded having to substitute the leavened bread for eating purposes.  This year I have craved doing this.  I hope it is a physical example of how I more and more crave Christ in my days instead of the old life of sin.  The things of God are more delicious to me and the things I used to desire, I no longer crave.  This feels good and hopeful and it would have been harder to really grasp or understand if I had not actually carried out the observance or gone through the days as God commanded.  By adding these commandments of God into our lives, we have received more blessings, over and above what we would normally receive.  They come in little small ways, and in simple everyday messages of profound truth.  It is God’s Spirit seeping into the dark places, bringing the light that makes us wake up again and remember to start living and be joyful.  It is just as important to put the things of God into your days as to take the things of the world out of your days.

CHILDREN'S SEDER (FOR TEACHING TODDLERS ABOUT PASSOVER)

Last year I decided that my early first fruits offerings to God had to be more personal.  I gave to Him my greatest talent, my writing.  I felt like I was giving God back an old present that He had given to me long ago.  By giving it back to God  I do not mean I gave up my writing for God; I mean that I devoted myself to using my writing for God’s glory.  This past year God has blessed that offering in tremendous ways.  I have seen my offering returned to me over and over again, not so much in a financial manner, but in a feeling that the writing is finally being used in a fruitful way.  I feel like my writing is finally becoming an open window that people can enter to see more of God and the things of God’s Kingdom.  That has been the desire of my heart.  That was what I intended with my offering, and God has blessed this.  Looking back after the first year of being offered up to be poured out like a drink offering; I feel He will continue to bless it. 

This year my offering has been to take better care of my physical body because I know it is the temple of God and it is the place where God resides inside of me.  It is so easy to get distracted with day to day living and forget that you are living in a temple.  My temple needed attention.  It had been neglected.  God showed me this, and I have responded.  Immediately after I made this offering to God on Early First Fruits, God began to show me new things.  He is teaching me how to remove the bad and replace it with the good.  Just like boards rot and windows break and we see them so often that we forget to notice, our souls and our bodies need repair and upkeep.  I feel like I’m being coached by the coach of all coaches, and every day I realize something new in relation to maintaining good health and keeping this Temple of The Holy Spirit clean. 

THIS YEAR WE ENJOYED THE SEVEN DAYS OF UNLEAVENED
 BREAD BY EATING OUTSIDE A LOT.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that if I had not kept the holy days and not observed Passover, Early First Fruits and The Days of Unleavened Bread as God has commanded, my life would not be as whole or as good, and I would not be so content or so excited about the days to come.  I would still KNOW God, but the KNOWING would not be as much and our relationship would not be as deep.  I continue to recognize this as I count the days after First Fruits up to Pentecost.  The ancients call this “counting the omer.”  I have a friend who thinks it should be phrased as “counting the weeks” (there are 7 Sabbaths in the count up to Pentecost that are mentioned in the scriptures, and it is true we are told to count them as weeks, not the physical omer itself; if you want to get technical) because the Omer is an object of measurement, not time.  I can see a little beyond that though, in that if you actually think of the grain that was contained in the Omer when the sacrifice was brought and offered up to God and discern that our days offered up to God are symbolically like those little pieces of grain.  God takes them and uses them a little at a time.  An accumulation of our times is eventually measured out just as the grain.  It is saying that all the little things we do make up the big picture to God.  Each day builds onto the next and the next and the next and your measure of grain (your first fruits) will come together for a beautiful spiritual harvest in the end, once another ingredient is added – God’s Holy Spirit on Pentecost.  

All of man’s efforts would be a waste of time without God being a part of them.  

Observing Passover, Early Frist Fruits and Unleavened Bread without counting up to and observing Pentecost would be like mixing all the ingredients of a cake together, setting it on the counter and watching it, but not adding any milk or putting the mix in the oven.  Your cake would never get baked, because you would be missing a vital part that makes it work – God’s Holy Spirit, which is given at Pentecost. 

It is pondering these things that brings me joy!  I have so many friends that are feeling sad about growing old.  I’m just not feeling that way; though I am getting on up in years, I am feeling God coming closer and closer.  I am feeling anticipation for what He will do next in my life, in my home, in my marriage, in my family, in my work.  I don’t think I would be feeling the same way if I had ignored God’s Holy Days all year and said they are old antiquated days made only for the Jews and not for me.  It simply isn’t true and the proof to me is the way God reveals so much life to me in the observance of them. 

LOVE THINKING ABOUT THE CHESED ATTRIBUTES OF GOD'S PERSONALITY IN THE FIRST WEEK OF COUNTING THE OMER.  I TRY TO KEEP REMINDERS ALL OVER THE HOUSE.

So before I ramble even more, I will end this time of pondering.  But first; I would like to encourage everyone everywhere to pick up your bibles and study Leviticus 23 and learn how to observe God’s Holy Days.  Don’t listen to all the Pharisees out there who will give you their legal list of rules.  Just study God’s word and apply what He shows you.  He will lead you.  As long as you are focused on worshiping God, you will not make unrepairable mistakes.  God looks at the intentions of your heart, not the rules and regulations and technicalities.  You will be blessed, I promise.  

SEASONS - GOD'S SACRED HOLY DAYS - 7 DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

SEVEN DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

The 7 days of Unleavened Bread start on Passover and last for seven days.     These are special sacred times that God has set apart from other days.  In these days we remember that we are merely humans who have a tendency to sin, and that God does not like sin, and that we must put sin out of our lives in order to grow closer to God. On some years a lot of my Catholic friends are observing Lent during these times and I notice many similarities between the two observances.  This year the Hebraic calendar for Passover came later than the time of Lent.  I chose to take the path that Jesus took and observe the days of unleavened bread.
  

This is how we show that we are followers of Christ, by trying to remain sinless like Him.   I emphasize the word TRYING.  It is an impossible thing for any of us to achieve without Christ.  We cannot do this on our own, but we must always continue to make an effort with God’s help.   This shows our desire to be like Him.  He looks on the desires of our hearts.

When the Israelites escaped from Egyptian bondage they were in a hurry and took their bread dough with them before it had time to rise.  When they baked it the next day, it was unleavened bread.  The bread was course and not luxurious like leavened bread, but they ate it and thought of the freedom leaving the leaven behind had given to them.  When they considered this, they became joyful and thought it was the most wonderful bread they had ever tasted!

It is the same with us when we leave the leaven of sin behind in our old life and put on a new coat of the blood of Christ.  For awhile we will taste new things, but our appetite for the old things may yet remain with us.  In time we will come to appreciate the fact that we left sin behind and the taste of the new things of God will bring us much more pleasure and joy than the old things from the old life.

The exercise of physically removing leaven from our homes and our diets during these days helps us to remember to keep the proper perspective on what we really need in life, and what we must put behind us in order to move on in God's Kingdom.  Yes, we should do this all through the year, every day of our lives; but keeping these seven days helps us to be better focused on that fact.  It helps us to think in different ways than we would normally think.  God speaks to us during these days of who we are and where He is going to lead us next.  He reminds us of what we need to be putting into our lives and what we need to be taking out of our lives.  

We begin these days by remembering and celebrating the atoning blood of the lamb at Passover and recalling the atoning blood of Christ which God gave to cover all the sin that we humans cannot rid from ourselves.  It takes the blood of Christ to wash us clean.  That is the first step, just the beginning of an ongoing sanctification process in the life of any follower of Christ.  Once we are clean, it is good to focus on staying that way for as long as possible.  So each year we go through these ritual reminders of how we are cleaned by God and how He wishes us to try to stay that way.  Each year we should be growing and developing and getting better at this.  That is why we always want to consider the symbolism of Unleavened Bread and continue to constantly apply it properly to our own lives.  

The unleavened bread is called matzah.  There is much symbolism in the making of the matzah. Abstaining from the leaven is a picture of how God's people must be called to holiness and separate themselves from sin and become a holy people by constantly walking with God.   

So, obviously, to show our agreement with God about what is good for us, on the first day through the seventh day of unleavened bread we do not eat anything with leaven in it. We completely remove all leaven from our homes before the first day of this feast because the leaven is symbolic of sin.   This is to say to God that we want to put all sin away from us and we will try very hard to do this with God’s help.  Physically observing the spiritual principals here is a way of saying we will not just give lip service in our worship, but we will physically afflict our souls as a gesture to show that we are willing to do what is necessary to follow God.  This feast is considered a high Sabbath where no work is done on the first day and the seventh day, except for preparing food without leaven.       

It is yet another sacred time, seven more days that God set apart to help us remember that He desires for us not to sin.  In Exodus 12:17 this feast was declared to be a memorial feast to be kept forever.    

So off we go before Passover comes to clean our homes and sweep out all leaven.  It is an interesting exercise to see how much leaven has become hidden in the cracks and crevices of our homes, and it all relates as a very eye opening parallel to show us the sins we have buried and forgotten down  in the deepest darkest parts of our hearts.  We try to pull this out, to remove all that we have not noticed because we were not focused on ridding ourselves of sin and we have just over looked these things.  This  time of self-examination is the time to be rid of it!  God gives us a pause in time to consider these things and to help us to focus.  We must do our spiritual housecleaning!  It is important!  It is really more of a spiritual rather than a physical cleansing.    

When the leaven has been all cleaned out of our house, we have a special little ceremony with our children in which we search for any leaven that might have been missed in our cleaning.  When found, this overlooked leaven is quickly swept up with a feather  into a paper bag and burned.   The children see that this is like asking God to forgive your sins.  Their eyes are opened to the fact that sometimes there are sins we don’t even see.  We ask God to help us find those sins and to help us to put them away forever.  It is amazing how the innocent hearts of children will absorb these truths so much faster than adults do.  Our children teach us to love God with tender hearts.  We must be sure to teach them all they need to know about God's feast days. We must be careful to keep the symbols and fables of Spring with the bunnies and eggs and baskets of goodies in their proper place - as just pretty little spring things to play with, games that we do for fun, like hide and seek, and not a part of the gospel story at all.  There is nothing wrong with these things until we put pagan tags or practices on them, or try to make them appear to be Christian when they are not.  Children learn fast.  If you do not tell them the truth, they will eventually discover it themselves.  Much better coming from the older wiser generation so that they have people to look up to and trust for truth. 

These customs observed during the days of Unleavened Bread teach children true spiritual symbolism.  They must know the sacred things first and most, and it is up to us to teach them how to sort it all out.  They are counting on us to show them the way through God's Kingdom.  We will be blessed and they will be blessed, it is a double blessing on a household!

None of us are perfect.  We always miss something.  That is why God sent Jesus.  He atones for all sins that we commit, but our observance of these Days of Unleavened Bread expresses our desire to be more like Him and our desire to learn to overcome our sins.  Self control is a virtue and a godly trait. This actual practice says in actions instead of words that we do not take the precious blood of Jesus for granted.  We do not want to have sin in our lives that we can prevent.  God always looks at the desires of our hearts and gives us grace because of Jesus.  When we come with obedient hearts He hears us and forgives us.

It is just as important to take unleavened bread into your body during this time as it is to leave out the leaven.  Why?  Because the bread clearly represents Jesus, Our Messiah!

The bread is without leaven, or without sin and we know Jesus led a sinless life.  Pick up a kosher sheet of unleavened bread and examine it.  It is striped, pierced and bruised.   The Messiah was wounded and bruised and it is by His stripes that we are able to be healed.  He was beaten for us.  He endured pain for our sins.  The  unleavened bread is a picture of this.  We bring this out in the Passover service as we speak of the bread that we take and say a blessing over it. There is a point in the Seder meal when we hide the beautiful bag that is made of three layers of cloth.  Inside is a piece of matzah.  Our children are told to go and find it.  Whoever finds the bag with the matzah inside receives a special prize.  This is to encourage the little ones to keep looking for Jesus until they find Him.  

The feast during unleavened bread speaks often of the sanctification process that each follower of Christ must go through.  The Messiah was set apart.  He was unleavened (sinless.)   He reminds us in his words to us that a little leaven leavens the whole lump (Gal. 5:9.)  This is another way of saying to us and reminding us that a small sin in our lives can spread and grow, causing us to puff up with pride and arrogance.  In the end it will defeat us.  It is totally unhealthy and bad for us.  It starts off small and gets larger and larger until it is totally out of control.  If you don't believe this put a large amount of leavening into a lump of dough and let it sit in your refrigerator for awhile.  You will be amazed at how it takes over the whole shelf when it rises!  

We have a funny family story that we always remember at our house on Unleavened Bread.  Our daughter Erin bought boxes full of yeast rolls to use at her sister's bridal tea.  The refrigerator went bad while she was at work, and the dough rose more and more throughout the day.  It looked like the bread monster had taken over the house when she got home.  Bread dough was coming out the doors and the refrigerator was totally beyond repair!  It was actually a hilarious thing to gaze upon if you were not expecting to see it!  A perfect picture of how the leaven of sin can get out of control too.  It can take over your whole life and ruin it if you do not purge it from your life. 

In contrast to all of this pride and arrogance of the leaven, we see the sinless body of Christ.  He is the bread of life!  He is the matzah!  He chose to be broken and offered up for you and I.   When we break the matzah we think of His broken body.  We realize He is the true Bread of Heaven, like the matzah that reigned down to feed the people in the wilderness.  If we take Him into our selves, we will always be nourished, always be satisfied, always be filled!  He is the health that we are seeking.  We must be taking in more of the Bread of Heaven!   

So we do not mind carrying out this ritual every year, because it reminds us to always be putting off our sin nature and replacing it with the Body of Christ.  The children who always imitate the adults learn so much from this time.  Adults are also stretched in their learning.  During unleavened bread we become very aware of the sins that affect the body.  By not putting leaven into our bodies we realize how much we  sometimes crave things that are not good for us, and how we must overcome the craving for sin by replacing the sin with the goodness of God. 

This fast of leaving out the leaven and putting in the matzoh teaches us not to be prideful, and helps us to realize that humility is the best way to live and be,  both before God and with our fellowman.   A lot of us have developed the habit of inviting each other over to share the meals of unleavened bread together at the tables of our homes and to share daily readings that speak of the practice of unleavened bread.  It is not required, it is simply something that we do willingly as an act of fellowship and our love for one another.   

This observance makes us more aware of how God’s children should be living all the time.  

It is a good way for us to encourage one another to stay on track with God's will in our daily lives.  

It is a great yearly reminder that always helps us to persevere and reminds us that we should continue to try to keep overcoming the world.

So, let us continue to break unleavened bread together forever and celebrate the Body of Christ!

SEASONS GOD'S SACRED HOLY DAYS KEEPING THE SABBATH

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Do you keep God's Holy Days?  If so, you must start with The Sabbath.    It is a most sacred time.  The Sabbath is God's gift to mankind.  It is a precious gift that should not ever be overlooked.

God created time.  He placed the sun, the moon and the stars in the sky as signs to mark our time.  He is outside of time, but He placed us inside of time.  He speaks to us of time through the heavenly bodies of the sun and the moon, and He has written His story out for us in the skies. 

When He created time,  God appointed certain times and seasons for us to come closer to Him. 

God created these special sacred times so that we could better understand His ways and to make it easier for us to commune with Him.  

He uses these special sacred times to tell us who He is, why He created us, and how we should worship.  He also gives us glimpses of our future destiny in His Kingdom through these special sacred times.

THE WEEKLY SABBATH

The first special sacred time God set aside for us is called The Sabbath.  It occurs every seven days.  God made six days in which we are to work, and He made one day in which we are to rest.   This one day in seven is The Sabbath.  It is a special gift God made just for us.  Every seven days God gives us this special gift of a sacred set-apart time with Him.  He has asked us to put our work aside and to rest with Him.  Like all good Fathers, God likes to have quality time with his children.  The Sabbath is our quality time with our heavenly Father.   God showed this to Adam and Eve in the garden at the beginning of time.  They in turn taught their children, and people have been keeping Sabbath ever since. 

Sometimes various human people have tried to change the days God sanctified and use another day of the week for the 7^th day; but God always pointed out the correct day as history progressed so that we would not be confused.  He wanted us to keep THE day.  He sanctified it and called it Sabbath.  It was not up to us to change the day. It was God's decision.  It was His gift to us, not our gift to Him.  The Jewish people have always kept this day.  We can trust their calendar, because God has used them to keep the calendars straight for the rest of us.

God clarified this with the children of Israel in the wilderness when he rained down the manna from heaven for six days.  On the sixth day only they could gather double portions for the next day and keep it fresh for two days.  On any other day if they gathered more than they needed it would spoil.  The manna did not fall on the seventh day.  God was at rest and so were those who followed Him.  The people ate the manna gathered on the sixth day and they rested with God.  It was a day of rest and a day of worship; a special sacred space in time, set apart from the other days of the week.  This pattern of how the manna fell allowed men to once again know how to exactly keep the seventh day so that they never lost count of the proper seventh day again.  Ever since those days in the wilderness the faithful Jewish culture has been careful to keep the days accurate with God's calendar.  We can easily trace back to the proper times in history and trace back forward again to be sure.    

The other special sacred times come in their appointed seasons.  There are special set-apart days in the spring, in the summer and in the fall.  

God gave us the moon to help us track these days correctly.  It was as if God said:  "I'll hang a big watch in the sky so you all can tell time by it," and he created the moon with its phases.  By the phases of the moon we know exactly when one day ends and another begins; we know when spring has begun, and we can tell when God's special appointed times arrive by counting the phases of the moon.  God made the phases of the moon correspond exactly to the days He wanted us to keep in the spring, summer and fall seasons. 

When you truly come to be a child of God you drop all of the world's dividers; those of race, nationality, language, culture or religious laws

and you trust in God's greatest law of love to settle your differences. 

 There is now only one way that is open, workable and clear to you; it is the way of The Lord.  The main rule is love and the way to the best ways to live in love, grace and mercy are all spelled out in the holy scriptures.  You must study to show yourself approved.  This is exactly how we come to know of God's Holy Days.    

THE HOLY DAYS OF GOD

With spring comes the sacred season of Passover.  Passover incorporates three holy, sacred times; beginning with the days of Passover itself, then the seven days of Unleavened Bread which follow, and  within the Days of Unleavened Bread we find The Feast of First Fruits. 

With summer comes the sacred season called Pentecost.  We come to Pentecost by counting the omer.  It is always 50 days  from the Day of First Fruits after Passover.  This day of Pentecost represents the late harvest, especially the wheat harvest, and the giving of The Holy Spirit to God’s people.

With Fall comes the sacred  season of the Fall Holy Days which are:  The Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and The Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot.)

There are also other days I will not mention here that man has set aside to honor as memorials of great events that God brought about; but the days above are the specific Holy Days God commanded His people to keep.  They are God’s days; and they do not belong to any specific culture or region of people.  They were given and sanctified by God specifically to anyone who wishes to follow Him and celebrate His way of life.  Does your church congregation keep these holy days?  God has not revoked them, even though He has fulfilled the spring and summer days; all the more reason to remember them!  If God fulfilled the Spring and Summer days, will He not eventually fulfill the Fall days?  We should be watching, studying and waiting to see what God is going to do next!

It is true that we no longer have a physical Temple inside Jerusalem to go up to, but did Jesus not explain that the new temple would be Him living through His Holy Spirit within our bodies?  So, we do have a temple left on this earth; hence that is no excuse.  

If you are a believer, The Temple of your body is now the habitation of God.   Your own physical body with your soul residing inside with God's Spirit is your holy temple.  The tent of your body houses The Holy Spirit of God.  Is that not an awesome thought to ponder?  

There is that fact so many people are hung up on which proclaims that God told the people to go up to Jerusalem to celebrate these feasts.  That was because the Temple was in Jerusalem!  Now the temple resides within the believers who have The Holy Spirit dwelling inside them.  There is no Temple in Jerusalem anymore!  We are the Body of Christ.    We are the Temple folks.  We must keep the days that were meant to be kept at The Temple.  The Temple now goes with us everywhere that we go.  It is no longer confined just to Jerusalem, though our hearts still love Jerusalem.  Jesus has made this easy.  We no longer have to travel far away to a building.  We are living, breathing and walking around in The Sanctuary of The Most High God.  It cost us absolutely nothing to go to the temple.  It is the gift of God's Holy Spirit that has made this miracle happen.   Jesus first died for us, rose from the grave for us and then went away from us in order to make this possible.  He sent the comforter.   We have no excuse for not keeping the days, we have everything that we need.  Jesus has explained this to us in a million different ways all through the new testament scriptures.

You should not have to be a Christian worshiping with a Messianic congregation in order to keep these days.  Messianic congregations were originally conceived to help Jewish people become Christian, not to help Christian people become Jewish.  The Church was originally set up to house all those who believed in The Messiah and God the Father.  It is shameful that the church has decayed into this state, that we must divide off into groups to worship the same God! 

 The ways of God and His Holy Days are clearly spelled out in the Old Testament and New Testament of the Christian bible.  What excuse will we give when we stand face to face with God?  Why do we feel we can cut out almost one third of the bible as if it doesn't exist and ignore it?  

God's church should begin to recognize ALL of the holy scriptures and teach and keep the days that God gave to us.  The fact that our great, great grandfathers got off track is no excuse for us to stay off track.  The fact that we have allowed ourselves to become a business instead of a body is no excuse.  We should not be calling ourselves Christians and doing just the opposite of what God has clearly proclaimed in the scriptures.  If Jesus returned tomorrow, would He see even one of the customs He taught us to follow being carried out within our congregations that proclaim His name?  I wonder?

These days are a great gift that Our Father has bestowed on all of His people to be celebrated throughout all generations.  They are one of the greatest ways of all to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others.  We should not have to separate ourselves from ourselves in order to keep God's commandments and enjoy His gifts to us.  Do you not realize there will be no denominations in heaven?  God will not say "all Baptist must answer to this and all Methodist must answer to that and all Catholics must check off this list and all Presbyterians must check off that list!  God will simply look at each of us individually and ask "Why have you not obeyed the Holy Scriptures?  Did you not read the book I sent to you? "   

All who believe on the Name of God should always be welcomed within the family of God, whether you were born of the specific race which God used to start his family, or whether you were adopted into the family after the family was formed.  All are the same here inside The House of God. God loves each and every one of the children He created.  God has given His gifts to ALL of His children and He expects all of His children to learn and understand and practice them.  

God gave certain patterns that show how He wished His Holy Days to be kept, observed and celebrated.  He gave them to the nation of Israel first.  He made these instructions specific to the people of Israel in the days of Moses.  Two of these tribes of Israel (Benjamin and Judah)  are known today as The Jews.  These two tribes have been faithful to keep God’s Holy Days for years and years and years; but they fail to see how The Messiah has come and has already fulfilled the Spring and Summer Feast Days.  They keep the spring holy days year after year with blinders on.  They keep the Summer Holy Day of Pentecost also; but once again fail to see how this day as well as the Fall Holy Days are pointing to the return of Christ.  For them, the fall days are just a glimpse of the very first time they will ever know the Messiah.  

Some of both sides of this equation are true.  We who know He has already come will see Him coming again one day, and at that time they who have never known Him will know He is The Messiah.  For us it will be the second time.  For them it will be the first time.  All will know in the end, and we will finally be united in our faith in God, Our Father. 

We will not trouble the Jewish people about this right now.  We will let God open their eyes in His good time.    We will love them until that happens, and we will forever be grateful for the gifts they have saved up for our learning.  We will always recognize that God chose them of all people to become the nation who bore The Messiah.  

The day will come when God will open their eyes just as He is now opening the eyes many of the Gentiles to the truths they are learning about  keeping the holy days these Jewish people have kept for so many generations.  They did not trouble us about learning these days.  They let us learn in God's good time.  With the fullness of knowing The Messiah, our blessing is very great.  

God usually goes about doing things a little different than we would.  He knows more about us than we know about ourselves, after all; He created us!  He knows how we learn best; and He knows how to bring the circumstances about that teach us better ways.  We must simply love one another until that time of unity arrives and trust Him for these answers in His own good timing.  Let us pray as we wait that all people who believe in God will come to know The Messiah.    

Ten of the tribes of those first Israelites which God announced the details of His Holy Days to were scattered around the earth as lost little lambs.  They were separated from the other two tribes and the ways of their people by assimilation because of the sudden rule of a very powerful culture who captured them and ruled over them.  These assimilated people of the lost ten tribes are now known as The Gentiles.  They lost their identity as Israelites when they were separated and isolated from each other.  Over time their ancestors have come to populate all corners of the earth.  The teachings of God were lost from them for many, many years.  They had no way of knowing and remembering all of the details of the Holy Days of God while they lived in a foreign culture that separated them from each other for so long.  

Because of being removed from what they knew of God, most of the Gentiles today, though they believe in Messiah,  fail to see the importance of keeping God’s Holy Days and they have fallen into the trap of keeping the days that were made up later by greedy pagan men claiming to know God who were only using religion to rule and unite their own kingdoms instead of God's Kingdom.  These rulers, using the name of God in vain, changed dates and times.  They created new customs that worked better for their causes and their own ruling governments.    To persuade people to follow them they simply incorporated some of the stories of God that the people remembered into their own proclaimed dates and celebrations, luring them into a false sense of security.  This is one of those times when a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous.  These greedy rulers deceived many, many people into a whole different way of celebrating holy days and worshiping God.  The whole picture of what God had laid out carefully to the Hebrew people originally was not even considered.      

There remains to this day an element of truth in all of those days made by men, but they are counterfeit days, not the original days that God gave for observance.

One day every one will see all of the truth because The Messiah will be physically with us and He will proclaim the truth in person directly to everyone living in His Kingdom.  All of God's Holy Days  point to and lead up to that wonderful end.   

Thank God for the faithful meticulous way the Jewish culture has recorded and kept with accuracy and precision these most awesome Holy Days of God.  We Gentiles can learn much truth from them and our understanding is heightened and we can worship in a more pure sense of knowing and observing the true story.  Because of them, we may know the truth of the history of the children of God and the words God gave directly to them in the scriptures regarding these special set apart days of God.  

Because of the faithful Gentile believers of Jesus Christ, the Jewish people too may come to know a truth that they have not  yet been taught.  Through the Gentiles they will learn the  Good News of The Messiah, the One these days point to, the One who will fulfill every part of the knowledge of these days.    These special, holy, set apart and appointed days should be the key that unlocks this for them.  

Iron sharpens iron; God works in mysterious ways, always bringing His plan about in a supernatural surprising array of events beyond our wildest imaginations.   He has used the truth each group has learned separately to be a light bearer to the other.

One day all eyes will be opened at the same time and we will all see the whole picture as a very beautiful tapestry that God has been weaving for all eternity.  In the meantime; as we are all growing and changing every day, God has used each culture to teach the other.   He has used the Gentile culture to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Jews.  Though they for some odd reason have not always known of or observed the beautiful rich background of the holy days that are shadows of all the teachings of Christ.  The Gentiles simply believed in The Messiah by faith, and God counts this unto them for righteousness because of the blood of Christ shed on the cross for all sins.  God has in turn used the Jewish culture to teach the Gentiles His original ways of worship.  

Blessed are the followers of Christ from both cultures who already have open eyes to see all of the truth from the scriptures, who can celebrate their time the way God has sanctified it from the beginning of the world.  Their days will be joyful and full of God’s stories!   Their hearts will always be full; even in the worst of circumstances.  Their stories will spread and fill the earth until all come to see The Messiah is Jesus Christ.

  







Thanks be to God who has given us such beautiful and significant holy days which teach us all about our beginning, middle and end times as we walk through His Kingdom in faith. 

 Because He has proclaimed these days before us and guarded them through a chosen people, we have come to know the hope of His Son and we have come to see there is hope for our own sons who follow Him and keep His ways.

If you have The Holy Spirit residing within your heart, you will eventually find the path of God that leads you into the joyful celebration of your own destiny in the observance of God's Holy Days in light of His Son, Our Messiah, Jesus Christ.  

May your journey be delightful and full of God's glory!