SEASONS - GOD'S SACRED HOLY DAYS - PASSOVER

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

THE PASSOVER

I am a Christian, believing in Jesus Christ as Messiah.  I am NOT trying to act Jewish, I am simply trying to be a more accurate Christian. God used the Jewish people to teach the Christians how to live.   Because of this, I keep the Holy Days in my home according to the Jewish calendar, the same calendar that Jesus kept, on the same days that the disciples continued to keep, even after the Resurrection and Jesus's Ascension into heaven.    I have learned, like they did; that God gave these dates in the time order of appointed sacred times, and that they have never been changed by God, even after the fulfillment of the Resurrection on the second Holy Day of the Seven Days of  Unleavened Bread, during Passover  Week which we call Early First Fruits.  

If the order of these Holy Days were changed by God, like many people think, and God's calendar ended at the cross, so much of God's story that He tells through the Holy Days would remain unfulfilled!  Yet; sadly; many stop their religious observances after the celebration of Passover and The Resurrection.  By only keeping and observing a portion of the well laid out plan of God, the continuation of God's plan would be skewed.  There are three more holy sacred times that HAVE NOT YET been fulfilled that come AFTER the Passover.  Teaching people to forget these Holy Days and God's calendar only helps Satan to keep God's people skewed.  It keeps them from seeing all of God's complete prophecies.    This year Passover (which includes The Days of Unleavened Bread and Early First Fruits) will be observed April 22 - 30th.  It is a very sacred and holy time that is rich with ancient history and modern transitions.    I feel sorry for anyone who is so caught up in the trappings of the world's teaching that they miss or dismiss the true time of Passover.  

Many people think Passover started with the Exodus from Egypt, but the whole concept actually began way back in the garden with Adam and Eve.  God first showed the concept of Passover to Adam and Eve when He killed an animal and used the skin of the animal to cover their nakedness.  It is thought by the sages that God roasted the meat of the animal killed to cover Adam and Eve’s sin, and they ate a meal together just outside of Paradise.  This was the beginning of God repairing the breach caused by their sin inside the garden.

In this sense, observing Passover is the beginning of repairing the breach between God and mankind.  Note that it was initiated by God, planned and laid out as a way for us to come back to Him.  God has never wanted mankind to be separated from Him.  He has used Passover to teach us this.

We know that Adam and Eve taught a concept of Passover to their children who taught it to their children all the way up through history right to the  present generation where we are living now. 
    

Even when the great flood came, Noah kept count of God’s sacred days and he and his family celebrated them together on the ark.  Afterwards Noah’s son Shem became the family high priest for the first new family after the flood.  He taught about God’s sacred holy days in the first school that he founded to teach people about God's way of life. 

Many generations later, in the days of Moses God’s people were taken into slavery and held captive by an Egyptian Pharaoh.  God told Moses to lead the people to freedom.  When Pharaoh refused to let the people go God sent plagues across the land of Egypt.  The last and worst plague was the death of every first born son.  Before this night, which was Passover, God instructed Moses to tell the people to put the blood of a lamb over the door posts of their homes.  On this night, if the Angel of Death saw the blood of the lamb over the door post of the home, he would pass over and the first born of that house would be saved.  This is how God helped His people remember this sacred time even when they had been held for years in captivity and had not been allowed to worship Him or keep His sacred times.  God was reminding them that HE set the dates of our time.  He is the eternal timekeeper.  He stands outside of time; but He has planned for every second of our life as He watches over it.  Some of our seconds, minutes and hours are more blessed and sacred and should always be set aside.  

Many years after the wilderness experience of the Israelites, during the days of Solomon’s temple, the people brought their lambs to the temple to be slaughtered by the priest.  Each sacrificial lamb wore a sign around its neck with the family name painted on it.  The blood of the lamb was poured out at the altar and the meat was taken home and roasted on a pomegranate pole until it was done and the whole family would gather in the home and have a sacred meal to remember how God had atoned for their sins by the blood of their lamb.  They would also remember how God had delivered their ancestors from the bondage of slavery and led them through the wilderness to the promised land.  All of the lamb was eaten in this meal.  If any was left over it was burned in the fire.  The stories of these things were told each year to the next generation so they would always remember the sacred stories of God.  Are you passing them on to your next generation?  It is so easy for children to see these stories when you observe the Passover Seder inside your home.  

 Then came the days that Herad was king.  Jesus Christ was born to a young virgin named Mary.  Jesus grew up keeping God’s sacred, appointed times.  He was the first man to ever live without sin.  He was the Son of God who came from God to earth in the form of man.  He endured every temptation known to mankind without sinning.  He was a great teacher and He taught about The Kingdom of God.  He had many followers and they were called disciples.  

Jesus and His disciples understood sacred, appointed times and they observed The Passover for seven days.  On the night before Jesus was crucified the disciples ate the Passover meal with Jesus.  On that night Jesus asked them to always remember him with this meal.  Shortly after that He was crucified.  He hung on a cruel cross, suffered and bled and died for my sins and your sins and the sins of those disciples that ate at the table with Him.  He was the Holy Lamb of God.    

On this very same day called Passover Jesus Christ became the lamb for the door post of our hearts.  He atoned for our sins by giving his life in exchange for the debt of our sin.  He redeemed us from the bondage of the slavery to sin.  Christians must remember this at Passover .  He commanded us to always remember this.  At the time the disciples participated in the Passover with Christ before His crucifixion they were on their way to being REAL Christians, the very blessed People of a Resurrected Messiah.  They had done all that was humanly possible and Jesus was about to do the rest.  There were appointed, sacred times for fulfilling all of this.  God had set them in motion from the foundation of the world.  Jesus understood this.  He waited on God's timing and then accepted His mission to save the world just as they had mapped it out from the very beginning.    

Today we have come to  know that Jesus Christ was the Holy Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.  He was and is our Passover.   He fulfilled every thing  that had been learned in the keeping of Passover for all the years before and after His death, burial and resurrection.  He asked us to always remember.

The people who love God today still keep the Passover and they have not forgotten Jesus’s words when he said “Remember Me.”  They know that Jesus became our Passover lamb and that His blood was perfect blood which atoned for all the sins of mankind forever.  God’s people still keep God’s sacred, appointed time called Passover.  We remember each Sabbath and we remember each Passover.   In all the years that have passed, God's people have never forgotten.

So now we all know of these things which came about over time through the different generations of people serving God that further fulfilled the meaning of Passover.   These little stories were added to the whole story and passed on from each generation of people as pieces of Passover developed and unfolded and happened in their own time.  

From the beginning of time God wrote, knew and understood the whole story, but we have had to live through the story in order to understand it all.  We will always remember to tell the story to our children, to pass it on to the next generation.  They must understand all these things that God used to teach us that Jesus Christ would become The Lamb of God offered up for the sins of the whole world.  Each year we remember and we tell our children of the greatest love story that ever happened, all the while hoping that they too will learn and grow and love and know the goodness of The Lord and pass the beautiful story on to their children one day. 

At Passover we glorify the Lamb who is worthy to open the scroll; the Lamb of God who was slain from the foundation of the world, who hung on a cross to pay for the sins of all mankind.  He is worthy of all glory and honor and praise.   We must always remember how much God loved us to send Him to us.  We must always remember how much He loved us to die in our place.  

Passover is all about remembering the most important things of God which we should never forget.     

The Passover season lasts for eight days.  The Seder meal is eaten inside the homes of God’s people on the first day just after sunset.  The meal is served on white linen tablecloths by candlelight and special blessings and prayers are recited to help us remember and to allow us as a family to offer up our thanks to a God with a heart bigger than the sky.  

SEASONS - GOD'S SACRED HOLY DAYS - PART FOUR - THE DAY OF EARLY FIRST FRUITS

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

EARLY FIRST FRUITS

We come, during the season of Passover and Unleavened Bread to the Feast of Early First Fruits, another sacred time set apart by God to be thankful for the early harvest of the land; and a time that is very symbolic of the Resurrection of Christ.   It is as if the Resurrection was being proclaimed even centuries and centuries before it occurred by faithful people keeping this day even before Messiah had come!  Now that is faith!  They were simply being obedient to God, but did not fully understand why.  

 After the Resurrection Jesus told us to wait and count the days until Pentecost when The Holy Spirit would come.  The scriptures tell us how to begin counting the omer during the Days of Unleavened Bread on this day of Early First Fruits that begins at sunset after Passover on the 2nd Day of Unleavened Bread.   Remember that Hebraic days start at sunset and last for 24 hours according to the phases of the moon.  

It was on THE THIRD DAY that Jesus was Resurrected.  At the end of this second day of Unleavened Bread,  the day we know as the day of Early First Fruits became the day He presented the atoning blood that redeemed our souls to God.   At the Evening of The Second Day Of Unleavened Bread after sunset the Third Day of Unleavened Bread begins.  This is our time for celebrating The Resurrection of Christ!  It was made possible by the Early First Fruit offering of Christ, given between the time that He died and the time that He returned to earth in the Resurrection.  

The omer was the unit for measuring the offering of the early barley crops that were harvested  of which the first portion was taken to the priest from the best of the early crops.  It happened like clockwork each year on this day.  The largest early harvest was the barley harvest.  Barley was simply the first crop to ripen every year.  The barley was ready before all the other crops.
 

On that day (the day of the Early First Fruits)  the priest waived the first offerings of the barley crop (which measured an omer when processed) before God in Thanksgiving for the early harvest of the year.  

This day of the offering of the early first fruits came always on the morrow after the seventh day Sabbath during the week of Passover.  This year Passover falls on the Sabbath, so the first Day of Unleavened Bread falls on the day after the Sabbath, that is always on a Sunday.  The counting of the omer will always begin on a Sunday (the morrow after the 7th Day Sabbath of Passover Week).    The day of Early First Fruits during Unleavened Bread is the first day you begin counting and you count up to 50 to get to Pentecost.  The Early First Fruits offering would have happened just BEFORE the Resurrection, while Christ was still in Heaven with God as He gave the offering of his atoning blood for us.  So the offering in heaven might have occurred on the Second Day of The Seven Days of Unleavened Bread as Jesus who had died stood before the throne of God and offered up His Holy Body and Blood for our sins.  This is why we waive the sheaf offering before God on the 2nd Day of Unleavened Bread, the Day of Early First Fruits, because that waive sheaf offering is symbolic of The Risen Lord.    

We see from this that the time between Passover and the Seder meal and somewhere before the second day of Unleavened Bread, on the Day of Early First Fruits represents the true day of our redemption.  We also know that an offering is not complete until God has accepted it.  It was on THE THIRD DAY just before sunset between the second day of Unleavened Bread and the Third Day of Unleavened Bread that God accepted the offering and resurrected Jesus from the grave.  

So we observe Early First Fruits on The Second Day of Unleavened Bread and observe The Resurrection of Christ after sunset of The Second Day of Unleavened Bread (moving into the beginning of the third day.)   Now in its fulfillment by Christ this day has come to represent the offering of Christ's atoning blood for our sins, and the acceptance of God at which point Christ was raised from the dead.  Don't forget to include Passover in your counting of the days.  Christ was put in the grave late on Passover.  He was in the grave on The First Day and The Second Day and he rose on THE THIRD DAY of Unleavened Bread.  Well that surely seems right and appropriate, after looking at the unleavened bread we ate at Passover and observing how many ways it represents Christ to us, then seeing the wave sheaf waived before God on the 2nd Day of Unleavened Bread!  At the end of the 2nd day and going into the first part of the third day we rejoice in The Resurrection miracle of God!

We start counting the Omer on Early First Fruits, because that is when Christ offered up Himself for us before God in Heaven.  This was the way of celebrating this day in the ancient church.  They knew on The Second Day of Unleavened Bread (the day of Early First Fruits) to give their offering to the priest and to start counting the Omer on that day.   It was one of the first ways of keeping time, and the days of the omer counting became one of the first calendars ever used by men.   It feels very appropriate that we would be counting time AFTER our redemption had taken place in heaven.  Until that time occurred, our lives did not count for anything.  Now in the counting of the Omer, we are anticipating new and exciting things to come because we have had our sins forgiven and we have been made new.  We have placed ourselves under the will of God and we open our hearts to learn all that He has to teach us about The Kingdom of God.  We come out of the ways of the world and we come into the ways of God.  Following the example of Our Messiah, we offer our lives as living sacrifices.  We are waiting and counting the days until Pentecost because we know that it is The Holy Spirit that brings us the power of Resurrection and New Life in Christ.  We are like a crop of wheat growing in the sun, waiting for the harvest.  We know at that time if we keep growing in God that we can be useful to our heavenly Father, and our own purposes will be fulfilled under God's will and they will be significant and make a difference.  In the harvest of God's souls, each person will make a difference in their own unique way.  

The ancient people had no idea WHY they were counting, or WHY they always started on the day of Early First Fruits, but that was what God had commanded and that was what they did for years and years and years.  When Messiah came, most of the people finally understood.  Especially when they looked around them on the day of Early First Fruits and saw the other people who had also risen from their graves right after Christ.  These were the ones who had believed in faith that God would send the Messiah.  Jesus was THE Early First Fruit offering, the first and the best of all souls that had ever lived, and these others were the first souls to rise from the grave as part of the early harvest of God's souls.  Can you just imagine who would have been there?  It is mind boggling to think of it. 

 

When Early First Fruits was only known as a day to go up to the Temple to bring your early harvest offering, the priests would wave the sheaves of barley before God in Thanksgiving at The Temple.  There is no physical Temple today, but we have our bodies with The Holy Spirit of God residing inside as a temporary temple (or tabernacle) until we meet God after death.  That is why Jesus wanted us to count the omer and wait the 50 days until God sent The Holy Spirit.  

We can remember to keep this commandment of giving an offering of the early first fruits of our labor by setting aside an extra offering specifically to be used for looking after the widows, orphans, strangers and Levites (those in the ministry of God) among us. This is what the ancient people realized when they left the corners of their fields for others in need to gather for food.  That was how Ruth came to know Boaz; her kinsman redeemer.  By giving of our early first fruits we make a way for others to know our kinsman redeemer also.  By showing love and care for those in need, we show others the love of Christ.  First Fruits is a time to give of the first of your blessings to those in need of support instead of buying more than you actually need for yourself.

Remember the story of Cain and Abel when you decide on your offering.  Pick something that is of your first and your best to offer up on this day.   Do you have a special talent that you will dedicate to God in the next year?  That would be a good first fruits offering!  This offering can consist of money or time or whatever you feel God is leading you to do.  Pray for guidance.  It is not a corporate decision, it is an individual decision.  Why not pay a bill for a friend who needs help, or buy some groceries for some young struggling couple, or help an older person take care of some medical needs, or give something to your Pastor to help him better take care of his family?  

Pray – and God will show you where to put your offering of the first fruits of your labor.  This is an offering that is above your usual tithe.  Have you not been tithing to God?  I do not mean to say are you giving one-tenth of your income to a local congregation, though that would certainly be tithing.  I mean are you taking one tenth of your income each time you receive profit and giving it away in the name of God to whatever worthy cause God puts on your heart?  If you are not following this practice, perhaps your first fruits offering this year will be to promise God to do this in the coming year.  Each of us grow and learn at a different pace, trust God to show you from where you are right now.  This Early First Fruits offering should come directly from you and the Sanctuary of your own home.  It is not a group effort of a church congregation, though there is certainly nothing wrong with that.  The offering of The Early First Fruits is an offering between you and God.  Consider it carefully so that God finds it acceptable.  Remember Cain and Abel.

All these years the people kept this feast day in a spirit of thanksgiving, thinking it was only for giving thanks for their first barley crops, their first physical harvest of the year; and a way of marking time to start counting up to the latter harvest of their wheat crops.   Now Jesus has shown us how it was prophetic of a much greater spiritual harvest.    This first harvest is symbolic of Jesus, who has risen from the dead and  ascended into heaven as the First Fruits of everlasting life.  Those who rose from the grave after Him were the first of God’s harvest of souls. 

Unless you are keeping the Days of Unleavened Bread and observing Day of First Fruits and counting the omer after First Fruits until Pentecost, you might miss all of this, lose a lot of the wonderful details, or just forget to make time to remember it all.  You might even get the wrong interpretations of these true days mixed up in your mind from the teachings of the world around you.  These days were given by God for a reason and they are holy and scriptural.  Observance of them brings you more understanding every year and that will give you more joy in your heart each year!

So remember and ponder the facts that we know Christ was crucified on Passover.  He was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights.  He rose from the grave alive just after sunset on that third day,   This would make the celebration of the Resurrection occur always after sunset ending the 2^nd day of Unleavened Bread going into the 3^rd Day (don't forget to count Pasover in your counting.) Because the Hebrews counted from sunset to sunset it would have been possible for Christ to have the Passover meal the evening before his crucifixion day.  He was in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights, Passover Day was the first day (he celebrated the Passover Seder the night BEFORE), The 1st Day of Unleavened Bread is the 2nd day, and the second day of Unleavened Bread is the 3rd Day.  Now; He is Risen!  It happened on Early First Fruits!  Know in your heart that this is a time of celebrating much more than a barley harvest!  It is a time to celebrate The Resurrection of Christ!  

All of this is true to the sign of Jonah that Christ said He would fulfill.  As Jonah spent 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of a whale, Christ spent 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the earth.   The world celebrates Good Friday to Easter Sunday.  This isn't 3 days and 3 nights.  Keeping Unleavened Bread keeps the time accurate according to the scriptures.  He died, He presented His blood before God as our atonement, and He went to release the captives who were bound in the underworld.  Then He rose from the grave! Those who believed in Him even before He died on the cross, rose from their graves right after Him!  On the third day He showed himself alive.   He is risen!  Let there be a thousand Hallelujahs!  He is risen indeed!

Because certain churches have said that Easter Sunday would be the day of the annual celebration of The Resurrection of Christ most people today observe that day.  It is printed in black and white each year on the calendar of the world; but it simply is not correct, even though it is very conveniently placed at a time when most people will be off from work and years and years of family traditions have been built around these erroneous facts.  

Some people even know the truth, but refuse to change their habits for the truth.  I heard a good comparison of this one day.  When you are a child and you believe in The Tooth Fairy and The Easter Bunny and Santa Clause, then you begin to get older and more mature and you find out the truth.  For awhile you will just pretend you still believe, because you want these things to be really true, but you know they are not.  Humans tend to hold on to what is familiar to them, even if it is a lie.  Satan has used this against us for thousands of years now.   Eventually, you grow up and become an adult.  You learn to put the old familiar thoughts aside and do the things you know are true.  As you mature, eventually you let go of the lie and embrace the truth.

It is hard to go against traditions that have gone on for years and years with families that have held them sacred.  Do you want to keep holding on to what is not true?   One day as a child of God you will find freedom in accepting the truth and God will give you true joy when you believe what He told you instead of what the world has twisted because of the enemy of God wanting us to believe in lies.  

Christ rose from the grave as an Early First Fruit offering for us on the day of Early First Fruits.  So between sunset on the 2^nd day of unleavened bread and sunset on the 3^rd day we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus!  

This day was known as a shadow and a type for the people through all the ritual of early first fruits harvests, long before Jesus ever walked the earth.

Why would we change it?  God ordained it!   Can an earthly ruler change the dates set by a heavenly ruler? 

Keeping the most important commandment in mind, that last and greatest commandment Jesus spoke to us, to LOVE our brothers, I do practice the art of grace and let my friends celebrating Easter Sunday off easy by realizing they truly are celebrating the resurrection of Christ to the best of their knowledge and understanding, and it is a good thing to celebrate the resurrection EVERY DAY of the year. 

With God's Holy Spirit living and alive in us, we can have compassion for one another and share what we do agree on in love.   God looks at the intentions of our hearts.  We will not be judged for what we do not yet understand.   I do not condemn others, but I am careful to try to make the sacred days observed in my own life accurate and scriptural.   

It is a great balancing act  meant to bring confusion from the devil, but God has taught us a way to change it for good.  It is also a time to show love, respect and compassion to others.  Isn't that what Jesus was proclaiming when he laid down his life?  It is a time of worship, to look to God and not to worry about those around us.  We must simply judge ourselves, clean our own houses and move on through the world with love and compassion and kindness, yet speak the truth in love so that others, should they have ears to hear, may share our joy.    

God holds each of us accountable to the knowledge that He has given us.  Each of us must answer individually just as each of us must bring our early first fruits individually.  When we reach that day when the sheep are separated from the goats, what I have done will not count for you, and what you have done will not count for me.  We all must obey whatever God has shown us in this life.  He will show all of us exactly what He needs for us to know exactly when He needs for us to know it.

I am simply living out who I am; a person who studies deep and follows the amazing patterns that God has given us.  God has over history and time shown us many, many patterns, and I love using the patterns that God spelled out for us to follow.  If your earthly father proclaimed a family holiday on a Tuesday; would you tell him it was inconvenient for you to celebrate it on that day and proclaim that you can only celebrate it on a Wednesday?  I think not.  If you loved your Father very much and wanted to always honor Him, you would most likely be obedient and honor your father on the day that he chose to celebrate the family event.  That is all I am trying to do in observing the more exact scriptural days.  

I had no idea what blessings this would bring into my life the first few years I stepped out in blind faith and followed God's original instructions straight from His instruction book. I felt like a little toddler learning to walk.  I was very self conscious about it for many years.  I was simply being obedient to the truth of the scriptures.  Now my life is full of joy because of that decision.  I would never go back!  

So, you might ask; if I do not judge people, why do I keep writing about it?  Because God has called me to do so, and I want everyone to experience this joy that I have found.  The writing is part of my offering of early first fruits.  I wish to use the talents God gave to me for His glory.  I write about these things to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as others write about other scriptural things to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in other ways.  I've found The Holy Days of God are actually the most perfect tool I've ever found to proclaim The Gospel and the truth of Jesus Christ being the Messiah.  

How wonderful to know that My Savior, Jesus Christ fulfilled the meaning of this sacred time when he brought His very own sacred blood before God as an early first fruits offering for our salvation.  For so many long years the priest would take the sheaves of the first fruits and waive them before God on the day of  Early First Fruits, on the second day of Unleavened Bread.  Now we know that it corresponds directly with the very time that Christ stood before God in Heaven and presented evidence of our salvation.  The sheaves were waived BEFORE the Resurrection happened, in order that we might know and believe when it did.  

We start counting the Omer on the second Day of Unleavened Bread because this was the time when we received the promise of The Holy Spirit coming in 50 days.     We received this promise because Christ died for us and presented the atonement before God in Heaven on this day.  It was the early first fruit offering to God from our Messiah, an offering of His first and His best; He gave all He had, His very life.  He set the example for us on how to give offerings to God.  Our offerings can never have the value of Christ's offering, but we are still asked to come in faith before God offering our first and our best from the fruit of our labor.  Our labor is our work.  Jesus Christ had one job to do while He was on earth.  His work was to be The Messiah of God.  This work is what He offered to The Father.  

By the blood of Christ we are also able to obtain a sure resurrection.  This is what happens at the Latter Harvest, the time when we too like Jesus will rise from the grave and go to be with God forever and ever.  This is made possible by The Holy Spirit living in us, and we celebrate it (the latter harvest) at Pentecost, which comes like clockwork 50 days after Early First Fruits each year.  That is why we are counting the days by counting the Omer!  We are anticipating Pentecost!  We are anticipating what gives us the same resurrection power of Christ inside our own bodies.  It is The Holy Spirit that brings us to the time of our own resurrection.  

All those many years that the Israelites waved the sheaves before God and did not realize that it was a representation of Christ rising from the grave are so very significant to us now.  They tell us that it is good to wait on God, that He will never forget us and that He will eventually use the messages found in His Holy Days to proclaim and fulfill all of His truth for us.  

 Are you anticipating whatever God will do next?  Are you watching and waiting and observing the days that He gave us in order to help us to understand all the truth of the Gospel?  It is an awesome experience, and anyone who has spent their years observing these Spring Holy Days of God will speak to you of their great blessings!  And when we reach Pentecost???

Yes, there is even more to the story!  All the more reason to be counting our days!

SEASONS - THOUGHTS ON THE HISTORY OF PASSOVER

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Passover is coming soon.  Passover for the year of 2016 begins on the evening of Friday, April 22 and ends on the evening of Saturday, April 30.   Many do not realize that Passover is not just one day, but a season that lasts for eight days. 

It all started not long after Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden and they began to till and harvest the land.  Every year they enjoyed a celebration of the harvest of the spring barley crops and the new lambs.  We can understand this from the stories of Cain and Abel.  One brought vegetables and one brought meat.   It was a set aside time that God had ordained each year at the ending of the rainy season and the beginning of the growing season. 

Adam and Eve passed this down through the generations right up until the flood.  Noah was the grandson of Enoch.  Enoch had walked with God and he taught Noah.  Noah taught his sons and kept God's calendar even during the time on the ark and the flood.  After the flood Noah's son Shem was made the family high priest.  He established a school to teach God's ways to the people of the earth.  Shem passed on the Holy Days of God to the generations after the flood.  Abraham was the next family high priest after Shem.  Abraham knew and passed down God's Holy Days to his sons and his household.

Many years before the redemption of Israel from Egypt, God instructed Abraham about the sacrifice of a lamb.   We know that Abraham offered up many lambs for sacrifice, and was even prepared to offer his own son, but God would not allow it.   

The word Pesach, as the Hebrews call it, was first derived from the instructions given by God to Moses.  It means “passing over” or “protection.”  God had promised that the Angel of Death would “pass over” the people who had put the blood of the lamb over the door posts of their homes.  The time of the year was right in line with the same clock that God had given men from the beginning.  It was the season of Passover when God told Moses to tell the Israelite people that He would bring them out of the bondage of slavery to the Egyptians.  

God was officially calling His people out and stating that He would lead them to the promised land, the land that He had promised to the seed of Abraham in a covenant long ago.  This was a land that would be known as the land of the people of God.  These people of God were the ones from which would come the promised Messiah.  It was a time of new beginnings for Israel.  They were leaving an old life and entering a new life.

  

After the Exodus, during temple times, people came up to Jerusalem every year singing joyous songs, bringing their lambs to the temple for sacrifice.  A sign hung around each lamb naming the family that brought them.  

Sometimes there were 3 million lambs offered up for the sins of the people in Jerusalem in one 24 hour period of time.  The priests blew the trumpet when the lambs were slain and they caught the blood of the lambs in a special silver or gold bowl.  Hymns were sung as this happened and the priest carried the bowls to the altar.  The service ended with incense on the altar after the lambs had been roasted on a special pole made specifically of pomegranate wood. 

The lambs were eaten at a special meal.  Anything that was not eaten was burned up with fire until none remained.  Unleavened bread and herbs were served with the lamb as well as red wine and water.  The people always remembered how God led them through the wilderness out of slavery into a new promised land where they lived in freedom and luxury.

By the time Jesus walked the earth this offering had been a required offering for many years.  He too went up for the Passover every year with his family.  Every Jewish male was expected to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the Passover.   It became a week long festival.  It was a time to repent, to  give the offering for atonement, to cleanse your house of all leaven (sin) then celebrate the harvest with an offering of the first fruits of your crops. 

The offering of the lamb was made on Passover.  The first fruits waive sheaf of barley was offered and waived before God in the first few days of unleavened bread which came to be known as The Day of the FirstFruits.   The people, who had put away sin and cleaned their homes of anything ungodly came up and celebrated the first fruits of their crops with Thanksgiving before God. 

The disciples of Jesus also kept the Passover.  They celebrated The Passover with Christ just before He was crucified.  Having celebrated this set-aside sacred time all of their lives, and understanding the history of their people, they realized when Jesus died for them that He had become their true Passover.  His resurrection on the third day, the day of Early First Fruits was positive proof to them that He was Messiah.  He was the perfect lamb of God offered up for the sins of mankind. 

Even after Jesus once more ascended to heaven; the disciples remembered that Jesus had commanded them to “remember Him” with this special Passover meal every year.  The Messiah is remembered weekly in The Holy Eucharist celebrated on The Sabbath and remembered annually with the great ritual and symbolism that tells the whole extensive story at Passover.  

The disciples continued year after year to remember the Passover, Unleavened Bread and Early First Fruits.  Each generation taught their sons and daughters, and the Church now understands the offering of Christ was fulfilled by keeping the Passover.  Now we do this to remember that He was once The Suffering Servant, but now is The Resurrected Lord of Lords and King of Kings and He will come again for His people.  He has commanded us to remember the story.  

We retell the whole story each year with The Passover.  The symbols and the whole eight days teach our children how to live in the truth of The Messiah. 

 With the season of Passover every year we learn and grow in God's grace as we celebrate all He has done for us.  We remember His resurrection on the day of Early First Fruits and we look forward to our own resurrection day when we will be with Him forever.

COME AS A CHILD LESSON 115 LISTENING TO THE BURNING BUSH

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law while living in Midian. 

One day Moses took the flock over to the far side of the wilderness, to a mountain named Horeb, the place scriptures call “The Mountain of God.”

While Moses was there on the mountain The Angel of The LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.  The bush was clearly on fire; but it never burned up.  Moses moved closer, very curious as to why this strange bush never burned up.

As Moses stepped closer and closer; the LORD saw that Moses was approaching and he called out to him; “Moses!  Moses!”

As we have mentioned before, when God calls your name two times in a row, you better pay attention!  The only correct answer is the very one that came out of Moses mouth at the time:  “Here I am.” 

God told Moses not to come any closer.  He instructed him to take off his sandals, because the place where he was standing was holy ground.  Then God said:  “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”

Up until this point, Moses had only known Egypt and life in the palace, then his present life as a shepherd in Midian.  He did not know much about his original heritage at all, except that he had learned he was a Hebrew raised as an Egyptian.  After finding this out he had run away. 

Now God himself had come down to speak to him about his heritage! 

Moses could not escape his own reality.  

God is telling Moses that He is the God of his father and their fathers! It is pretty clear that God wasn’t referring to Pharaoh.   God gives Moses a brief history lesson by mentioning the family linage; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Not only had Moses run away from his problems in Egypt, he had also ran away from who he really was; an Israelite.  God was forcing Moses to face his heritage head-on.  There was no running away this time.

Moses was one of God's people.  Are you running away from being one of God's people too?  You can't run and you can't hide.  If you belong to God he will find you.  He will find you in a palace or in a tent.  He will find you in a garden or in a desert.  If you belong to God; He is not going to let you forget.  Just ask Moses!     

When Moses heard these words from God he hid his face because he was afraid.  He was afraid to look at God, and he was afraid to face who he really was. 

God continued to speak to Moses: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.  I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.  So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey – the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.  And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.  So now, go.  I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

There is so much information to retain from that one little paragraph where God spoke to Moses! 

Can you imagine how it felt to see a bush that did not burn up, and then to hear the voice of God coming from it? 

What did it feel like to Moses to be standing on holy ground and to be hearing the voice of God speaking to him?

To me, the most striking words spoken by God were “So I have come down…”  God had come down to earth because he had heard the Israelites praying over and over again, begging for relief from their misery. 

Have you ever prayed this way?  

What if you were praying in one of THOSE moments and you physically KNEW when God came down to help you?  Not an angel, not a spirit; but GOD, HIMSELF (IN PERSON) gave up His time in heaven to look down on a nation of poor pitiful people who were praying during the time of their suffering. 

Well, it actually isn’t that rare!  It really isn’t that strange when you think about it for a long time.  God does this all the time.  We just don’t see the physical evidence of it; like Moses did here.  If we did; we would probably be like Moses and hide our faces in fear, afraid of what was about to happen next; afraid to SEE God in person. 

If you actually saw God with your own eyes, like was possible with Moses in this story, you would never again have any argument for the existence of God.  You would know without a doubt that God was real.  There would be no denying it; and that would mean you might have to listen, obey and follow His instructions.  No pressure at all....; I think Moses was in one of THOSE moments here. 

He had NO choice but to obey.  It was God speaking! 

Had God already looked down and noticed that Moses had great compassion on the Hebrews? 

People always marvel at how God chose Moses, but don’t you think God knew that Moses had a passion for these people and their suffering?  

Don’t you think God was looking over the fence when Moses went out from the comfort of Pharaoh’s palace to see how the people of his true heritage were getting along in Egypt?  

Do you think God took notice when Moses cared enough about their welfare to risk his own life to defend his fellow Israelite? 

God KNEW the heart of Moses.  God KNOWS the heart of all of his children.

I think God had been watching Moses from the moment of his birth, guiding that little basket through the bulrushes and placing him strategically in the places where he could fulfill his God-planned and God given destiny.  Now it was time for Moses to learn more of that destiny; straight from the horse’s mouth.  God didn’t send a messenger, He came in person. 

The next words God had to say to Moses were pretty plain:  

GO!!!

How many people had heard God say “go” before Moses?  Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and now we come to Moses.  Moses more than likely knew about those guys from the things that his birth mother had taught him when he was very young during the time she tended to him for Pharaoh’s daughter. 

Moses knew when God said “go” He wasn’t being casual.  He meant it. 

God was sending Moses to Pharaoh to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.  He was asking Moses to go right back to the very things he had run away from.  Moses must have considered how dangerous that would be.  He gave God an answer that stalled for time.

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

God didn’t answer Moses by telling him how equipped he was and how his whole life had been a preparation for this moment.  God simply said “I will be with you!”   How many times have those called by God had to learn that he doesn't call the equipped, but He equips the called?  Moses was no different than any other man in this respect.  God said He would go with Moses!

 That in itself should have been enough! Dayenu!  If God is for us, who can stand against us? 

God did give Moses some more information for assurance though.  He told Moses He would give him a sign that He had sent him.  God said “When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”  

It is odd to some people that God speaks of himself in the third person here, but it is simply proof that The Angel of The LORD was once again a Christophany; or the appearance of Jesus in another form, before the Incarnation when He came as Savior of the world.  Jesus could speak of himself as God both then and now, because the Father and the Son are One.  Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had seen this pre-incarnate form of Christ too.  Now Moses had seen Him. 

Jesus was saying to Moses, when you have done what God instructed, you will come here to this place again and worship on this mountain. 

So Moses finally begins to think in terms of what he must do.  He knew if he had questions, this was definitely the time to be asking them!  

So Moses said to God:  “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them “The God of your Fathers has sent me to you.”  What if they ask me; “What is His name?”  What shall I tell them?”

God’s answer was “I AM THAT I AM. 

This is what you are to say to the Israelites:  “I AM has sent me to you.” 

Then God added a second part to that statement.  He told Moses to say “The LORD, The God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.  This is My name forever, the name you shall call Me from generation to generation.”

So God repeated it all to Moses again, probably so he would not forget all the details:  

“Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – appeared to me and said:  I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt.  And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites – a land flowing with milk and honey.  The elders of Israel will listen to you.  Then you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us.  Let us take a three day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God.  But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him.  So, I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them.  After that, he will let you go.  And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty handed.  Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters.  And so you will plunder the Egyptians."