Prepare My Heart for Pesach

By MMin Ellen M.

I Corinthians 5: 6- 8 “Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge outtherefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Messiah our passover issacrificed

for us: Therefore let us keep the feast,

not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness;but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”The Mo’edim, or appointed times, are a beautiful picture of the life and the redemptive work of Yeshua, our Messiah.In the case of the fall festivals, Yom T’ruah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot, we look forward to the Day of the L-rd and thecoming of our Messiah to reign in His kingdom here on the earth, and to set up righteousness and Torah and finallyremove the curse of sin from this earth. We celebrate these feasts as rehearsals, to prepare. In the case of the HighHoly days, there is much heart preparation involved as Yom Kippur has been thought of as the most solemn of all theholy days, representing G-d’s judgment. Sin is very serious with G-d in the lives of His children.The spring Festivals are about upon us. Again we go thru a time of heart preparation as we look backward in memoryto what these holy days represent to us both in the lives of our fathers in Egypt and as Yeshua went to His sacrificialdeath for us. We remember the great exodus from Egypt and the most important event in all of history, the death of Yeshua, which both come on the same date in history, the 14

of Nisan. We are in the two weeks before that day. Atthe very first Pesach, we remember in awe how G-d spared our people alive while He smote the firstborn in Egypt,because we in faith applied the blood of a lamb to the door as G-d commanded. That night He led us out of Egyptwith a mighty hand. And around 31 CE, our Saviour showed His love for His brethren, ate the last pesach supper withHis talmidim, prayed in agony in a garden, submitted to His Father’s will, was betrayed and then led to a cruel death atthe hands of a mob who did not recognise their Messiah. We recognise Him. We worship Him. How do we preparefor such a sacred and solemn time?The commandment in Exodus 12:14- 15 says “And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it afeast to the L-RD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. Seven days shall yeeat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavenedbread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.” Verse 17 says “And ye shallobserve the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt:therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever.

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I need to get all the leaven out of myhome. That means in my kitchen I need to thoroughly clean the cupboards. I need to clean the refrigerator, thestove... the microwave... the floors... and so forth. A few weeks ago I made a good start. I washed curtains. I havethese pretty lacy, white curtains. We have a woodstove in our basement and a vent is in the floor of the kitchen not far from one of the windows where I have a hanging planter and these pretty white curtains. Somehow the wood smokeseems to cling to the top valance of the white curtains and is very obvious. When I washed the curtains and ironedthem a few weeks ago it was very obvious they were clean. I would stand in the kitchen and think how I had a headstart on Pesach cleaning and how white white they looked. But I mentioned today’s cloudy morning. I stood lookingat the valence over the kitchen sink and thinking that it did not look so white as it did. My heart preparation of last fall,last month, last week, might not be so fresh either. Some things you have to leave almost for the last minute, likecounters and floors and curtains, but the heart... we need to work on that now.In rabbinic Judaism there are great lengths in this cleaning time. We need to get the chometz, or leaven, out.Chometz literally means sour. Leaven is used to produce fermentation, especially in bread dough. As you addlukewarm water and yeast together in the dough, tiny gas bubbles are produced which causes the dough to risequickly. The things in the home that contain chometz may surprise you... we need not only to remove anything withyeast in it but also baking agents, corn, rice, cereal, dry pet food etc. We need to remove it outside the home in acovered container or get rid of it. We need to clean everywhere those items may have come into contact with.Traditionally, Jews have even scrubbed and painted their walls, and bought new tableware for Pesach. Clothes arewashed with pockets turned inside out. Cooking utensils are scalded. Anything that leaven may have touched needsto be cleaned.How much more should we be preparing the inside of our vessels? The seriousness of heart preparation is broughtforth very well in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 11, where the last supper with the disciples is described.This was a Pesach seder which Paul instructs that believers keep- the Appointed Time, every year at Passover till Hecomes. But in these verses I am talking about he did not mention getting rid of bread and cereal from my kitchen. Hetalked about the heart. How do we prepare our hearts?

I Corinthians 11 has some urgent words as Paul describes that night: vs 26- 32 say: “For as often as ye eat this bread,and drink this cup, ye do shew the L-rd's death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink thiscup of the L-rd, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the L-rd. But let a man examine himself, and so lethim eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnationto himself, not discerning the L-rd's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that weshould not be condemned with the world.”Let’s look back one more time. When the children of Israel came to the promised Land they were not prepared for Passover. There was something they needed to do. They needed to renew their Covenant with G-d by circumcisingevery man. Joshua 5:7 - 10 says : “ And their children, whom he raised up in their stead, them Joshua circumcised:for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them by the way. And it came to pass, when they haddone circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole. And the L-RD saidunto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is calledGilgalunto this day.And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the monthat even in the plains of Jericho.”I see several things in both these sets of verses. I see in the I Corinthians passage that it brings judgment to come tothe seder of Passover in an unworthy manner. To be guilty of the body and blood of the L-rd? What can that mean?I know my sins put Yeshua on the cross. This is beyond that. I destroy the picture of the pure sinless sacrifice if Icome in an unworthy manner, not getting the chametz out of my life. In the second set of verses, from Joshua, I seethat the children of Israel had come into the land with the new generation not having been physically circumcised. Theverse in Exodus 12:48 brings us this commandment: “And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep thepassover to the L-RD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as onethat is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof

” Putting these two sets of commandmentstogether I see that no uncircumcised person should partake of the L-rd’s passover- to do so is unworthy and brings judgment. I need to examine and prepare my heart, I need to renew my covenant as they did at Gilgal, and as thechildren of Israel were at Gilgal, be made whole.So then the first commandment is circumcision. Just as circumcision was the requirement for taking Passover in thecovenant in Torah, spiritual circumcision is the absolute first requirement for taking the Passover as believers. It isonly with the Ruach’s working with our spirit that we can properly prepare for Passover.II Corinthians 5:17 says: “Therefore if any man be in Messiah, he is a new creature: old things are passed away;behold, all things are become new.” Galatians 5:6 says :”For in Messiah Yeshua neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.”So as we prepare our hearts for Passover what are some of the things we need to be thinking about and doing? Our L-rd went through much preparation as He set His face like a flint toward Jersualem and faced the Cross. We do notneed to look forward to a planned agnosing death as He did but to a death of self... a crucifixion in identity with Him,putting to death the old nature that has brought the yeast of sin into our lives in the past year. We need to doeverything that we can to prepare, asking Him to examine our hearts.We need to be aware whether we are spiritually minded or whether our minds are often on things of the flesh. Do weconcentrate on material things and how to get them? Do we concentrate too much on our flesh and how to gratify it?Are there things we do just for the fleshly body, which are not right in the L-rd’s eyes? If we have a problem with turningloose of these things we have a source of help! Think about things like smoking, eating or drinking too much,inappropriate sexual thoughts and actions, and even overworking to make more money than we need. We can beoverwhelmed by these things or we can ask the Holy Spirit’s help, to get that candle and wooden spoon and feather out to search every corner of our secret lives for missed chametz.I Corinthians 2:10 says that “G-d hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea thedeep things of G-d.” II Corinthians 3:16 says “16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of Goddwelleth in you?” We need to ask the Holy Spirit, the Ruach ha Kodesh, to do a thorough work in our hearts and livesand search out every hidden thing, and then not only confess it but deal with it, and get rid of it. James 4: 8- 10 says “Draw nigh to G-d, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double