The Remarkable Passover

Calendar
In fact we see at the beginning of this passage that this event inaugurates and launches
the ancient Jewish calendar.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first
month, the first month of your year… (Exodus 12:1-2)
So the Israelites were commanded to establish a calendar that celebrated this Passover
on the same day every year. The Jewish calendar is a little different from the Western
calendar, so the day in the year moves each year if you track it by the Western
calendar.

This is a modern-day scene of Jewish people preparing to celebrate Passover in memory of that first Passover
3500 years ago.

But to this day, 3500 years later, they continue to celebrate the Jewish Passover
Festival every year on the same day in their calendar and eat the seder meal in memory
of this event in obedience to the command given then.

And in tracking this celebration through history we can note something quite
extraordinary. You can notice this in the Gospel where it records the details of the arrest
and trial of Jesus:

“Then the Jews led Jesus … to the palace of the Roman governor [Pilate]… to avoid
ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able
to eat the Passover” … [Pilate] said [to Jewish leaders] “…But it is your custom for me
to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release
‘the king of the Jews’?” They shouted back, “No not him…” (John 18:28, 39-40)
In other words, Jesus was arrested and executed right on the Passover day in the
Jewish calendar. Now if you remember from Sign of Abraham’s Sacrifice, one of the
titles of Jesus was:

The next day John (i.e. John the Baptist) saw Jesus coming toward him and said,
“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world… ’”. (John 1:29)
And here we see the drama in this Sign. Jesus, the ‘Lamb of God’, was crucified (i.e.
sacrificed) on the very same day that all the Jews alive then were sacrificing a lamb in
memory of the first Passover that launched their calendar. This explains the annual
timing of two holidays that occurs every year – a parallel that so few of us notice and
even fewer ask ‘Why?’. The Jewish Passover Festival occurs most years in the same
week that Easter does – check your calendar. (In some years, because of the Jewish
leap month cycle they can be a month apart).