Ezra 6:19-22--Passover Celebrated

Ezra 6:19-22
English Standard Version
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Passover Celebrated
19 On the fourteenth day of the first month, the returned exiles kept the Passover. 20 For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together; all of them were clean. So they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the returned exiles, for their fellow priests, and for themselves. 21 It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and also by every one who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the LORD, the God of Israel. 22 And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy, for the LORD had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.

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The Temple has been rebuilt and dedicated, and the first official event recorded at the Temple after its dedication is the celebration of the Passover.  To the Jewish people, Passover is probably the highest of holy days.  It celebrates how the LORD saved His people from slavery in Egypt using signs and wonders (plagues).  "With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm" He delivered them from the hands of all their enemies and led them (over 40 years) to the Promised Land--a Land the represents our eternal resting place in many ways.  He also became known as their Redeemer, for they were under the same curse and judgment of death as the Egyptians because all have sinned and deserve death for their sins, but the LORD allowed a Passover Lamb to die in their place and the doorway of their house was marked on the top and both sides by the blood of this Lamb.  It pointed forward to the fact that one day there would be a better Lamb--the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.  The Jewish people had to sacrifice this Lamb before roasting it and eating it all that evening while being dressed and prepared to get up and leave as it was a reminder of the quick exit (the Exodus) that they had to make from Egypt.  It died them to their history in the past, but also pointed to their destiny in the future.  God's people will always be a people that He saves miraculously, and He would use the blood of the Lamb to save them from slavery to sin and death.  This is what we a Christians celebrate with the Lord's Supper, and we use it as a way to look back and to look forward.  It's no longer a holiday that comes once a year for us that marks the beginning of a new year (the middle of the first month on their calendar at the time of the full moon during the first month--for each month starts with a "new" moon and has a full moon in the middle of the month as the moon waxes to full and then wanes to new).

The people brought their perfect lambs or goats--they had to be without spot or blemish--to the priests at the Temple for inspection and sacrifice, and the priests, along with all the Levites assisted the people in sacrificing the Passover Lambs.  Because of this extra-special work they were doing that day, all the priests were consecrated and on-duty (normally only one order would be serving each week, but this was a day everyone had to show up for).  The priests made sacrifice for themselves and their families first, and then assisted the people after their own sins had been dealt with.  Everyone who was a citizen of Israel or a resident alien or even the ones who were just passing through who feared the LORD and worshiped Him were to celebrate the LORD's Passover together with all of the LORD's people at this time.  No one was left out, and everyone ate of the Passover Meal--unless you ate of the Passover Lamb, you had no part in the LORD's people, and you were excommunicated.  Jesus makes a similar statement about Himself in John 6 that is hard for us to understand without this context of Him being the Passover Lamb.

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me-- 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
It is a hard saying/teaching indeed (this is what Jesus' disciples said about it), but it can be understood in the context of Passover.  John makes sure to tell us in John 6:4 that Passover was at hand and the context of unleavened bread, the blood of a Passover Lamb, and being taken from death to life and the hope of eternal life should have all been in the forefront of people's minds if they were thinking about the things that the LORD intended them to think about during this feast--it was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus dying for us on Passover being our substitutionary atonement so that all those who came to Him by faith to believe in the sacrifice He made on their behalf (whether Jew or Gentile) could become a part of the family of God by way of His flesh and blood and through the power of His resurrection that happened three days later on the Feast of Firstfruits.  He was the spotless Lamb of God and the Bread of Life.

Now back to today's story--I just wanted to give you some context about how the Temple and especially Passover is so connected to the gospel story and what God intends His people to remember and to look forward to that we shouldn't miss that this is the first official event recorded in the Temple after its dedication.  In fact, this holy day is so a part of the identity of Jewish people that as I mentioned before, no one could be considered Jewish if they would not celebrate this feast on an annual basis.

Along with this Feast of Passover that started on the evening of the fourteenth day of Nissan, the Feast of Unleavened Bread started on the fifteenth day and lasted for a week.  It was a time when the people needed to purify themselves and their homes carefully so there was no leaven (yeast) anywhere in all of Israel (yeast is really hard to get rid of and just a little of it ruins the whole lump of unleavened bread--this is a sign for the people of how much time and effort they needed to spend purifying themselves and their community from sin and how they couldn't even allow a little bit of it to exist among them because it would ruin everyone and everything if they did).  Often times the two feasts were looked at as a single feast with Passover being the "kick off" for The Feast of Unleavened Bread, and together they would be referred to as Pesach and sometimes that word is translated as Passover and other times it is translated as The Feast of Unleavened Bread in the New Testament (but it should never be translated as Easter--it is always tied to the idea of one of these two Jewish feasts or both of them).

The author here, Ezra, wants us to see that this Passover was like a new mile marker in the lives and history of the Jewish people and that this was like a Second Exodus for them.  No longer would generations only talk about how the LORD saved them from slavery in Egypt, but they would also talk about how the LORD delivered them out slavery to the Babylonians, Medes, and Persians and He restored them and brought them back to the Promised Land.  The rebuilding of the Temple was a sign for them that God was once again please to dwell among His people--He would be their God and they would be His covenant people. They hoped that by celebrating and remember this event that future generations would learn from it and never repeat the same mistakes of the past of idolatry and paganism that angered the LORD and caused Him to punish His people by sending them out of the Land for seventy years and allowing them to become exiles and ruled over by the Gentile nations of Babylonia, Media and Persia.  Yet, even in this, we cannot call these Gentile peoples "godless," because the LORD was at work in the hearts of those nations and people through His prophets that He sent not only to His people the Jews, but to these Gentile kings so that they worshiped Him, feared Him, and called on everyone in their kingdoms to do the same.  It was truly miraculous (a God thing) that the LORD turned this event that was supposed to be punishment for the Jewish people into one of the greatest "evangelistic" campaigns in history as the Jews who were supposed to be a light to the Gentiles had kept much of the truth they knew to themselves and told the peoples of the world that if they wanted to seek and know the truth, they should come to the Temple to hear it.  The Temple had been destroyed and God sent His people into Assyria, Babylon, and the other Gentile kingdoms to be "salt and light," much like how we are sent out into the world to be ambassadors of the kingdom of God.  The apostle Peter picks up on this theme and calls us "exiles" in his epistle (referring back to this history from the Old Testament and relating it to the history of every Christian--you can read his epistles to see how he connects the gospel both to the Exodus and the time of Exile).
 
The people celebrated the LORD and worshiped Him because this miracle of saving them and turning the heart of the king was no less miraculous to them than the plagues or the parting of the Red Sea.  God had made a way for them where there seemed to be no way.  Only the LORD could have done this and worked in ways that "exceedingly, abundantly above all we could ask or imagine."  Like how the Jewish people left Egypt with all the treasures of that nation in hand that were enough to give them everything they needed (and much more) to build the Tabernacle, the LORD had put it within the hearts of Cyrus and Darius to give the people all the resources and treasures that they needed to rebuild the Temple.  It wouldn't be as large as Solomon's Temple, but it would still be something amazing that people from all around the world would come and see.  As people came to the Temple, they heard of this history of how God worked in and through and among His people and that He was up to something even bigger that they were still looking forward to.  Hopefully, people get a sense of that too when they visit our places of worship today as there is an "already" and a "not yet" part of our worship.  We remember who He is and what He has done, but we also recognize what He is currently doing and look forward to what He has promised and is as good as done, though we still are awaiting its fulfillment.  In a similar was to Passover, we should "preach" this every time we take the Lord's Supper together, and it is something that we are commanded to do and do often, and it is just a much a part of the identity of a Christian as celebrating Passover was part of being Jewish.  If you call yourself a Christian and aren't regularly proclaiming the gospel through the corporate act of celebrating the Lord's Supper together with other believers, why not?  I am sure that even if it is difficult, your local congregation that you are a member of will find a way to help bring you to the Lord's Table or bring it to you if you have trouble getting there, but like the priests and the people that celebrated Passover, we are to consecrate ourselves so that we are not claiming to be one thing by eating the Lord's Supper and living in such a way where we are obviously something else.  The Lord's Supper is only for those that find their identity in the finished work of Jesus as our substitutionary atonement and have a new identity in Him that is marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit living within us.  I've spoken at length about Passover and the Lord's Supper in other places where it has come up, but it felt right to do it again as it was the emphasis of today's text, and it ties in with why the Temple and its reconstruction was so important to the reconstruction of the Lord's people.