Pesach (Passover) vs. "Easter"

Rebellion, Retribution and Redemption

In the entire recorded history of mankind adversity has always been a response to rebellion against God's order! Trouble has always come to mankind because of a selective ignorance on the part of man, a sincere effort of the fallen flesh to circumvent God, to essentially become the god of one's own life. We act this out by persisting in our attempts to create other substitutes on which to lavish our attention, worship and trust! But to God, this is treason, and He has named our rejection of Him, “Idolatry”. Because we have chosen something other than Him to which to devote ourselves. Often it is our own “freedom to become the master of our own fate” which we worship. But of course that is folly.

That kind of “freedom” does not actually exist. It is a myth. A cruel trick of the one who has usurped man's power, which God intended us to have. We will therefore either choose to serve the real God, or will, by default, serve unwittingly the self-proclaimed “god” of this world, who got in only by tricking man out of his authority. Therefore, since that day, no mere man can rise to that place of authority, except that He be reinstated by God, through the redemption which was bought and paid for on the cross. The eternal anointing required to run the existing worlds comes only from the One who created it all. It is illogical to think that created beings can rule themselves sufficiently. We are made to serve something higher, and then twisted to serve something lower. We try to serve ourselves, but that is idolatry. And it is forbidden. Therefore, God sent a redeemer to rescue us from ourselves. If we will choose to follow Him.

Our Religion, therefore, is often not what it presumes to be. It is not always an honest spiritual attempt at knowing, trusting and obeying a faithful God. It is too often a bogus misrepresentation of what God intended, twisted by what men (under the influence of the devil-influenced, sin-infected fallen flesh) want it to be. However, there is, what the writers of God's Word called, a “True Religion” - it is described as showing sincere acts of kindness to those around us who are in need. The enemy of our souls can not create anything new, he must therefore twist what God has already created. Therefore, for everything that is true, good, and holy there is a substitute which is false, hateful and profane! That is what has happened to Religion. True religion is defined as showing mercy to others in the name of Him who has shown mercy to us. It is motivated by an humble gratitude for what we have, which then motivates us to share with those who have less. It acknowledges God as the supreme master, and is happy to do His bidding – which is being His vessel of kindness to others. Not so with man-made religion. It is all about itself, its traditions, its rules, its restrictions. Not so with false religion.

The fall of man has made true religion complicated and difficult to achieve. This fall from God's authority happened because of a red-handed act of disobedience in God's face. It was a deliberate rejection of His knowledge, and a betrayal of His trust – yes – it was the work of His enemy, who played on man's curiosity and vanity – but the buck still stops with us. And so it continues today. We still persist in questioning His wisdom and ignoring His knowledge, and altering His instruction to suit ourselves! We continue to go on our way, to strive against His instructions, to try to find ways to have what He has promised without meeting His outlined prerequisites! We want Grace without Holiness, cleanness of conscience without purity of thought and deed, we want to dance in hell but still make heaven! We want the “best of both worlds” - not understanding that “best” anything exists only in the Kingdom of God! We expect a deliverance from sin, while embracing the guilty-pleasures of it! In short, the selectively stupid flesh continues to try and “have its cake and eat it too”! But this can not be.

A very good example of our messing about with His methods, and of substituting our inferior knowledge for His greater wisdom is found in the “holiday” which most of Christendom is about to get wrong, in SO many ways – again. We have been screwing this one in the ground for centuries now! We have pulled mere tiny portions of the feast, the appointed time, which God ordained, (we call it “Taking Communion”), then we have mixed it in with a lot of heathen, idolatrous practices, and dubbed it a “Christian Holiday”! Therefore maligning the Name of the Anointed One and offending the very people to whom we are commanded to go first! His Jewish brothers – who at least try to avoid the blatant heathen practices – and who recognize them in our traditions! We shun being “Judaized” for being heathenized! And we somehow think this is better! Wow. The stupidity of this practice is simply astonishing when one can see it!

I am of course referring to “Easter”. The very name of which is derived from the name of a heathen god of fertility, “Ashtar”. Whose image was the male sex organ! Therefore, not too surprisingly, the practices which comprised the “worship” of this false god were of a filthy sexual nature. Hence the symbols of fertility which attend this season – eggs and bunnies! No one has ever been able to aptly explain what those things has to do with the resurrection of our Lord – because it has NOTHING to do with it – AT ALL! I have often observed through the years the madness of a whole nation of people who yearly adorn their lawns and homes with fertility symbols and then spend the rest of the year furiously avoiding fertility! There has to be a serious deception going on here. There is.

Through the years we have strained our brains to justify the madness, and have decided that the egg is about “new life”. That little religious blunder also shows up on the modern passover plate! Obviously Christians aren't the only ones whose traditions the enemy is playing with! We further abuse the Liberty we are given “In Christ” by making an unkosher meat, which our Messiah would have never consumed, the center piece of our feasting – in His Name! Indeed, the “Easter Ham” will adorn most tables this season. That is not the problem, but a mere symptom of it! We have left His Word – for a bunch of idolatrous rot! Again trading the fear of falling into what our LORD condemned the Pharisees, and have bought, hook, line and sinker, doctrines which are MUCH worse!

And if that were not bad enough, for centuries now we have, by and large, stubbornly clung to these profane, worthless, God-offensive, idolatry-ridden traditions, screaming “legalism” at all who would try to show us the way! Meanwhile, the Spirit of the real God has been trying to guide us toward the real Holy Days, which God Himself instituted, which His Appointed, Anointed Yeshua faithfully kept when He walked the earth as our kinsman-redeemer!

Please hear me, dear, horn-swaggled, people of God, “Easter”is nothing but a sick and twisted bastardization of Pesach – Passover – which our Lord, Yeshua/Jesus, had presided over with His disciples just hours before He was arrested! The appointed time of the LORD, in which He declared Himself to be the fulfillment of the promise of which Passover had been only a representation! That is why the Holy Days were given – to hold a place for something better, an ultimate “fix”, which was to come! Yeshua, the Anointed One (Christ, Messiah) was THE Pesach Lamb! He was THE sacrifice for all times! He was our mediator, our passage into the very presence of the Holy God! And Hallelujah, He rose!

What a shame that every year His Name and Character are maligned by the sincere, but sincerely wrong, actions of millions of people bearing His name, wearing a cross, but shunning death to the flesh which comes from associating ourselves with His brothers – by shunning God's instituted Holy Days for mere substitutions mixed down with heathen, insulting garbage! What a shame that still, after all these years of supposed “enlightenment” we worship things we don't understand, and reinforce things that choke our life, and hinder our understanding of what God has called Holy. What a shame that we substitute the profane things which God shuns, while priding ourselves on our “spiritual freedom”!

We have been duped! We have become idiots of the lowest caliber! Since when did “spiritual freedom” include the freedom to insult God?! Yeshua was sent by the God we regularly insult to free us from sin, not to free us to sin! Am I saying that eating Ham, or coloring eggs, or making a bigger deal out of our traditions – such as “Easter baskets” and outfits to wear to Church “Sunrise services” - than the rising of our LORD, is sin? Well, it isn't how Yeshua instructed us to celebrate His act of redemption – so you tell me! God instituted Pesach! Man instituted “Easter” in its place (along with making it a state religion, and persecuting the Jews right out of the picture – when our LORD sent us to them first)! What cheek! What gall! And then to stubbornly stand upon the presumption that it is our freedom in Him that has brought about these tragic changes?! My brothers, this ought not to be! Wake up and smell the horseradish!

Passover carries every sign of His sacrifice and resurrection when done by the Spirit of God! We need not twist it, we need not pervert it, we need not water it down with our lame ideas of a man-made “Christianized Religion”. One can not observe the Matzah, which has come to represent the bread they brought out of Egypt, without seeing our LORD very clearly. It is made without leaven (because they did not have time to let it rise), it is bruised, striped, and broken and hidden away – and then – at the end of every Passover celebration it is retrieved and consumed as the prized dessert of the meal. That is the very picture of Yeshua – the unleavened bread of life! Who was striped, pierced, hidden away in the tomb and then He rose, and now, when He is sought by those who see His value He is still the bread of life, and the prized possession of every true believer!

But we must be wary of religious practices which have separated us from the Vine of the House of Israel. Yes, Israel has made their share of mistakes and they are not our best example! But the Messiah of Israel, Yeshua the Anointed One, IS to be our example! And HE did NOT institute a new religion in HIS OWN NAME – HE CAME EXPRESSLY TO DO THE WILL OF HIS FATHER! AS STATED IN THE TORAH! And that is exactly what He did! He came to fulfill the Law, NOT to abolish it, replace it, water it down, or pervert it to suit religious flesh!

The fallen flesh, however, and the religious traditions which it spawns, is anti-Christ, anti-Anointing, anti-life! And most religion, as practiced now days, IS a spawn of the flesh. It has both added to, and taken from, what God has said – to our mass destruction. This is the root of why our nation has fallen to new depths of depravity. Because we have taken away their “Kosher Meat” – Scriptural teaching which God would approve and anoint - and morally, have given the masses of spiritually starving people a lot of rotting, death producing doctrines of demons in place of His Word. In trying to avoid the mistakes of the Jewish followers we have made just as many heinous errors ourselves! It is time we stopped judging them and cleaned up our own act!

And still the mercy of God is so rich, because in spite of all of this – He has promised to all who would be His people – whether of the natural branch or the grafted in ones - that if we would repent of our evil – He would cleanse us, and redeem us still! But we must repent! We must forsake the demigods of our own religious preferences in the many false traditions which we have created for ourselves, and return to the God of Avraham, Y'itza'ac, Ja'acov, and Yeshua! This year, may the God of Gods, the King of Kings, and the LORD of LORDS – preside at your feasts, and may you be pleasing in His sight!

Shalom Chavarim, and Shavua Tov

And Chag Sameach Pesach! (coming this weekend - which does include, but is not limited to, The Resurrection of our LORD and Savior, Yeshua the Anointed One!)