Jesus - prophesied by the Jewish feasts, fulfills them to the letter and to the minute.

So, as promised, before we move on to looking at what Jesus said he came to do and why, we'll look at the way in which the Jewish feasts predicted his coming and his fulfillment of these predictions. Whole books have been written on his fulfillment of each feast, so this will be a superficial look at the detail, as I have only a small space to achieve this.



Each of the feasts had two aspects to it; a reminder af when God had acted for the Jews in some way and a prophetic view of Messiah to come. I will look mainly at the feast of passover as an example of this, but the principle can be applied to all the feasts.



The feast of passover was set to remember the time when God miraculously led the Irealites out of their Egyptian slavery. Briefly the release from slavery came after God had brought plagues upon Israel, each of which attacked and made a nonsense of a pagan deity. The final plague came when the Jews were told to kill a lamb, put some of its blood on the door-posts and lintle and roast the lamb and eat it whilst also being ready to leave (fully dressed, with staff in hand and shoes on ready to depart). The Angel of God then passed through the land in judgement, killing the firstborn of every household that was not submitted to Him (where the lamb's blood was not on the door frame).



This established a priciple relating to sin (failure to submit to God). That for those who were repentent, submitted to God and allowed the blood of God's lamb to cover their sins, they would not have to pay the price for their sins (death), but to those who were unrepentent and did not allow the blood of the lamb to cover them, they would pay for their own. Furthermore, it established another principle found in scripture - the firstborn stands for all. This means that a judgement against the firstborn was a way of saying the whole house was judged. Christ is referred to in scripture as the firstborn of God, so a judgement brought against Christ payed the penalty for all who placed themselves as His household - those under the blood of the lamb.



The Jews perceived this symbolism prophetically. They knew that the lamb that saved them that night was the lamb of God. Bible prophecy through Daniel (chapter 9) and Jeremiah (chapter 31) spoke of a time when 'The Lamb of God' would come in the form of Messiah and put an end to sin (or its effects). Jesus' crucifixion is prophecied in some detail in Isaiah chapter 53 and in verse 7 His plight is paralelled with being 'like a lamb being led to slaughter. Consequently, when John the Baptist saw Jesus and realise who He was he introduced Him as 'the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sins of the world'.



So, They would take a lamb on the 10th of the Month of Nisan and keep it until the 14th day. They would examine it to make sure it was a perfect lamb. This even extended to looking under its eyelids for blemishes. Once sure that it was perfect, they would slay the lamb on the 14th day at twighlight and then roast it and eat it. Over the years the ceremonies were centralised in the temple, so households would buy their lamb at the temple have it inspected and killed, then take it away to eat it.



During the day leading up to the roasting of the lamb they would clean the house of all leavened material (anything with yeast in it). This was a symbol of the removal of sin from their houses (leaven was always a biblical symbol of sin). They would, as part of their ceremony take three loaves of unleavened bread (matzos) and place them in a pouch with three pockets (known as the mazotach). Then at a certain time they would take out the loaf from the middle pocket, break it, wrap the broken parts in white linen and hide them in their house. Later they would send one of the children to find the wrapped bread and the family would break it and share it with a cup of wine, known as 'the cup of redemtion'. The unleavened bread was cooked in such a way that it appeared bruised, it was spiked with holes so that it was pierced and the griddle was such that it gave it stripes.



So how does Chris fulfil all of this? Firstly he entered the city on a donkey's colt on the 10th of Nisan (what the Church of England celbrates as Palm Sunday). After initial euphoria he was dragged before the Roman and Jewish courts and examined (while elsewhere the priests were examining the lambs), but was found to be innocent and perfect before them. As the priests were slaying the Lambs in one part of the city, The Lamb of God was being slain for our sins in another. The perfect, innocent lambs were being slain for the sacrifice and the perfect Lamb of God was being crucified at the same time - some coincidence eh? On the run-up to His death Christ was bruised (as was the Matzo bread) by the beatings he was given at the hands of the Romans. He was scourged (a form of whipping that was so severe it often killed people, leaving him striped (like the Matzo bread). He was pierced through by the nails and the Roman centurion's spear (as was the Matzo bread). He was taken down and wrapped in whit linen and placed in a tomb (the Matzo bread was symbolically also treated the same). On the third day He rose again having redeemed His people from their sin (Symbolically the Matzo bread was treated the same in that it was re-discovered and share among the family with the cup of redemtion). Note, it was the middle piec of bread they took - each represented a person of the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Sprit - it was the son that was broken and wrapped in linnen symbolically.



All of these rituals were set in place long before Jesus' birth. I could have written a similar story about all the feasts except those awaiting fulfillment by His second coming.

* He was born at the feast of Tabernacles which celbrated the fact that God dwelt with them in the pillar of cloud and fire and prophecied the time when Christ would come and dwell among us.
* He rose again at the feat of first fruits
* He ascended at the feast of atonement and sprinkled his blood on the mercy seat as depicted in the feast of atonement.

Jesus truly left us all without excuse for failing to recognise Him as the Messiah that was promised to the Jews who would free all, both Jew and Gentile from the catastrophic effects of the fall of man. Having established His credibility and that of His word, in the next post we'll look at what He said He came to do and what an appropriate response is to what He says.