Let Us Keep the Feast

God created mankind with free moral agency – the ability to choose between right and wrong, good and evil. When the world chose the wrong path, God instituted a plan to save His greatest creation – the human race. Eventually he called an entire nation from slavery and gave them His laws, His statutes, His commandments. He also gave them choice: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). But rather than obey God, the nation of Israel chose the way of the devil, and our world today has followed that same path.

But God, in His forgiving love and mercy, gave the entire human race a solution—a plan of salvation, a plan blueprinted in seven annual Holy Days. The key to the plan was sacrifice. Sin, the transgression of God’s law (1 John 3:4), brought mankind the penalty of death, a penalty that required payment (Romans 6:23). In order to settle the debt, and remove the death penalty a merciful God gave the world a sacrifice for sin (John 3:16).

In his letter to the church of God at Rome the apostle Paul put it this way: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned...” (Romans 5:12).  “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, (Adam) much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).

God’s plan to save a sinful world involved one perfect sacrifice for all imperfection. “Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings that He said to His disciples; ‘You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified’” (Matthew 26:1-2). Just as it was prophesied in the Old Testament, “He (Christ) is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:3-6).

One perfect human life, the Son of God, was payment for every imperfect human being that ever lived; but at the same time God did not remove mankind’s ability to choose. The payment for sin is not automatic. We still have a choice to make, and that choice is to accept or reject the One who paid the price and became the sacrifice on our behalf (John 6:51, 53).

Jesus died under the most cruel and inhumane method known at that time. A riotous mob, whipped into frenzy by the Pharisees and others, demanded He be put to death. “Pilate said to them, ‘What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?’ They all said to him, ‘Let Him be crucified!’ Then the governor said, ‘Why, what evil has He done?’ But they cried out all the more, saying, ‘Let Him be crucified!’” (Matthew 27:22-23).

We are reminded that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was designed to forgive the world of sin, eventually giving millions an opportunity for eternal life. “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:9-10). “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and to them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Hebrews 9:27-28).

When we study the history of creation, we recognize that God, at some point in time, made a decision to expand His family, but when Adam and Eve, the first created human beings, disobeyed their Creator, it allowed sin to enter the picture. God then instituted a plan of salvation, a biblical blueprint with seven annual Holy days depicting the fulfillment of that plan. Christ became the central figure in a plan that would allow the human race salvation and an opportunity to become members of God’s expanded family.

This world, including some who even observe the Passover, may not fully comprehend that this one-time-for-all-time sacrifice put the Holy Day Plan of Salvation into effect. Passover is a serious solemn occasion, a renewal of the covenant made at baptism when we accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour. The blueprint for salvation then begins, with observance of the first of God’s Holy days, the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:4-8; Matthew 26:1, 8; Mark 14:1-2).

Each year prior to the Passover observance, we are admonished to examine, not each other, but ourselves. “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Corinthians 11:28). “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us’ Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:7-8).