Exodus Chapter 12:1-2 Ever heard the phrase This is the first day of the rest of your life? culturally we have used this phrase to mark a new beginning; a fresh start; a new chapter in our lives (a new job or career, marriage, graduation; etc.) It has come to symbolize a new season in our lives and from this point on, life was going to play out much differently. It is one thing to say it to ourselves. It is another thing to hear someone else say it about us. But how powerful and significant is it when GOD says it? How often in life and in history have human beings individually and collectively tried to institute or start something they hope will become commonplace and tradition? Something that will far outlast a human lifetime and be remembered and practiced forever? Even today s calendar year wasn t always what it is today. The calendar that the world uses right now is mostly a combination of the Roman lunar calendar and 1
the Egyptian solar calendar, a product of the love affair between Caesar and Cleopatra. She was 21, and he was 52, and when they got together, they did what lovers do: discuss the true nature of the Earth s rotation. The Egyptians had already discovered that the year is roughly 365 days long because of the Nile River. Egyptians had Nilometers, structures that went into the Nile that could predict the seasons, thanks to the Nile s tendency to flood to the same height at virtually the same day every year. The Egyptians also figured out that the year isn t always exactly 365 days, so they added an extra day every four years, just to make sure the calendar year matched up with the seasons. In other words, they invented the leap year. This was all fantastic news to Caesar, because he had a feeling that the Roman calendar wasn t quite right. At that time, the Roman calendar year, which was based on the phases of the moon, was only 354 days long. Roman-calendar The Julian (after Julius Caesar) calendar, which added the 11 missing days and put a leap day in February, was instituted throughout the Roman Empire. Still, the Julian calendar was about 11 minutes and 14 seconds off each year. These minutes added up to lost days and then an entire lost week. By 1582, Pope Gregory XIII finally realized that everyone was worshiping all the original holy days on the wrong dates. He made a few adjustments to realign the year with the seasons and created the Gregorian calendar, which is what s on our walls and smart phones. Now we basically live with the Gregorian calendar and don t question it. However, throughout history there have been a number of attempts to redesign the calendar. (including switching from AD and BC, to CE or Common Era to avoid offending non-christians) Today we have holidays and celebration days of every type imaginable! Human beings love their celebration days and go to great lengths, efforts and expense to make them as fun and memorable as possible, some of today s celebration days include: Audubon Day! Hug a Friend Day! Hug an Australian Day! National Help a Horse Day! National Kids and Pets Day! National Pretzel Day! 2
National Richter Scale Day! National Static Cling Day! School Bus Drivers' Day! World Intellectual Property Day! Of course, we have a multitude of obscure holidays such as KWANZAA and: Sunday, January 3 - Festival of Sleep Day Sunday, January 10 - Peculiar People Day Wednesday, January -13 - National Rubber Duckie Day Saturday, January 16 - National Nothing Day Monday, February 1 - Hula in the Coola Day Wednesday, March 9 - Panic Day Tuesday, March 15 - Buzzards' Day Friday, October 14 - Be Bald and Be Free Day Saturday, December 31 - Make Up Your Mind Day But how of these do we all truly celebrate unless we have a Facebook page? And if you can t find a holiday you like, there s always: Saturday, March 26 - Make Up Your Own Holiday Day Most popular celebration day? Our own birthdays. Nationally it is New Year s and Christmas. (interestingly, GOD here in Exodus 12 was about to establish a new year celebration that would eventually lead us to Christmas!) And while just about anybody can start a national day, for good or ill, if they just have a basic sense of social media and ingenuity, how many can institute a festival or celebration day that last for eternity? Well, GOD can and did! It will begin being called Pesach (to pass or spring over) in the Old Testament Hebrew and eventually called Communion by the New Testament Saints. (the exact word for the practice of Passover is Pascha in Aramaic. The third language in the Bible and commonly used of Jews including Jesus) In the New Testament, there is no expressed command to continue and enforce the festivals of Passover, although many Messianic Christians and Rabbi s disagree, mainly because they say Jesus celebrated the original Hebrew Passover, and so should we. But Jesus ended the traditional Passover Himself, when He declared Himself to be the once and for all, final Passover lamb, and from that time on, there would be no longer a need or directive to fulfill the Passover feast. 3
In HIS own words, on the cross the final lamb would be roasted and prepared in it s entirety. And He said then it was finished. Luke 22:14-20 Notice Jesus words MY BODY, MY BLOOD. He identified HIMSELF as the last and final Passover lamb. Where will you go out and find a more perfect sacrificial lamb or goat than Jesus? Jesus also says HE won t eat the Passover again until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom how? The work of deliverance and atonement is done, but none of us as HIS people are home yet. After the first time (Exodus 12) and once more (Numbers 9), Israel would NEVER partake of Passover until it got to the promised land! (Just like Jesus! ) He celebrated Passover as an Israelite, then as the ultimate fulfillment to facilitate the inclusion of the rest of the world, (like in Numbers 9) During the forty years Israel traveled through the desert, the only time the Paschal Offering was celebrated was on the Exodus' first anniversary. The next time the Jewish people brought this offering was 39 years later, when they entered the promised land. And finally, Jesus says He will not celebrate it again until HE and us celebrate it in the kingdom. Until then, we celebrate the fulfillment of HIS part in the Passover process the LAMB provided as the sacrifice for the sins of the ENTIRE world. John 1:29, 36 Here we see the monumental moment in time when Israel was set free and this would be, according to GOD Himself, the start of the Hebrew Calendar year. Now GOD s people would measure time and they daily lives according to HIS WILL, HIS PLAN and HIS PURPOSE, and would function as a separate entity among all the other nations that choose to measure time and their own lives based on their own will, plans and purposes. It is the same for us as Christians and GOD s people today as well. We are not bound by the world s timetable of what should or should not happen, and can decide for ourselves what days we wish to observe, and what days we do not. The Jews in Egypt eventually adopted the ways and traditions of the Egyptians, and inadvertently participated in their festivals and feasts commemorating their superstitions, their gods and their heroes. While many Jews still did their best to present their offerings to GOD in the manner of ABEL, NOAH and JACOB: GOD would clean the slate of the Jewish calendar, and cleanse the consciousness of the Israelites so that their feasts and festivals would contain not one iota or aspect of the pagan, idolatrous celebrations of the Egyptians. 4
Uh oh! Does that mean that as Christians we should not participate in all the common and yearly holidays the world does? Christmas? New Years? Halloween? Thanksgiving? Well, what does the Apostle Paul say? To the Jews acknowledging their freedom in Christ as the Passover Lamb once and for all, and yet going back to the rigid, ritualistic and ceremonial aspects of the law - Galatians 4:1-11 To the rest of us, Corinthians 10 (many of our celebrations such as Christmas and Halloween were pagan holidays co-opted and drafted to Christian usage. ) there are many examples of GOD s people adopting pagan culture and symbols and using them for GOD s purposes. Remember all the pagan worship festivals the world celebrated in December every year? EXACTLY. BUT the entire world knows it s about Jesus birthday whether they like it, believe it or not. But even in this, you are not obligated in the slightest as a believer to celebrate Easter, Christmas or Halloween. God is not restricting us from having celebrations and participating in anything we want, just makes sure it is in keeping with HIS character, nature and Word. Jews then and now take time very seriously. The Torah (first five books of the Old Testament) begins with the words In the beginning, while the Talmud (their commentary on the Torah) starts with the question, From what time may one recite the evening Shema? The idea of sanctified time is one of the foundations of Jewish faith and practice. Why? Because GOD made it an issue. It shouldn t come as a surprise then, that the first commandment given to the Jews as a nation was to create a calendar based on the cycle of the moon: God tells Moses that the month of Nissan will mark the beginning of the calendar year for Israel. The Torah commands Jews to sanctify each month at its start, and Rosh Chodesh, literally the head of the month is celebrated as a minor holiday. Special prayers are added to the daily service, and Jews wish each other chodesh tov, or a good month. The Jewish month begins when the new moon first appears, a tiny sliver in the night sky. Indeed, the word chodesh comes from the root chadash, which means new. The moon s cycle of waxing and waning is a powerful symbol of renewal, reminding Israel that every lessening creates the possibility of rebirth. Rosh Chodesh offers Jews the opportunity to begin anew, not just once a year, but once a month. We know from the entirety of 5
the Scriptures that YHWH is a GOD of new beginnings, new hope and renewal. The Jewish calendar is based on three astronomical phenomena: the rotation of the Earth about its axis (a day); the revolution of the moon about the Earth (a month); and the revolution of the Earth about the sun (a year). These three phenomena are independent of each other, so there is no direct correlation between them. On average, the moon revolves around the Earth in about 29½ days. The Earth revolves around the sun in about 365¼ days, that is, about 12.4 lunar months. The Gregorian Calendar (calendar used by most of the world) has abandoned any correlation between the moon cycles and the month, arbitrarily setting the length of months to 28, 30 or 31 days. The Jewish calendar, however, coordinates all three of these astronomical phenomena. Months are either 29 or 30 days, corresponding to the 29½-day lunar cycle. Years are either 12 or 13 months, corresponding to the 12.4 month solar cycle. The lunar month on the Jewish calendar begins when the first sliver of moon becomes visible after the dark of the moon. In ancient times, the new months used to be determined by observation. When people observed the new moon, they would notify the Sanhedrin. When the Sanhedrin heard testimony from two independent, reliable eyewitnesses that the new moon occurred on a certain date, they would declare the Rosh Chodesh (first of the month) and send out messengers to tell people when the month began. The date of Jewish holidays does not change from year to year. Holidays are celebrated on the same day of the Jewish calendar every year, but the Jewish year is not the same length as a solar year on the civil calendar used by most of the western world, so the date shifts on the civil calendar. While the "first month" of the Jewish calendar is the month of Nissan, in the spring, when Passover occurs, the Jewish New Year is in Tishri, the seventh month, and that is when the year number is increased. This concept of different starting points for a year is not as strange as it might seem at first glance. The American "new year" starts in January, but the new "school year" starts in September, and many businesses have "fiscal years" that start at various times 6
of the year. Similarly, the Jewish calendar has different starting points for different purposes. For instance, the budget new year for the federal government is in October. The names of the months of the Jewish calendar were adopted during the time of Ezra, after the return from the Babylonian exile. The names are actually Babylonian month names, brought back to Israel by the returning exiles. Note that most of the Bible refers to months by number, not by name. After the Babylonian Captivity, they renamed it "Nisan" (Neh. 2:1; Esth. 3:7). The Jewish calendar has the following months: Days of the Jewish week All Jewish holidays begin the evening before the date specified on most calendars. This is because a Jewish "day" begins and ends at sunset, rather than at midnight. If you read the story of creation in Genesis Ch. 1, you will notice that it says, "And there was evening, and there was morning, one day." From this, we infer that a day begins with evening, that is, sunset. Holidays end at nightfall of the date specified on most calendars; that is, at the time when it becomes dark out, about an hour after sunset. Almost all American Jews observe Passover to some extent, even if only to go to their parents' house for a ritual dinner (called a Seder, pronounced SAY-der) on the first and/or second night of the holiday. Most (though not all) American Jews avoid bread and grain products to one extent or another throughout this 7
holiday, in memory of the fact that our ancestors left Egypt in a hurry and didn't have time to wait for their bread to rise. They try to avoid scheduling events involving food during this holiday, and avoid scheduling travel because it may be hard for them to find suitable food away from home. Strictly observant Jews do not work, go to school or carry out any business on the first two and last two days of Passover (first one day and last one day for some branches). This is a requirement of Jewish law; however, only about 10% of the American Jewish population observes this rule strictly. Most American Jews will work through Passover, although many may want to take time off the day before Passover, to prepare for the big family dinner. To put this in perspective: imagine if you had to work during the day of Thanksgiving, then prepare for Thanksgiving dinner after getting home from work. Remember that Passover, like all Jewish holidays, begins the evening before the date that it appears on your calendar. If your calendar says that Passover starts on April 24, then Passover really begins with the family dinner on the night of April 23. The month of Nissan is VERY significant and symbolic throughout Israel and especially throughout the Scriptures. First of all, on the 10 th of Nissan is when the lambs for the Passover are chosen. (More on this in detail next study!) The following events happened in the scriptures in the month of Nissan: Nissan 17, Noah s Ark safely rested on Mt. Ararat (Gen 8:4) Note that the seventh month was later designated as the first month at the time of the Exodus (Ex. 12:2). Nissan 17, Hebrews entered Egypt (Exo 12:40-41) 430 years before deliverance. Nissan 17, Moses led the Israelites through the Parting of the Red Sea (Exo 3:18, 5:3) Nissan 17, Israel entered and ate the first fruit of the Promised Land (Joshua 5:10-12) Nissan 17, The cleansing fo the Temple by Hezekiah (eight hundred years after entering the promised land. (2 Chronicles 29:1-28) Nissan 17, Queen Esther saved the Jews from Elimination (Esther 3:12, 5:1) Nissan 17, The Resurrection of Messiah (Crucified in sundown Thursday.) 8
the deepest sense of v. 2 is: You are now beginning to count a new year, now the new year will bring you a change of destiny. To me, this is literally saying, This is the first day of the rest of your life. How many of us would love that opportunity? The spring was an appropriate time for the Exodus because it symbolized new life and growth. Israel had two calendars: one religious (this one) and one civil (23:16). The civil year began exactly six months later in the fall. The Israelites used both calendars until the Babylonian Captivity. After that, they used only the civil calendar. The Passover was a communal celebration. The Israelites were to observe it with their redeemed brethren, not alone (v. 4). They celebrated the corporate redemption of the nation as a nation. (Luke 22:17-20; 1 Cor. 11:23-29). By the way, Communion is to be celebrated the same way, In the context of the body of Christ. Celebrated often, and among the redeemed. 1 Corinthians 11 As human begins, we are constantly looking for a way to start over, start new, be rebooted, refreshed and begin again at the first day of the rest of our lives. We are desperate for it. WHY? We have all built a construct of time in our lives that we believe is unalterable, inevitable and unbreakable. And this construct has become a prison, a cage and a suffocating burden on our lives. We go through the motions year after year, the same routine, cycle and song and dance. And more so, we get extremely stressed, anxious and angry when someone alters it. We are in Egypt under the harshest conditions, and we are either under the authority of Pharaoh, or the authority of GOD through Moses. Who says we cannot cry out to GOD and ask HIM to break our bondage to the same daily grind and free us to live the way HE intends us to live a new year, (that can begin any day you want) and a new lease on life? GOD gives us every opportunity to start new. Why wait until January 1 st? Why not start enjoying GOD s blessings on our lives today? Tomorrow is steeped in sin, pain, fear, guilt, and plagued with failures. Amen! 9