Passover or Communion?

“So you keep the Passover?” the young man asked. “I thought that observance was just for Jewish people.”  I then asked him, “Do you practice ‘Communion’”?  “Yes,” he responded.  “Every week.” “Then you yourself keep a vestige of the Passover,” I told him. “The difference is that what you observe has become disconnected from the original truth of the Passover Memorial.”

Passover as the original event is an annual observance, not a weekly, monthly, or semiannual event. It com­memorates the slaying of the Passover lamb on the 14th of Abib, the lamb Yahshua was to become as He fulfilled what the Passover lamb foreshadowed. He provided new meaning in the symbols of the unleavened bread and cup, as now our sins could actually be paid for and removed and not just covered over as they were with animal blood. (Heb. 10:4) Just as He kept the Passover annually, so do His people.

Saved Through the Passover Blood
Why do Yahweh’s people continue to keep the Passover once every year and the Feast that follows? The answer is rooted in the first Passover recorded. In Exodus 12, the families of Israel were to take a lamb and at the start of the 14th day slay it and put its blood around the doors of their homes. That blood would protect the firstborn of the Israelite families from the death angel to come at midnight. Firstborn are firstfruit offspring of their parents. Yahweh’s people are typi­cally referred to as firstfruits in Scrip­ture. The firstfruit sheaf of grain be­longed to Yahweh and was presented to Him during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Yahweh told Israel that unless they kept the Passover and protected their houses with the blood of the lamb, their firstfruits would die, Exodus 12:13.When the angel sees the blood he will “pass over” that house, Yahweh said.

Hence the name Passover
The lesson is clear. As firstfruits, Yahweh’s people must have the protec­tion and salvation that Passover blood of Yahshua provides. For salvation, the Passover is not an option, it is essential! Unless they keep the Passover, ap­plying the blood of the Lamb where they live – meaning to their personal lives – ­they will not be protected from the everlasting, second death. This is the significance of the death angel and sacrificial blood.

Passover is filled with significance directly relating to salvation. Church­ianity has lost that meaning by replac­ing the sin-cleansing of Yahshua’s Passover with the Easter resur­rection observance. It has ripped the memorial of the bread and cup from the Passover and used it in a hybrid observance, complete with new times and its own meaning. How can we find blessings in making up our own worship?

Proper Timing is Essential
As important as the observance itself is, the timing of the memorial is also critical. Had any Israelites kept the Passover a day late, the death angel would have already struck their firstborn dead. Keeping the Passover daily, weekly or monthly would have done them no good. Yahweh would not have honored it. Passover had to be kept at the beginning of the 14th day of the first month of the year as the law specified. Any other times or substitute observance constitutes adding to the Word and is a fruitless, even fatal act (Rev. 22:18; Deut. 4:2; 12:32).