Holy Days of Jews and Christians

and Christians by Daniel Gardner, Special to the Gazette

Palm Sunday is the first day of Christians’ Holy Week. Resurrection Sunday, or Easter, is the last day of Holy Week. During this week Christians around the world celebrate the Life, death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Holy Week corresponds with the Jewish holidays of Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Feast of First Fruits.

Jews and Christians celebrate and observe many of the same holidays. After all Christians believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah spoken of in the Hebrew Bible, and view many of the Jewish feasts and customs as foreshadowing Jesus’ life and ministry.

Passover is the Jewish feast that commemorates the first Passover of the Jews while they were slaves in Egypt. God promised Abraham that his offspring would be as great as the number of stars in the night sky. Genesis 15:6 records Abraham’s response, “Then Abraham believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” In the next verse God said, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.” As God was making the covenant with Abraham, He said, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land …where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve; and afterward they will come out with many possessions.” That’s exactly what happened and Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits commemorate God’s redemption of the Jews.

God had raised up Moses to lead all the people to the promised land. Pharaoh, King of Egypt, would not let the Jews leave, so God sent plagues to show Pharaoh that God is the Lord. The last plague was the death of the first-born son of every household. God told Moses to tell the people to bring a year old lamb into the house for four days, then kill it at twilight and eat it as a family. They were also to take blood from this sacrifice and “put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the house.”

Christians see this story as foreshadowing the sacrifice Jesus made as the Lamb of God whose blood gives believers Life. Jesus gave His body and His blood to pay for sin. Jesus’ body was represented by the Feast of Unleavened Bread one day after Passover. Leaven represents sin and decay in the Bible, and Jesus’ dead body did not suffer decay after His death. He had no sin. Then, on the next day Jesus’ resurrection was foreshadowed in the Feast of First Fruits. Jesus is the first to conquer death and He promises His followers they will live eternally with Him. God’s redeeming Israel out of Egypt is certainly a great sign for how God would provide His own Son to be the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus Christ is the most wonderful manifestation of God’s Love for us. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.” Page A2 Thursday, April 17, 2025 MAGNOLIA GAZETTE