By Amy Zewe
This week is significant for those who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I encourage you to read this article by Rabbi Meister, archived on The Jerusalem Connection website, for inspiration on the connections between Christians and Jews during this time.
Passover is one of the most sacred celebrations for the Jewish people. It is not merely a recognition and remembrance of God’s angel “passing over” those whose doorposts were covered in the blood of the lamb to forgo certain death in Egypt; it is a celebration of freedom from the bondage of Egypt and centuries of enslavement. Israel entered Egypt as a family and left 400 years later as a nation. During their 40 years in the desert, the Israelites received the law so that God’s character and message could be demonstrated and delivered to all nations as a blessing. Christians who discount Passover as merely coinciding with the “Easter” holiday miss a significant revelation of who God is, what He is communicating to us, and how His plan and His word are demonstrable and reliable.
The call for “let my people go” is more poignant this Passover week, as it marks the second consecutive Passover during which Israel still suffers with 59 captives, an estimated 35 of whom are still alive, held in Gaza. Celebrating freedom for the Jews is tempered with the reality that those who hate Jews are stealing the liberty (and lives) of family members. Christians should be standing in complete solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters, as the hostility towards Jews is not only focused on their tiny nation, but it is amplified on a global scale. The theft of Jews’ freedom includes a theft of their security and safety: the culpable hands are those of nations.
As Christians, we are called to embrace what God loves and to wholeheartedly acknowledge His promises. We should never take for granted the freedom we find in the saving grace of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary. We must connect this incredible sacrifice to the message of the Passover, which represents God’s deliverance and faithfulness. By doing so, we deepen our appreciation for His love and the gift of salvation in our lives.
During Jesus’ last days, as recorded in the Gospels, it was Passover week that He was in Jerusalem, Himself celebrating the holiday as He had done His entire life with His family. He repeatedly warned His disciples that in “the last days” we should not be “deceived.”
The Scriptures are filled with warnings urging us to be in the world but not of it. We are reminded that we are engaged in spiritual battles against dark forces that seek to undermine God’s divine plan, even though we know these efforts will ultimately fail. In His final week, Jesus cautioned us not to be deceived by false teachers. It’s crucial to recognize that these deceivers often arise not from outside the Church, but from within our own congregations and seminaries. We must remain vigilant and discerning, steadfast in our commitment to truth and the teachings of Christ.
It is a tragedy that in the 4th century, Emperor Constantine, through both law and pulpit, severed the deep connection between Christians and their Jewish heritage. Before Constantine’s influence, Passover and the celebration of Resurrection Sunday coincided on the calendar, allowing these communities to share in their observances together. However, new laws were enacted that prohibited Christians from dining with Jews, and Resurrection Sunday—renamed Easter to align with the pagan fertility goddess Ishtar—was mandated to never coincide with Passover. This separation, often called replacement theology, not only distanced Christians from their roots but also obscured the rich, shared history of these two faiths.
By severing the connection between the grafted-in branches of Christ’s followers and the firmly rooted tree of the Jewish people and nation, the Church sought to replace itself in the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This led to an allegorizing of everything from the land to the Messianic kingdom, perpetuating the false notion that God has turned His back on and cursed His chosen people. Such beliefs suggest that Israel no longer holds a place in God’s overarching plan for humanity, positing instead that the Church has assumed this role. This perspective is not only heretical but also disregards the teachings of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Testament, undermining the profound and enduring significance of Israel in God’s divine plan.
For centuries, false teachings have inflicted devastating harm on the Jewish people, fueling a history of Christian persecution and pogroms that ultimately paved the way for the Holocaust. In today’s post-Christian world, this legacy of antisemitism persists at every level, manifesting with global reach and an intensified focus on Israel—the very conduit through which God has chosen to redeem humanity, reveal His divine plan, and glorify His name. We must confront and dismantle these harmful narratives, standing in solidarity with the Jewish community and affirming their vital role in God’s purpose for the world.
Within Evangelical and Bible-believing Christian denominations, a serious engagement with the Biblical text has revealed that God’s promises to Israel are eternal, everlasting, and unconditional. This understanding has fostered a Zionist perspective among these Christians, supporting the restoration of the Jewish people and the establishment of Israel as a nation, which indeed occurred in 1948. However, in many established Church circles, there remains a troubling disconnection regarding the identity and significance of the Jewish people and the Nation of Israel from God’s perspective. This disconnection currently manifests in new interpretations that seek to replace the Jewish narrative and Jesus in the Middle East with a Palestinian storyline, obscuring the profound biblical truths that affirm Israel’s lasting role in God’s plan.
We cannot place our faith in the promise of salvation and rely on Christ’s work on the Cross to atone for our sins and free us from our fallen state if we believe that He has revoked or rendered His “everlasting” promises to Abraham null and void. If God can replace Israel due to their sin, what assurance do we have that He would not do the same with the Church or any of us individually because of our failings? This line of reasoning implies that God’s promises are conditional upon our actions and behaviors. Given the current state of the Church in the West, which often falls short of its calling, this replacement reasoning is counter to God’s Word and leaves us eternally insecure. We must recognize that God’s faithfulness transcends our shortcomings and that His covenants are steadfast, regardless of our human failures, if our hearts are with Him.
God’s recurring message to us in both the Hebrew Testament and the Christian Testament centers on the condition of our hearts: “Return to Me, and I will return to you.” This profound invitation encourages us to examine our relationship with Him and emphasizes His unwavering love and readiness to welcome us back. No matter how far we may drift, He is always eager to restore us and draw us closer to Him.
We can deepen our relationship with God through prayer and the study of His Word—the 66 canonized books of the Bible, all inspired by God and written by Jews about a Jewish Messiah. Remarkably, two-thirds of these Scriptures have been preserved and enriched by the Jewish people, to whom we owe an immense debt of gratitude. Their dedication and faithfulness in safeguarding these sacred texts have provided us with a profound foundation for understanding God’s promises and His plan for humanity.
As we approach Resurrection Sunday, let us reflect with profound gratitude on Jesus’s immense love for us—love so deep that He willingly endured the agony of separation from God. His sacrifice on the cross and His victory over death, paying the price for our sins, is a debt we can never repay. Our faith and love for Jesus should ignite a passionate desire to seek His Word and the revelations it holds, compelling us to pursue His kingdom wholeheartedly. Just as the blood of the Passover lamb, applied to the doorposts, protected the firstborn in each household from the angel of death, so too does the blood of Christ save every soul who believes. Let us celebrate this incredible gift of salvation and the hope it brings.