Gregorian Calendar (Christian calendar)
Today we use a calendar and clock to organize our appointments and plan our schedule. The calendar we use is the Gregorian calendar and the time clock we use is based on a 24 hr day that starts one second after midnight and ends at midnight. Our week starts with the first day of the week, Sunday and ends on the seventh day of the week, Saturday. The first day of the year according to the Gregorian calendar begins on the first day of January and ends on the thirty-first day of December. All these calculations are based on the cycle of the sun. As a result, these calculations are projected and published decades at a time. For a more information about the Gregorian calendar, click the following link: http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/julian-gregorian-switch.html
In contrast, Yahovah our creator, bases His calendar on the cycle of the moon to determine the first day of the month, and the beginning and end of the year; and on His weekly calendar, each day starts at sunset and ends the next day just before sunset. So based on the difference between man’s time keeping and scheduling, and Yahovah’s time keeping and scheduling, can you see how we could easily miss the appointments He has set on His calendar for us to meet with Him throughout the year? That is why it is so important to have a calendar that is synchronized with the creator’s calendar.
Did You Miss Your Divine Appointment?
Consider this: When we set an appointment with the dentist, the contractor, or the employer we take the time to input the date and time and place for the meeting on our calendar. We have calendars on the wall, on our phone, on our computer, in our Daily Planner, because of the consequence of what a missed appointment could cost us. Therefore, we do our best to keep our appointments because we deem them important for our health, safety, independence and financial well being. When we establish our priorities we tend to reschedule and move less important obligations and commitments towards the bottom of our priority list and move more important items towards the top of our priority list. The importance of each priority is usually weighed based on value and flexibility. In this way we are able to honor our responsibilities and maintain a balanced life.
Yahovah’s Calendar
On the fourth day of creation Yahovah created the sun, moon and stars. Their purpose is outlined in Genesis 1:14-19, “14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”
Here, we see that Yahovah’s calendar is written in the sky. When we look at man’s calendar, we see calculated moon data projected for decades at a time, holidays, Christian holy days, days of the week, and months of the year. However, when we look at Yahovah’s calendar, we see the events that are important to Him like sunset, sunrise, Sabbath Day, phases of the moon, appointed times, beginning of the month, beginning of the year, number of days in each month, and we also see data on the stars. this is the data that the prophet Daniel and the Chaldean astronomers were skilled at reading. Based on that data they knew that the Messiah was born.
So whereas man’s calendar has some basic information and our clocks have three hands: hour, minute and seconds, it differs greatly from the creator’s calendar, which is too vast and intricate to be captured in one computer file. Now, because I am focusing this blog on “why we celebrate the passover”, I will now call your attention to the second part of verse 14, “and let them be for signs and seasons and for days and for years.
Appointed Times or Seasons (Hebrew- Mow-ed)
The word “seasons” found in verse 14, is the Hebrew word, mow-ed, which means, an appointment. Specifically, this word means festival or feast; and by application it means an assembly for a definite purpose.
In Leviticus 23, Yahovah lists all His feasts to Moses and instructed him to speak to th children of Israel concerning the feasts of Yahovah. He told Moses, “proclaim them to be holy convocations.
Feast #1 – Sabbath Day (7th day of the week)
The following Spring Feasts have been fulfilled by Yahoshua. Nonetheless, Yahovah has commanded us to keep them perpetually. He said in Leviticus 23:14, “It shall be a statute forever, throughout your generations in your dwellings”. Again in Leviticus 23:21 Yahovah commands us that these feasts shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
Feast #2 – Passover (14th of Aviv)
Feast #3 – Unleavened Bread (15th of Aviv)
Feast #4 – First Fruits
Feast #5- Feast of Weeks (Pentecost)
The Fall Feasts are not yet fulfilled, so we continue to rehears them.
Feast #6 – Trumpets
Feast #7 – Atonement
Feast #8 – Tabernacles
Torah commands us in Exodus 12:21 that in preparation for the Feast of Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, we must remove all leaven from our homes. And we are commanded in Leviticus 23:6 to not eat any foods with leaven in it for these feasts. Instead, we must eat unleavened bread every day.
This year, the first day of the Spring Feast began at sunset on Monday evening April 14th 2014 and continues to sunset next Monday evening April 21st, 2014. This physical exercise is a command from Yahovah for us to keep perpetually. This celebration reinforces our spiritual commitment and teaches us lessons about leaven we would not consider outside of the exercise. At this appointed time, the teaching about Leaven and the different forms of leaven we partake of spiritually opens our physical and spiritual eyes to what it means to guard our hearts and minds and how to wrestle with the enemy and win. I encourage you to do a more in depth study on this topic for yourself”. Thus, we learn to sanctify ourselves unto Yahovah.
Let Us Keep the Feast
So you can see from the following New Testament Bible passages, Matthew 26:17, Acts 20:6 and 1Corinthians 5:6-8 that Yahoshua, and His disciples all kept the feasts; and the apostle Paul encourages us to keep the Feast in 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, “6 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 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. 8 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.”.
Yahoshua had His last supper with His disciples on the evening of Aviv 13 before sunset, before the day of Passover because He knew He was the Passover Lamb of Yahovah and would be the sacrifice for the Passover. He had studied the prophetic messianic scriptures and knew what gruesome pain and torture awaited him the next day on Passover. He knew He would be busy all day being tried in the gentile courts, and tortured by the Roman soldiers, breaking His flesh with their lashing whip made especially for shredding the flesh of a man while he was still alive. Yahoshua bore 39 lashes creating stripes of shredded flesh on His body. We benefit from those stripes today because By His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).
During His last supper with His disciples, Yahoshua, in anticipation of His suffering the next day, broke the leavened bread and gave it to His disciples, and told them in a symbolic gesture, “take, eat, this is my body, broken for you, eat this in remembrance of me. The fact that Yahoshua did NOT use unleavened bread, in His last supper with His disciples tells us that this meal with His disciples was not the Passover meal. It was only His last supper with them before the Feast of Passover when He would be killed. Yahoshua was crucified and buried on Passover; and He resurrected on the third day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 the apostle Paul, many years after the resurrection of Yahoshua, joined the ranks of the apostles and taught the gentiles to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He said, “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 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.”
Reward for Obedience
Yahovah does nothing without a purpose. He keeps His appointments whether or not we show up. He uses these appointed times to fulfill His prophesies and carry out His plan in the earth. On His calendar He displays for us the schedule of the seasons when He will accomplish His prophecies that are not yet fulfilled. He commands us to celebrate these feasts and when we do, He honors our obedience, and rewards us with increased knowledge, wisdom, understanding, power and abilities to convey these lessons to the world. In these lessons we learn more about Yahoshua and how we fit into His government and purpose in the earth. As He educates us about how to prepare to fill our role in the new Kingdom we are endowed with power and anointing to be effective disciples and true worshipers. His agenda is to bless us, and unveil our purpose He has designed for us today, and the plan He has for us in His coming Kingdom. In these appointed times meetings we learn about the constitution of the coming Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and how the government of Yahovah will operate. For more in depth teachings about Yahovah’s calendar, click the following link: http://michaelrood.tv/teachings/the-creators-calendar
So in answer to the question of “Why we celebrate the Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread, it is 1) because Yahovah commanded us to keep these feasts 2) we benefit from the lessons He teaches us at these Holy convocations, 3) we gain information on how to prepare our mind and heart to do our part to make ourselves ready to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. To learn more about spiritual Leaven, see what Yahoshua had to say in His Parable of the Leaven. Click the link below and read my blog post – The Gospel Your Pastor Never Taught You, Part 3, and scroll down to the section on Parable of the Leaven https://itsnotasyouperceive.com/the-gospel-your-pastor-never-taught-you-part-3/
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May Yahovah richly bless you and draw you close to Himself.
Have a blessed day!
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