Freedom, Restoration and Healing.
This week we celebrate some of the most significant days in the Biblical calendar; Palm Sunday, Passover, Good Friday and Easter. Each memorial will likely hold greater significance for more people this year than ever before as the current world pandemic brings God into sharper focus.
God ordained Passover in a time of oppression and unconscionable injustice. The evil against His people had reached a tipping point. In mercy, God attended with compassion to the cries of the very ones who broke covenant with Him. Enough was enough. He descended with unmatched power to effect justice and prove Himself as God of all gods and the mighty deliverer of His people.
So Passover was established in the Old Testament as an everlasting ordinance for the Hebrews to mark their epic deliverance, by God, from 400 years of oppression and slavery in Egypt. Among God’s explicit instructions to Moses then was to have every family sacrifice a young unblemished lamb, put the blood over the top and sides of their door post and stay inside their homes.
“And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.” Exodus 12:23
The blood of the lamb at Passover was a demarcation for those who would be safe and spared the execution of God’s judgement from those who were not.
In the New Testament, John the Baptist greets Jesus as the lamb of God—the Passover Lamb—who takes away the sin of the world. (John1:29).
Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week for Christians. On Good Friday, Jesus was crucified on the cross at Calvary. On Easter He rose from the dead and overcame sin and death.
By Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, He passed over from death to life and took away the defilement that separated all humanity from God. With His life, He paid the price in full for our freedom. With His blood, He sealed the eternal covenant between God and each person who accepts Him as Lord and Savior. “For as many as received Him to them gave He the power to be called the sons of God.” (John 1:12).
John 8:36 concludes, “So if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.”
This is the finished work of the cross. Jesus paid it all so that you and I can also pass over from separation from God to eternal life in and with God.
The memorials of this Holy Week—Palm Sunday, Passover, Good Friday and Easter—are not merely ritualistic. They embody God’s unfailing love for humanity and His relentless pursuit to redeem us.
Let’s bow our hearts in thanksgiving for the sacrifice Jesus Christ paid for us. Let’s rejoice in His victory over every power of darkness and let’s celebrate our freedom from eternal death and the paid-in-full gift of eternal life.
Have a blessed Holy Week.
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About CHAYIL GLORY
CHAYIL glory is the all-powerful, great glory of God manifested in and through his believers in the earth. The CHAYIL GLORY blog is published every Monday with insights to understand and apply God’s perspective to everyday life.