Ancient Israel’s Torah was a forerunner for freedom the U.S. Declaration of Independence started bringing to the wider world roughly 3,500 years later. While the U.S. effort to free captives had fits and starts, Israel’s declaration of freedom brought with it the power of Heaven’s Messiah. And that power eventually flowed through all nations that listen to His voice.
Shavuot (Pentecost) is an invitation to all mankind to meet and fellowship with God. He sent the same invitation through Moshe (Moses) to the first generation of Israel post-Exodus that God sends through His Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus).
“It’s good to be king!” Except when invaders are about to conquer your kingdom because of your predecessors forgot Who put the crown on their heads and Who gave them the Land they ruled. The closing chapters of the Bible book of Vayiqra (Leviticus) foretell of Israel’s dystopian future, but it didn’t have to be that way. The companion passage to the Torah reading בְּהַר Behar / בְּחֻקֹּתַי Bechukotai (“on the mountain” / “in My statutes,” Leviticus 25–27), shows a moment just before that horror arrived when a king tried to reverse centuries of oppression in the Promised Land, Heaven’s mercy for Israel and the world.
The last of the seven days of the Festival of Matzot (Unleavened Bread) commemorates ancient Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea, when Heaven delivered not just from slavery but also from certain death at the hands of the slave masters who pursued them.
Apostle Paul connected Israel’s passing from death to life through the sea to the passage of everyone who does likewise by trusting in Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ) and commemorating the freedom through baptism.
There’s ample reasons to stand in awe of Heaven’s love and mercy as we recall what when Heaven showed the Jail-keeper of humanity Who is boss that “Good Friday” and resurrection day two millennia ago. But we shouldn’t forget the enduring lessons about our salvation from the seven days of Unleavened Bread that surrounded ancient Israel’s deliverance in the Exodus and ours today.
The seven-day Chag Matzot (Festival of Unleavened bread) is an annual memorial of and spiritual reflection on our redemption, reformation and restoration into the Kingdom of God. Part of the lesson of purging out leaven during the festival is mastering the malice and wickedness that is beckoning us to open our heart’s door to them. Rather, we should let in Yeshua (Jesus) to our hearts and, thus, lives as He knocks.
The Shabbat (Sabbath) before Pesach (Passover) is called Shabbat haGadol (the Great Sabbath), because it commemorates when lambs were selected for the first Pesach, to protect the inhabitants of the home from the Heaven-sent Destroyer.
On one particular Lamb Selection Day, the fullness of that annual commemoration — Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) — entered Jerusalem as part of a mission to protect those in the ever-expanding house of God from the bondage of lives separated from Heaven.