Category: Holidays

Remembering Jerusalem…

John J Parsons

In Israel, “Jerusalem Day” (i.e., Yom Yerushalayim: יום ירושלים) commemorates the re-unification of old city of Jerusalem on June 7th, 1967 during the Six Day War. In 1968 the Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared Iyyar 28 to be a minor holiday to thank God for answering the 2,000-year-old prayer of “Next Year in Jerusalem.” On March 23, 1998, the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Day Law, making it an annual national holiday.

Jerusalem is central to the Jewish heart. The Hebrew word “Zion” (ציון) is mentioned over 160 times in the Scriptures. That’s more than the words faith, hope, love, and countless other key words… And since Zion is a poetic form of the word Jerusalem (ירושלים), the number of occurrences swells to nearly 1,000! Since it’s the most frequently occurring place name in all the Scriptures, it’s no overstatement to say that God Himself is a Zionist…. “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth” (Psalm 50:2). “The LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are said of you, O City of God” (Psalm 87:2-3). Indeed, Yeshua our Savior called Jerusalem the “City of the great King” (Psalm 48:2; Matt 5:35): It is the place (המקום) where He was crucified, buried, resurrected, and ascended to heaven; and is it furthermore the place where He will return to earth (Zech. 14:1-9).

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Atonement and the New Covenant…

John J Parsons

How are we to understand the apparent contradiction that Yom Kippur is to be observed as a “statute forever” (Lev. 16:29) while the New Testament emphatically states that Yeshua puts an end to animal sacrifice and now is our eternal atonement (Heb. 9:12; Heb. 9:24-26)? To begin we must note that this contradiction only arises when we make the (false) assumption that the Sinai covenant could never be abrogated, which would imply that a new covenant is logically impossible. If we can only relate to God through the covenantal terms given at Sinai, in other words, then the Levitical priesthood (alone) serves to mediate us before God, and there would be no need for a covenant based on the better priesthood and promises of the Messiah (Heb. 8:6). Nevertheless, the new covenant was clearly foretold throughout the Torah, the writings, and the prophets, and the assumption that the Sinai covenant is “immutable” is therefore false. We can understand this by an analogy: If an employer makes a contract with an employee with certain provisions and conditional benefits that are subject to annual review, but later rescinds that contact and offers a new one with far better benefits, there is no contradiction involved. In our case a real contradiction would be, “you must observe Yom Kippur forever,” and then – in the very same contract – later read, “you no longer need observe Yom Kippur forever.”

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Yom Kippur: Climax of the Torah

John J Parsons

The holidays of Torah find their origin in the events of the Exodus, which were later commemorated as rituals at the Tabernacle. On the first of Nisan, two weeks before the Exodus, the LORD showed Moses the new moon and commenced the divine lunar calendar. This is called Rosh Chodashim. Two weeks later, God was ready to deliver the Israelites from their bondage in Egypt. Earlier that evening the Israelites kept the Passover Seder and sprinkled the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. At the stroke of midnight of Nisan 15 the LORD sent the last of the ten plagues on the Egyptians, killing all their firstborn. On the 6th of Sivan, exactly seven weeks after the Exodus (49 days), Moses first ascended Sinai to receive the Torah (Shavuot). Just forty days later, on the 17th of Tammuz, the tablets were broken. Moses then interceded for Israel for another forty days until he was called back up to Sinai on Elul 1 and received the revelation of Name YHVH (Exod. 34:4-8). After this, he was given the Second Tablets and returned to the camp on Tishri 10, which later was called Yom Kippur. Moses’ face was shining with radiance in wonder of the coming New Covenant which was prefigured in the rituals of the Day of Atonement (Exod. 34:10).

 

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“The” Question of Passover…

John J Parsons

During the Passover Seder we begin our retelling the story of the Exodus when the question is sung: “Mah nishtanah ha-lailah ha-zeh mikol ha-leilot?” – What makes this night differ from all other nights? This is “the” central question of Passover, asked for thousands of years, and the answer is always the same: Avadim Hayinu: “We were slaves, but God redeemed us from bondage by the blood of the lamb (דַּם הַשֶּׂה).” Note again that there were not many lambs, but the LORD told Israel: “You shall keep it [i.e., the Passover lamb] until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall slaughter him (את) at twilight (Exod. 12:6). Each family put their trust in God’s uniquely appointed sacrifice to be delivered from the plague of death (מכת המוות).

There is no Passover apart from the blood of the Lamb of God….

 

 

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The Evils of Social Fascism…

John J Parsons

Tonight at sundown marks Yom HaShoah, or “Holocaust Remembrance Day,” which again provides us with an opportunity to ask some difficult questions about the nature of evil, and in particular, the nature of political evil, and how it is possible that such evil is at first tolerated by society and then justified to establish and sustain a culture of fear and oppression that leads eventually to the madness of genocide…

A typical refrain heard at this time is Le’olam lo od – “Never again! Le’olam lo od – “Never again!” and yet it needs to be emphasized that not only could the madness of Nazi socialist fascism happen again, it is indeed already here, since the same dialectical mechanisms of social fascism are clearly at work in the world today – though in today’s techno-fascist world the propaganda is global in scope, the scripted disinformation and cognitive dissonance are broadcast across cultures as a call for “unity,” and the lockdown mindset is now ubiquitous… People have become self-censoring and the “cancel culture” suppresses freedom of thought and speech. “Groupthink” and sound bites have supplanted clear thinking and logical reasoning. You are now tagged as an enemy of the state if you dare question the official narrative or raise honest questions regarding the “science” that is used to justify the extreme measures of social control we are seeing today… The Vaccine Passport is the “Yellow Star” of today; those who do not “show their papers” will be either sent to “reeducation camps” or so ostracized that they will be unable to buy or sell in the globalist dystopian economy to come…

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Is “Good Friday” Biblical?

John J Parsons

Recall that Yeshua said he would be “three days and three nights” in the earth after his crucifixion and then resurrected (see Matt. 12:40). There is no way, however to sum three days and three nights from Friday afternoon to Sunday before sundown… Therefore Yeshua was not crucified on a Friday. Instead Yeshua was crucified and buried Thursday afternoon on Nisan 14, before the Passover high Sabbath began; He was in the tomb throughout Nisan 15 (Thursday night and Friday day) as well as Nisan 16 (Friday night and Saturday day), and then He was resurrected Nisan 17 (Saturday night). The women arrived to see the stone removed before sunrise on Sunday (Matt. 28:1). Note that the Greek text of the New Testament says that women came to the tomb at the end of the “Sabbaths” (σαββάτων), indicating both the Sabbath of the Passover as well as the weekly Sabbath.

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Passover’s Love Song…

John J Parsons

During Passover week it is customary to read the ancient “love song” of King Solomon called Shir Ha-Shirim (שיר השירים), or the “Song of Songs.” In Jewish tradition, since Passover marks the time when our “romance” with God officially began, the sages chose this song to celebrate God’s love for his people. And since Passover is also called Chag Ha-Aviv, the festival of spring, the Song is also associated with creativity and hope associated with springtime (Song 2:11-12). One way to read this poem is to see the king, who had disguised himself as a lowly shepherd to win the heart of the Shulamite woman, as a picture of Yeshua who took the form of a lowly servant to demonstrate his eternal love for those who are trusting in him… Indeed, the Song of Songs is linked to the “lilies” (i.e., shoshanim: שׁשׁנים) mentioned in Psalm 45, which presents a Messianic vision of the Divine Bridegroom and offers an “ode” for a forthcoming wedding.

 

Hebrew Lesson:

 

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Countdown to Shavuot…

John J Parsons

In the Torah we are instructed to count forty nine days – seven weeks of days – from the day following Passover until Shavuot (i.e., Weeks or “Pentecost”). This period of time is called Sefirat HaOmer (ספירות העומר), or the “counting the [barley] sheaves” (see Lev. 23:15-16; Deut. 16:9). In abstract terms, it’s as if there is a dotted line pointing directly from Passover to Shavuot – a “Jubilee” of days – representing the climax of Passover itself. The early sages identified this climax as the revelation of the Torah at Sinai (which indeed did happen exactly 49 days after the Passover in Egypt), but the New Testament identifies it as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (רוח הקודש) that ratified the reality of the New Covenant of God at Zion. The redemption process that began at Passover was therefore completed at Shavuot, and that “completion” was the revelation of God’s love and deliverance for the entire world. And though the Jewish sages did not fathom the use of the otherwise forbidden leaven in the offering (see Lev. 2:11), prophetically the waving of two loaves during Shavuot pictured the “one new man” (composed of both Jew and Gentile) standing before the altar of the LORD (Eph. 2:14). The countdown to Shavuot therefore goes beyond the giving of Torah at Sinai and points to the greater revelation of Zion. Shavuot is the fulfillment of the promise of the Holy Spirit’s advent to those who are trusting in Messiah (Acts 2:1-4). “Counting the Omer,” then, is about receiving the Holy Spirit to experience and know the resurrected LORD of Glory. You can “count” on that, chaverim!

In this connection it is important to understand that the climax of the 49 days was not the giving of the law at Sinai (i.e., matan Torah), but rather the revelation of the altar (i.e., the“Tabernacle”) and its subsequent fulfillment in the sacrificial death of Yeshua as our Lamb of God. Moreover, it was during this time that Yeshua made His post-resurrection appearances to His disciples and indeed ascended to heaven during this period… Of particular importance is 1) the beginning of the count of the omer since it signified the waving of the firstfruits and therefore the resurrection of Yeshua (1 Cor. 15:20); 2) the 40th day of the Omer (Mem B’Omer), when Yeshua ascended back to heaven, and 3) the climactic 49th day of the Omer (Shavuot) when the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples in fulfillment of the promise of Yeshua that we would not be left comfortless (Acts 2:1-4). Shavuot, then, marks the time of “Jubilee” of the Spirit, when are clothed with power to serve the LORD without fear…

 

 

Note: For more on this subject, see: ” Sefirat HaOmer: Counting the Sheaves to Shavuot.”

Love is Stronger than Death…

John J Parsons

The Scriptures make clear that Yeshua is the true Passover Lamb of God (שֵׂה הָאֱלהִים) whose sacrificial death and shed blood causes the wrath of God to “pass over” (pasach) those who are trusting in Him (John 1:29, 3:36; Acts 8:32-36; 1 Cor. 5:7-8; 1 Pet. 1:18-20, etc.). Amen! Worthy is the Lamb who was slain! (Rev. 5:12). But while the sacrifice of Yeshua gives us forgiveness (סְלִיחָה) and atonement (כַּפָּרָה) with God (Eph. 1:7; Rom. 5:11; Heb. 9:12, etc.), the resurrection of the Messiah (i.e., techiyat ha-Mashiach: תְּחִיַּת הַמָּשִׁיחַ) justifies His work of salvation on behalf of the sinner and forever vindicates the righteousness of God (Rom. 4:20-5:1; Rom. 10:9; Heb. 13:20-21). As Yeshua said: “I am he that lives but was dead; but behold, I am alive for evermore (הִנֵּה אֲנִי חַי לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד), Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:8). Rejoice friends, for our LORD lives! He has killed the power of death and forever reigns in indestructible life!

 

Hebrew Lesson:

 

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Our Broken Matzah…

John J Parsons

During our Passover Seder, we will place three matzahs on the table, said to represent Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, respectively. During the Yachatz step of the seder, the middle matzah (representing Isaac) will be broken to recall how Isaac was sacrificed in obedience to his father, foreshadowing the sacrifice of Yeshua by God the Father. Indeed, the Talmud states, “We break the middle matzah in tribute to Yitzchak (Isaac), who accepted the sins of the people upon himself” (Shabbos 89b). The smaller half of this broken matzah will be eaten later during the Motzi Matzah step, while the larger half will be eaten during the Afikomen step, near the end of the night…

In Hebrew, the middle of something is it’s heart – the heart of the heavens, the heart of the earth, the heart of the sea, the heart of a person… Since the offering of Isaac by Abraham foretold of the greater offering of Yeshua by God Himself, when we break the middle matzah, then, we recall the broken heart of God over the pain Yeshua endured by taking our sins upon Him at the cross….“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

During his Passover seder with his disciples, Yeshua “took matzah, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body” (Matt. 26:26). Since Yeshua did this while they were eating dinner, the matzah he broke would have been the Afikomen, thereby making the connection between the hidden bread (lechem ha-nistar) that would be broken given for our deliverance. The matzah we eat during Passover is called lechem oni (לֶחֶם ענִי) – “the bread of [His] suffering” – and eating the Bread of Life that was “broken for us” remembers ish makhovot, the man of sorrows, the suffering of our LORD…

 

Hebrew Lesson: