Passover 2008

It's Shabbat, a day of rest and tonight is Pesach, a day to remember the deliverance, the lambs, and our exodus from Egypt. What a great weekend. The Ten Commandments tell us to remember the Sabbath day (for two reasons). First, in Exodus chapter 20, we read to keep Shabbat “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. " OK, so every week we remember the Creation of the World and we remember The Creator.

And we rest and don't do the ordinary things.

But in Deuteronomy we read the reiteration of the Ten Commandments and are told, in chapter 5, "the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day. "

In other words we have two reasons to remember and observe and keep Shabbat.

First God is Creator.
Second God is Redeemer.

Excellent ideas to ponder.

These are not contradictory remarks; they are conjoined. God as Creator made the world and in the Exodus of the Jewish people in about 1500 BCE, we see His involvement to redeem the world. This culminated in Jerusalem about a millenium and a half later, in the person of Y'shua.

Now get this. Y'shua showed He was Creator over and over in his earthly ministry. He healed the lame man (Matthew chapter 9) by declaring him forgiven and only God can forgive sins. Y'shua healed the blind man (John 9) by bending down and making mud and putting it on the blind man's eye sockets. He was demonstrating his own nature as Creator (see Genesis 2) when God made man out of the dust of the earth. He taught the angry crowd about His being God (John 8) when again he bent down and wrote in the dust the sins of the accusers of the adulteress. (Jeremiah 17, Exodus 31, 32).

Y'shua is Creator, the Banger behind the Big Bang, and the Uncause Cause of the Universes.

He also is the Passover Redeemer who delivered all Israel from Pharaoh and all people from Satan and the Curse of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). The House of Bondage is broken open. He was announced as the Lamb of God by his cousin John (John 1.35) and died for our sins, to save us from the slavery of sin.

No wonder this will be a great weekend for us. Shabbat reminding us of Creation and Redemption, and Passover on its heels. Enjoy. Celebrate. Remember. Rest. God has done great things for us. All.