The Greatest Story Ever Told

By N. P. Lasovich

One year, not too long ago, my wife and I were requested by a Pastor friend of ours, to do a Seder for his small Gentile church of believers. If you are unfamiliar with the word Seder, it is the Jewish meal that is prepared for the celebration of Pesach, which is Hebrew for Passover. Since this celebration only happens once a year, there is a book that is called the Haggadah which is the service book that leads you through all the ritual songs and prayers and tells the story of the Exodus of the Jews out of Egyptian bondage as lead by Moses and is a fulfillment of the scriptural commandment to tell your son of the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt as described in the book of Exodus in the Torah. When most of us think about Passover, we think about that great movie the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston directed by Cecil B. Demille. It was and still is a great movie, but not very accurate. Oh its accurate enough that you get a sense of the struggle that the Jews had and then see the miracles that G-d performed and how G-d had Moses lead then out of captivity into the Promised Land, but there is a lot more to this; in the greatest story ever told! To the scholar of scripture, it is generally accepted that Egypt is a depiction of the world we live in. In our world we toil for a living as directed by the task master, eking out a niche, trying to make ends meet for our family all the while being in bondage to the need to survive. In the Bible, the picture we have is that Pharaoh is Satan; the bondage we are under is sin, and relief can only come from G-d. Now that is the simple explanation of the book of Exodus and that is what is generally taught in Church. Pretty cut and dry. But I would like to show you some different things that maybe have been overlooked by some.

When my wife and I were to perform the Seder for our Pastor friend, I wanted to make sure I had not missed anything, ..so I went into scripture and re-read the book of Exodus. Even though we had the Haggadah to lead us through the ritual of the Seder I wanted to make it as personal as I could by gleaning any tidbits I could out of scripture. G-d sets precedent. He is the same today as he was yesterday. This is how we know who our G-d is. I have heard many a preacher say, Well, you cant put G-d in a box! Know I cant put G-d in a box because he already did that to Himself! He made the statement that by me being the same today as yesterday you will know Im your G-d. He has put Himself into our scrutiny so that we may see that he never changes and the laws and precepts that he has in place are really for our benefit to see that whatever might be, whatever might happen, they are His rules and they never change because He never changes. One thing I have found in my sixty years of studying scripture is you can read a passage over a hundred times and then that hundred and first time something jumps out at you and you go, hummm, I have never seen that before! Well that was the exact thing that happened to me in doing this Seder and restudying the book of Exodus. I have read Exodus hundreds of times, but this time a piece of scripture jumped out at me, and I will get to that in a minute, but let us first tell the story of the Exodus. Moses was chosen by G-d to bring the children of Israel out of bondage from the Pharaoh, and if you want to look at it this way, Moses was the Maschiach, the Messiah, because he was the mediator between G-d and man, but before they were to leave Egypt G-d hardened Pharaohs heart ten times through ten plagues that were to affect only the Egyptians because G-d was telling the Jews how to avoid the things he was doing to the Egyptians. Some will also argue that this sets precedent for our rapture , but that is a whole different topic and I will not address that at this time. One of the plagues was to kill the first born. This of course is where we come up with the name of Passover and also where G-d was showing us what was to come prophetically.

The Jews were to take a lamb, and it was to be without blemish, a male one year old. Then all of Israel was to kill their lambs on the fourteenth day of the month and take the blood from the animal and put it on the door posts of their dwelling and also on the lintel. This was a sign unto the angel of death to Passover that house because of the blood that was displayed on the door post and the lintel, it was actually the symbol of life as told to the Jews by G-d. They were to eat the whole lamb and not leave any of it. They were also told to eat unleavened bread for seven days and of course leaven is a symbol of sin so the L-rd also commanded that all leaven be removed from the house during this time period. One note; today, as then, very orthodox Jews will either give away or sell to Gentiles their food stuff that would be made with leaven, and then to make sure that there would not remain any leaven in the house, will also take a chicken feather to the cracks of their cupboards and sweep away any particles of food stuff out of even the smallest of cracks so that they were sure no leaven was in their house. Of course what we see here, is the prophetic description of Yeshua (Jesus) as the Passover Lamb and the shedding of His blood for our sins on the cross at Calvary. But now comes the interesting part, for some reason I just had never seen before, In Exodus 12 starting at verse 44. But every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. 45. A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof. 46. In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof.47 All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. 48. And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.

49. One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you. Did you get it? Bought with a price and circumcised. This concept of being bought with a price carries over to the New Testament in 1st Corinthians 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. We often feel or have been taught that the Gentile wasnt brought into the vine until after Yeshua was crucified. In fact there has been many through the ages that thought if you followed Yeshua, (Jesus) you would and should have to convert to Judaism. But it clearly states that one that is bought with a price, the blood that was shed at Calvary paid that price, and is circumcised , and that is circumcised of the heart through Yeshua. The book of Acts chapter fifteen covers in some degree about this very topic, but look here, the Gentile was brought into the vine during the Exodus. In other words, G-d had a plan at the very onset of saving the Gentile as well as the Jew in the victory out of Egypt, out of bondage. What bondage? The bondage of sin through the shedding of blood! We can look back and see how wondrous G-ds plan was, and is! The book of Exodus is a picture of not only the Jew being in bondage, but the Gentile as well! We see that G-d had made a promise and for the first time acted upon that promise and fulfilling it! He promised to save not only the Jew but Gentile as well and take them into the Promised Land that we can clearly see is a picture of us being lead out of sin and bondage to the promised land of milk and honey, or another picture of paradise or heaven. I see so much in the Passover and the Seder. It is also a great picture of our savior and if you have never been to a Messianic Seder I highly recommend attending one. You will be blessed!