Before God gave Man His holiday calendar, He gave us the days of the week. Genesis 1-2 tells us how God created the Earth in six days and on the seventh, He rested. And then of course, the pattern repeats and starts over with Sunday, the first day of the week. Immediately after recounting the first week, in Genesis 2, He tells us of the creation of Adam, of the Garden, and the Tree of Life, etc. It was a new week, a new day.
The seven day cycle was so important that God instituted the Law of the Sabbath as part of the 10 Commandments. The seven day cycle was extremely important to God, but most of the holidays that He instituted move around on the seven day calendar. Passover might be a Wednesday this year, but next year it will be Saturday, March 27th according to the popular Jewish calendar (see notes at bottom.)
When God introduced the Passover to Moses, He also changed the beginning of the year from starting in the Fall to starting in the month of Passover in the Spring (Exodus 12:2). The first new year represented the creation of the (carnal) Earth. The new year tied to Passover represented a (spiritual) rebirth opportunity into something new. It was a new year, a new season, a new day. God was doing something new.
If the days of the week are important, and the biblical holidays are important, but they shift around to not line up the same way very often, wouldn’t it be interesting if some of the really important ones did line up? Let’s look at all the things that “line up” this year…
This year, the days of the month which determine the holidays all line up to give the same dates at the right time on the Orthodox Jewish calendar which is most widely used amongst Jews and also on the Karaites Jewish calendar which many people call the “Creator’s calendar” because they determine it using the biblical method given by God to Moses and can often be a day or two off of the Orthodox Jewish calendar. The popular Western Christian Calendar which is solar and is often very different (it can be a whole month off) also lines up with these dates this year. So that, in itself, is very rare. The Orthodox Jews practice a different understanding of when Firstfruits is based on the bible, but if they used the Karaites Jewish and Christian understanding of the Bible, all three would place the date of Firstfruit (Resurrection) on this coming Sunday. But wait, there’s more…
According to this account of Jewish tradition, during the Exodus of Moses, Passover was on a Wednesday.
As detailed here, the Passover Jesus was crucified on was a Wednesday (Matthew 12:40) and He rose again on a Sunday (Mark 16:9).
I don’t believe in coincidences in things like this, but if it were random, there would be a 1 in 7 chance of this occurring since the days of the lunar calendar always move around the days of the week, year to year, much as Thanksgiving is always a Thursday but not often the same day of the month.
This year, Passover was also a Wednesday and of course, Firstfruits is this Sunday!
Since I was already writing a post of how important this Passover season is…And that now the odds shift to 1 in 49 just for these 3 Passovers to be on the same days of the week. I’m a bit in awe.
One in 49 also brings to mind the Year of Jubilee which would follow 7 times 7 years and meant an end to debts and slavery for the people of God amongst other things. Passover was also an end to slavery and entry into the Promised Land. A similar calculation of days occurred (7 weeks of 7 days plus one) to get to the holiday of Shavuot/Pentecost from Firstfruits which is also a firstfruit holiday and symbolized both the law of God and the outpouring of His spirit into us as the Law on our hearts. (Two different Firstfruits, Jesus and then the many mature sons of God that are called in our day.)
When you consider that all the holidays of these 3 major calendars (Orthodox Jewish, Karaite Jewish, & Western Christian) line up so that this is the same week & month of the year….And the years line ups so that each day is the same day of the week…well, I have no idea what the odds of that are, but it’s extremely improbable.
This Passover is a special time for the Lord and for His people!
If a day is like 1000 years to God and as mentioned in this prior post, Jesus was examined for four days and found to be without blemish by Pilate & Herod, so that He could be the perfect sacrificial lamb required, Did Jesus’s sacrifice sum up the prior 4000 years since Adam as the only perfect one to introduce a new day?
If a day is like 1000 years to God and in Exodus 19:15 Moses told the people, “Prepare yourself for the third day.”… Then are we entering the third day of God since Jesus became the Passover Lamb and our Firstfruit Offering? Should we be prepared for the third day? They didn’t come up the mountain when invited. Will we? Will you?
If a day is like 1000 years to God, and we are approaching a complete 6 days (we’re in the biblical year of 5780), are we approaching a time of entering into God’s rest? Are you? God is doing something new!
Notes & Caveats
Researching this can get very confusing for many reasons. One is that the entire 7 day Feast of Unleavened Bread holiday is most often just called “Passover” even though the day of Preparation was Passover (Nissan/Abib 14). Sometimes Jews will just ignore the day God called Passover and say Passover begins on the first day of Unleavened Bread (Nissan/Abib 15). And it’s confusing because God said to celebrate it on the twilight of the 14th and then all night. This one threw me and until I did more study I wasn’t ready to put this in the post on Passover. I’m become settled that the twilight hour referred to the very last hour of the day of Passover (14th) and that the rest of the Exodus Passover lamb ceremony was to be held at the beginning of the (15th). In other words, we are to consume The Passover Lamb after He has been slain which happened towards the very end of the biblical (daylight) day of the 14th.
It appears that this year’s Passover synchronizes perfectly with that of the Exodus of Moses and also with that of the year of Jesus crucifixion. I have no idea what day of the week it was when Joshua celebrated the Passover as they entered the Promised Land or when Josiah reinstituted the Passover (those are the only two other famous Passovers I can think of but neither is as big as the two above.)
That said, these are the caveats. There is a difference between the popular Jewish Calendar and the “Creator’s Calendar” and each has its problems. The Jewish calendar has changed many times over the year. Here’s a white paper about that. Also, you can’t know the Creator’s calendar by calculating backwards since it involves actually looking at crops and the moon to determine the start of a new year/month. And finally, I’m just taking the Chabad.org’s word on what day of the week it was when the Exodus of Moses occurred. So you’re welcome to disagree with these things, but I personally found this synchronization amazing since I was not looking for it and it seemed like the Lord led me to these things. Even so I wanted to study it further to see if I could poke any holes in it big enough to stop me from posting and I’m comfortable laying this out now. If you see any major problem I haven’t addressed or more supporting information, I’d love to see it.
I read many interesting articles in research for this post and I won’t link them all, but I thought I would highlight a few…
- I have linked White Dove Ministries video about Passion Week multiple times and I highly recommend you watch it. I linked it last year but then started doubting some details early this week and, in the end, came to completely agree with it after doing a lot of independent research. I learned other things that aren’t covered in it, but he does a great job of summarizing the key events of Jesus’ passion week.
- This ministry introduces the idea of a “Creator’s Calender” being different than the common Jewish Calendar and that issue going back to Babylonian captivity. In the end I don’t agree with his conclusions because he starts with the faulty assumption that Jesus died on a Friday which the above clearly obliterates. When you start with a faulty assumption, you can really get off track, and I believe he did. However, the fact that there can be a difference in these calendars was a real eye opener for me and introduced the thought that perhaps Jesus actually celebrated the Last Supper with His disciples on what was actually God’s Calendar but the popular calendar of the day was the following day. This has some similarities to the argument Wilson makes, but is also completely different. I disagree with his conclusions and am purely speculating on mine, so it’s just an idle thought.
- This article gives many historical proofs that the Passover was kept on Passover in ancient Israel. This seems basic unless you realize that modern Jews have moved away from this concept to varying degrees.
- This article talks about how specifically Jesus fulfilled the Jewish practices of the day by being put on the cross at the time of the sacrifice of a first lamb and dying on the cross at the time of the second lamb. This had nothing to do with my posts, but I found it interesting. And actually, now that I think about it, my whole post was about a passing of the torch from something iconoclastic to something greater and you could describe Jesus’ being put on the cross and giving the ultimate sacrifice in these two ways.
This ended up being a 3 part series, so I will briefly describe each part for your reference:
- A description of the holidays of Passover, Firstfruits and why God established these as the only correct way to celebrate/worship Jesus’ crucifixion & resurrection.
- A word about the importance of this year’s Passover/Firstfruit season and what God is doing.
- A sign to confirm us of the importance of this season?