Two Little Pesach Puzzles

Yesterday, while working at the pie shop, I had on the beautiful Star of David I bought in Old City Jerusalem last month.  I wear it often.  A customer asked if I was Jewish.  I replied that I am a Hebrew in spirit, that I am an adopted, grafted-in Hebrew.  The customer, a nice young man, is Jewish.  We both wished each other a blessed Passover and (him to me) Easter.

I dearly love the Jewish people and long to see them come to know Jesus.  I know this will happen as God continues to unfold human history.  How I would love to be able to be a greater part of seeing Him work this marvelous work!

This morning, I want to show you two mysterious particulars from the Passover (Pesach, in Hebrew) feast, which are simply extraordinary.  In the last post, I referenced a Passover Haggadah for Christians.  The Haggadah is merely a Jewish word for "script" or "text", literally "the telling".  It is the procedure and the verbiage which guide the Passover feast.  Non-messianic Jews reject the Christian views of Passover, that is, our applications of it to the life and work of Jesus Christ.  Note the following puzzles, however.

1.  The Zeroa
Passover seders (the traditional meal which marks the first night of Passover) have changed over the centuries.  If you recall from the first Passover, the most spotless, blemish-free lamb was to be killed (Exodus 12) in the doorway of the family home, and its blood spread, not only over the threshold (which would be inevitable), but also on the sides of the doorway and across the top, the lintel, making an endless, continuous circuit of blood.  The roasted lamb was then eaten as part of the Passover meal.
As the centuries rolled on, some changes have been made.  For example, if you were to attend a Seder today, only the roasted shank bone of a lamb would be featured.  The shank is called the zeroa.  We see this word in Isaiah 53, a chapter of the Old Testament that is no longer part of the Jewish cycle of readings in synagogue.  (Isn't that curious...) Christians can easily see that Jesus has fulfilled Isaiah 53 through His life, death, burial and resurrection.  Here is zeroa in that chapter:

1Who has believed what he has heard from us?^a
And to whom has the arm {zeroa} of the LORD been revealed?

John the Baptist most certainly recognized Jesus as The Lamb of God, and called Him such as Jesus walked up while he (John) was baptizing in the Jordan.  John 1:29 (ESV) - - -

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

2. The Afikomen
Again, this ceremony was not part of the original Passover feasts, though unleavened bread most certainly was.  This feature of a Passover celebration did not come into practice until, many believe, shortly before Jesus' time.  But, the truth is that God mysteriously inserted the practice, and no one is sure exactly when.  The word "afikomen" is a Greek word which means "the coming one" or "that which comes after"; in Hebrew it is "habba".
In today's Passover seders, unleavened bread called matzo figures prominently from beginning to end.
First of all, three pieces of matzo are used, in addition to the matzo provided for each participant.  The three pieces are wrapped in white linen, placed into a MatzahTash ("unity bag") and given to the leader of the seder, usually the father.  Before the meal begins, the leader takes the middle piece, the second piece, of matzo and breaks it in half, a ceremony called "yachatz" (to break).  Part of this piece (the afikomen) is hidden somewhere in the home.  Later in the seder, the children are asked to go search for the afikomen; the meal may not continue until it is found and returned to the father.  The afikomen is then consumed by the participants in the meal as the final morsel.
It used to be, in Jesus' day, that the passover lamb was the final morsel eaten at the feast on Nisan/Aviv 15, IF AND ONLY IF the meal was being eaten in Jerusalem.  Passover meals eaten outside Jerusalem featured the afikomen as "the last bite".  As previously stated, today, only a lamb shank is on the Passover table, and the final bite consumed is the afikomen.

In examining the symbolism here, from a Christian perspective, let's start with how Jesus made application of unleavened bread to Himself.  The account is recorded in all four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).
The setting is a meal which occurred, I believe, at the conclusion of the Day of Preparation.  (My next few posts will detail a chronology for the 10 days leading up to Jesus' final Passion Week; so, I won't defend that statement here and now.)  On the table are unleavened bread and the fruit of the vine (wine).  At that meal Jesus refers to His body being broken for us:

19And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

Luke 22:19 (ESV)

I wonder if the disciples remembered at that point that Jesus had referred to Himself as "the Bread of Life"?  (John 6:35, 51)

I am the living bread which came down from Heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; 
and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
John 6:51

Other mysteries:
***The three pieces of matzo represent Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The second piece represents Yeshua Mashiach (Jesus the Messiah).  He is our afikomen.
***The afikomen is broken and "hidden" (symbolizing Jesus' true personhood being hidden from traditional Jews even today, and also symbolizing His being hidden in the tomb for 3 days).  The afikomen's wrapping of white linen points to the holiness of the Godhead and also to the burial cloths of Jesus.
***The name "Unity Bag" is no accident.  It bespeaks the unity, the Oneness, of the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
***The afikomen is searched for diligently by the children.  Indeed, the meal cannot continue until the afikomen is found.
Jesus said that anyone who seeks Him must become like a little child, approaching Him in child-like faith (Matthew 18:1)
God also promised that anyone who diligently seeks Him will surely find Him (Jeremiah 29:13).
Surely, when Jesus is found by a person, He is the "final morsel", because in Him is all the beauty and treasure of the Godhead revealed bodily.

For all The Fullness of The Deity dwells in him bodily.

Colossians 2:9 (Aramaic Bible in Plain English)

Oh the beauty of the Word of God, both Savior and Holy Bible!  How wondrous the way He reveals Himself to us in this Passover and Easter season!  Even those who do not yet know Him, the Savior of the world already come, unknowingly celebrate His finished work on earth, for our behalf.

In closing, hear Jesus' words, again, from John 6 - - -
(Jesus, a devout Jew, is speaking to His Jewish fellow men of that day.)

32Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34“Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

35Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.39And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

41At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

43“Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’^d Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.47Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Dear God, Three-in-One, Father, Son and Holy Spirit ...  Thank you for giving us Bread from Heaven, born in Bethlehem, the City of Bread, and "slain before the foundations of the world" were laid (Revelation 13:8).  Open the eyes of the blind to see You, to know You, in all your fullness today!

Oh precious reader!  Is the Savior drawing you to Himself today?

Sources:

https://jewsforjesus.org/publications/newsletter/newsletter-apr-2011/mysterious-passover-symbols/

Good, J. (1998). Rosh HaShanah and the Messianic Kingdom to come: an interpretation of the Feast of Trumpets based upon ancient sources. Nederland, TX: Hatikva Ministries.