{This is a LONG post. As mentioned in a previous post, I am unable to post in Blogspot my hour-long video broadcasts, due to Blogspot restrictions on length and byte volume. The next-best thing is to post the words I spoke in the video, here.}
Good morning and Chag Pesach Sameach!
We are in the final stretches of preparation for tonight’s Seder, or at least most of us are. In my local community some of the congregations are opening their doors wide this year, and sponsoring a community-wide Seder tonight. Nearly 200 people will be in attendance, including myself, my husband and 18 others of our weekly Bible study group, many of whom have never attended a Seder before. This won’t be any watered-down, made palatable (if you’ll pardon the pun) Seder. It is going to be led by one of the foremost Messianic rabbis of our day, Andrew Roth, and I can hardly wait, to tell you the truth. I am so blessed by his teaching. Baruch HaShem! (Hebrew for “Thank God!”)
Talk about Rabbi Darryl Weinberg’s broadcast last night “Super-Heroes” and my appearance on there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nokXGzju9s8&list=PPSV
In my local congregation this past weekend, I was sitting beside a sister in the faith who has undergone severe trial recently. On the eve of moving into their newly-purchased home, her husband of over 20 years left her. The papers had been signed; the deal was done. And, he was gone. She had no one to help her, no family around. God, in His goodness, had provided for her a small group of fellow believers who pitched in. They got her moved, hooked up her appliances, fed her, mowed her lawn, etc. Jehovah-Jireh! Our God, Our Provider! In her earthly husband’s absence, himself a victim of his ongoing battle with mental illness, her God is her better husband. And, after all that she had been through, the heartbreak and the joy, she stood loudly singing of the goodness of God in her life, singing of His faithfulness to His children.
It was such a powerful moment for me that I decided to focus our study this morning on the topic of The Goodness of God. You know what the challenge of that is, right? Limiting such an amazing topic to one hour. Let’s get started.
The Goodness of God is revealed in so many different ways and through every event in Scripture. This morning, we are going to touch on just a few of them, and rejoice in God, our Savior, along the way.
Our first stop is at creation, where God in all His Persons was present and working. I love the all-encompassing name, Elohim, for God, as that name encompasses all the other names we see revealed for Him in Scripture. Elohim, is a plural, in the Hebrew. And, here is revealed one of the most important paradoxes in the nature of God. He is One (echad), but He reveals Himself to us in three distinct Persons, and by many names. “Let US make man in OUR image...” we read in Genesis 1:26. But, I’m about to digress, and that teaching is for another day.
So, as the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, the Hebrew word connotes that the Spirit “fluttered” over the face of the waters, we see the goodness of God to create all that is: Wisdom, Time, Reality, in SIX literal days. We see the Son present at creation as well, according to Colossians 1:16, which states that Yeshua, in his pre-incarnate form, was “before all things”, “created all things” and that it is by Him that all things “consist”, or “hold together”.
Our next stop is in Genesis 3:15, after the First Man and the First Woman have fallen into sin, thereby dooming the entire human race under a curse of sin and death. It is in this verse that God first states His plan of redemption. The promise in that verse is that the Redeemer would fatally bruise the head of the serpent (Hebrew: nachash), that deceiver who is the arch-enemy of our souls. It is that bruising which we celebrate this week on Nisan 14-17, from the slaying of the Passover Lamb to His resurrection. In real time, today is Nisan 14. The Lamb of God, THE Passover Lamb, was sacrificed on the stake, the cross, on Nisan 14, and by the time of the Passover Meal the evening that began Nisan 15, His body was in the grave.
It is hard to imagine a more somber or despair-filled Passover than that one in the year 30 CE, among the disciples. Can you even begin to imagine their disappointment, disillusionment, or their abject FEAR? “Where was God’s goodness?”, they must have asked themselves! And so it seems in our own lives, when we are in the pit of grief, despair, even in the grip of physical death. It was a perfectly human reaction! It is hard at times to have faith, to trust in the goodness of God.
Even in the tragic life of Cain, the goodness of God triumphs. Yes, Cain committed a heinous sin and was punished for it. But, God’s goodness extended mercy to Cain, so that he was not himself killed in retaliation for the murder of his brother, Abel. God allowed him, we read in Genesis 4, to bear the burden of his actions, yet to live.
13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
15 But the Lord said to him, “Not so[e]; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,[f] east of Eden.
Aren’t you glad that God’s forgiveness is available for even the very worst sins? There is no sinner beyond the reach of His goodness.
Next, consider the life of Job, that very early patriarch who endured so much loss, yet remained true to the One, True God. Make no mistake: it was God’s goodness that allowed evil to enter the life of Job, to touch his family, to destroy his family. That sounds bizarrely contradictory, does it not? However, I am reminded of the verse from the Brit Chadasha, the New Testament, Romans 8:28, which declares: “And we know that God works ALL things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.” Job’s response to his adversity is legendary: “Tho He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Job trusted fully in the goodness of God. May we do likewise.
Remember Noach (Noah) as another example of God’s goodness. Through Noach, God provided a way forward, blazing a trail out of the malaise humanity had become, saving the true seed, a bloodline uncorrupted by fallen angel seed, so that the promised Redeemer could be born. In faith, holding to the promise God had given him, Noah labored on the ark for 100 years. In faith, when he could not see dry land, he sent out birds of the air to seek it, though all he had seen for months had been a watery wasteland. Oh, the goodness of God to provide an ark, that safe haven which is itself a picture of salvation to come through our Messiah. Those who entered the door of the ark were saved from a watery grave; those who enter in through Him who calls Himself “THE door”, in John 10:7.
God, in His wisdom, used adverse life circumstances to bring Himself glory in the life of Joseph, as we see in Genesis 50:20 “But as for you, you thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” Oh, the goodness of God!
And, let’s not forget Father Abraham. That little ditty about him having “many sons” is corny as can be, but aren’t you glad God did see fit in His goodness to give Abraham two sons? Here again, we see a situation where a person thought he was doing the right thing, but it was actually a demonstration of not trusting in God. I’m speaking of when Abraham heeded the advice of his wife, Sarah, and sought to take the steering wheel of God’s plan to bring it about himself. Even so, God brought about His own perfect plan, in spite of that. Isaac was born after Ishmael, and Isaac was “the son of the promise”. But also God made the covenantal declaration that through Abraham ALL the nations of the world would be blessed. I do not have one drop of Jewish blood in my body, apparently, but I can still be an heiress of God’s promises to Abraham, through both His holy written word and through the Living Word, Messiah Yeshua.
Aren’t you glad that Yeshua HaMashiach fulfilled the Torah perfectly, living a perfect life, without sin or blemish? Aren’t you glad Father Yahweh works His will in spite of our human imperfections? Let’s journey on...
Now, I want to spend a good deal of our time this morning on two major landmarks in Scripture, both of which occurred at the same time on Father Yah’s calendar: Passover and the week of the Passion (of the Lord). There is perhaps a third alignment - - the Akedah. There is disagreement among the sages as to when the Akedah (the binding and almost-sacrifice of Isaac on Mt. Moriah) took place. The passage from Genesis is read in the Parshat (the annual, cyclical reading of Bible passages in synagogues) in the Fall, at Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the civil year. Additionally, strong arguments can be made that the event took place a couple of weeks later, on Tishri 15, Yom Kippur. However, that does not mean the incident took place in the Fall, on God’s calendar, because there are some respected sages who believe this event took place in the month of Nisan. Did all three of those major events align in Nisan? There is much agreement as to the alignment of the first two, and some to indicate an alignment of the third.
We see many, many, many calendar alignments of significant events in Scripture. God is a God of order, and He loves to pre-figure and prophesy His unfolding plan of redemption through calendar alignments.
When I came into the Messianic movement as a student, I began to understand at a deeper level why the calendars of the Bible are important. (I would like to talk about the various Biblical calendars here, but for the sake of time ... and your attention... won't.)
For example, let’s look at the events and alignments recorded in Scripture, which occurred on just one day: Nisan 17.
The Resurrection of Yeshua HaMashiach during the Feast of Unleavened Bread (various, numerous Brit Chadasha scriptures) on that day known as First Fruits, which we will explore a little later, to avoid getting off-track here.
King Hezekiah cleansed the Temple and offered sacrifices of atonement (2 Chronicles 29)
The Hebrews eating the first fruits in the Promised Land (Joshua 5)
The Hanging of Haman (a type of the False Messiah of the End of Days) (Esther 5)
Noah’s Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat on the 17th of Nisan (Gen. 8:4)
No more tossing to and fro. 😊
And, those are just the alignments on ONE date. Whole books have been written about calendar alignments.
Beloveds, we serve a good, good GOD!
Next we come to Moses and the deliverance from Egypt, which in the Tanakh (Old Testament) symbolizes being in bondage to sin. The Hebrew word for Egypt is “mitzrayim”, which means “bondage, prison, confined”. Egypt is a type for “the land of sin and bondage” and stands in stark contrast to the land of rest, the Promised Land. In between the two is God’s deliverance. I just want to highlight two huge points about the goodness of God in the story of Exodus.
First, there was the physical deliverance of the Hebrews from their human slave masters, as well as their deliverance from the angel of death on the night that began Nisan 15, Passover. They were delivered from death again just over 3 days later, when they crossed the Sea of Reeds (called by many the Red Sea).
Second, they were delivered TO a deeper relationship with the One, True God, in the days at Sinai, when God revealed Himself to them through Moses and through the giving of the Torah. The Torah was codified at this point, though much of it can be seen in the lives of the earlier patriarchs.
And, I’m about to say something controversial:
The essence of the Torah is not grudging obedience to a set of 613 rules/regulations, well, only 279 today, since there exists no physical Temple. The heart of Torah is applied in the heart of man. The word “torah” means “instruction”. Torah is the instruction from God in how to live a righteous life. The Torah itself took away no person’s sin. What it did was to define sin and show the people how to avoid sinning. It was and has always been that faith and trust in the one, true God, and most recently in his Son, Yeshua, which imputes the righteous of God, that righteousness we cannot possibly earn on our own merits. Look again at the faith of Job, of Abraham, of Noach, of Esther, of James the half-brother of Messiah, of all those listed in Hebrews 11. Torah is a way of life, which pours forth out of the regenerated heart, the heart that turns to God, follows Him by faith and then manifests in a life of obedience.
The giving of the Torah was a transformational event that points to God’s goodness. Here you had this diverse and bedraggled people, sheep in need of a shepherd. Some Hebrew, some Egyptian, a mixed multitude of approximately 2 million. They needed guidance, direction. They needed a Shepherd. From the finger of God Himself, whose presence dwelled on the mountain, and whose finger inscribed on the tablets the “10 Commandments”, was given a comprehensive set of teachings we call Torah. It was during the time in the wilderness Moshe wrote our first five books of sacred Scripture. Oh, the beauty of the wholeness of Scripture! Oh, the goodness of God!
Why were the Hebrew people sentenced to 40 years of wilderness wandering? It was because they did not trust in the goodness of God. They did not take Him at His word. Essentially, they “put other gods before Him”.
Have you ever been in “the wilderness”? I don’t mean primarily physically there, but something in your life, some event, plunges your life into a “wilderness experience”?
The Hebrew word for “wilderness”, midbar, actually means “a place of speaking”). When we are “in the wilderness” the desolation of that place drives us to the voice of God. It seems, often, that we are more prone to seek Him when there, and to hear Him speaking to us, under those adverse circumstances.
The crowning achievement in God’s revelation of Himself to mankind thus far (more about "thus far" later in this post) is The Living Torah, The Lamb of God Himself, Messiah Yeshua, slain before the foundation of the world. Our Passover Lamb, who achieved through His perfect sacrifice peace, wholeness (Shalom, in the Hebrew) with God.
Many believe mistakenly that the Passover lamb sacrifice was an atonement sacrifice, in the Jewish sacrificial system. Well, yes and no? The sacrificial system for the Temple’s forerunner, the portable structure called the Mishkan, had not been given yet, as it was given some weeks later, at Mt. Sinai. There was not even an Aaronic priesthood at the time of the first Passover! So, that first Passover WAS a type of atonement sacrifice, because the blood on the doorposts served to deliver the ones who applied it from the angel of death. Later on, though, the Passover sacrifice at the Mishkan and even later, the Temple, was under the category of peace offering, a korban shelamim. The Peace Offering is described in Leviticus 7:11-21.
Examples of shelamim we see in Scripture:
1 Kings 19:21 Elisha prepared 12 oxen as a feast for the local people
1 Samuel 28:24 The woman of Ein Dor prepared a "veal meal" for King Saul.
Genesis 31:44 Joseph and Laban shared a covenantal meal.
1 Samuel 11:15 Saul and his men
1 Samuel 1:21-28 Hannah brought a peace offering as she fulfilled her vow to consecrate Samuel to God
Exodus 12:7-8 And...Passover.
As a peace offering, the meat of the slaughtered Passover animal was eaten by the family, and bitter herbs and unleavened bread were also eaten. Did Jesus Christ become full atonement for us? Yes, He did. He also fulfilled the peace offering, by eternally making peace with God on our behalf. In both respects, He is our Passover Lamb.
Would you be surprised to know that the apostle Paul, a Torah-observant Jew, verifies this? His book of Ephesians is written to Gentile believers in Yeshua.
In Ephesians 2:13-16 (CJB), Paul wrote:
But now, you (Gentiles) who were once far off have been brought near
through the shedding of the Messiah's blood.
For He Himself is our shalom - -
He has made us both one and has broken down the m'chitzah (dividing wall)
which divided us
by destroying in His own body the enmity occasioned by the Torah (Law)
with its commands set forth in the form of ordinances.
He did this in order to create a union with Himself
from the two groups in a single, new humanity
and thus make shalom (peace),
and, in order to reconcile to God both (Jewish believers and Gentile believers) in a single body
by being executed on a stake as a criminal
and thus in Himself killing that enmity.
There are two levels of separation going on here in this passage:
The first one is the separation between those who are not in Messiah and those who are. The second is the dividing wall between those Jewish believers in Messiah and those Gentile believers in Him. Paul is breaking down a key tactic of the enemy - - which is to divide the brothers and sisters in Messiah.
It is so detrimental when Messianics speak so disparagingly of the Church, and members of mainline denominations in Protestantism and in Catholicism speak so disparagingly of the Jews or Messianic believers. When we do this, I believe we grieve the Holy Spirit of God. This is why, for example, I will honor and celebrate Passover, in all its beauty, this week, and also why I will celebrate Resurrection Day three days later. It’s not “either/or”, friends; it’s “both/and”, in the glorious, unfolding redemptive plan of Almighty God.
The reason I said “thus far” earlier was not to indicate that the sacrifice, the death, burial and resurrection of King Yeshua were somehow lacking. Oh no, His atoning work was gloriously sufficient (dayenu!). If you are a listener unfamiliar with the Passover Seder, we exclaim, “Dayenu” several times at the Passover table, to mean “It is enough.” No, the reason I said “thus far” is because the resurrection of the dead is yet to come. Yeshua, raised to life on Nisan 17, the day of the Feast of First Fruits on the Jewish calendar, not only redeemed our souls to eternal life. His resurrection sealed God’s promise of our own bodily resurrection “on that day”. As the apostle Shaul (Paul) said, in 1 Corinthians 4:14 speaking of what Father Yahweh will do - - - “And we know that he who raised our Lord Yeshua shall also raise us up by Yeshua and shall bring us with you to him.” (Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
I am at the age where sickness and death intrude into my everyday life. My prayer list is full of friends and family members who are struggling with the inexorable march to the grave. When I was a young person, I remember my elders struggling with this. One of my grandmothers would read the obituary section of the daily newspaper every day, which at the time I thought to be an unusual and morbid pursuit. I can recall my other grandmother ticking her friends off one-by-one, as they passed on, and she outlived them. I found it hard to relate to all this, and observed it with curiosity and puzzlement. Now, however, I am “there”, living it for myself. And, it is a constant burden, something that I find to be quite “aging”, in and of itself. For example, in less than two years, I have lost 3 of my aunts and uncles on my mother's side; she has lost all 3 of her siblings. :((
In traditional Christianity, the resurrection of the dead at the end of this world is not a big focus. Christians tend to focus on the fact proclaimed in the Brit Chadasha that when the spirit leaves the body, it goes to be in the presence of God in the paradises of Heaven. That fact was proclaimed by none other than Messiah Himself, when He hung on the stake, as well as by the apostle Paul, who said “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5:8)
Christianity teaches the bodily resurrection but does not focus on it. On my first visit to Israel, our guide took us on Day One of our touring to the courtyards of the International Hotel. If you are familiar with that structure, it stands on the Mount of Olives, looking across the Kidron Valley, toward the Eastern Wall on Mt. Zion and the sealed-up Eastern Gate of the Old City. In the valley between the two peaks is a huge graveyard. Jews believe that Messiah, when He comes will come through that Eastern gate. (Muslims were aware of this belief, centuries ago, and that is why they sealed that gate up! As if a sealed-up gate would stop Messiah, but I digress....) At any rate, the wealthy Jews who could afford such a postage stamp of land there, chose to be buried in the Kidron Valley, so that their resurrected bodies could be among the first to see and welcome Messiah on that great day when He comes.
So, Traditional Judaism is much more focused on the bodily resurrection at the end of this age. Both the Christian and the Jewish views on this topic are right in their emphases, (even though they do not agree on all points), according to the Scriptures. The soul not trusting in the finished work of Messiah for imputed righteousness will go into a place of separation from God, a place of agony, according to the gospels. And, yes, the soul of those made righteous by the blood of the Lamb of God will go into His presence. At the end of this age, there WILL be bodily resurrections. “In that day” the Scriptures repeatedly say, there will be two resurrections of bodies. The resurrection of the bodies of the righteous will occur first, and those decrepit bodies will be transformed into bodies incorruptible, suited for eternity, first for the Messianic Kingdom on the Earth and then for the Olam Haba (the World to Come). Later, the bodies of the unrighteous will be raised, the books will be opened, and those unrighteous will face the final judgment from God.
Once again, even here, we can trust in the goodness of God, who is the Righteous Judge. I am so grateful and glad I can rest in the complete atoning work of my Mashiach, my Savior, who has paid the debt for all of my sin. That truth set me free from the Egypt of my sinful condition, and empowers me to walk with Him in righteousness! When I celebrate Passover, yes, I celebrate the liberation of the Hebrew people from physical and spiritual bondage, as well as the preservation of their nation even to today. But, in a deeper way, I celebrate my own liberation from “Egypt”, from the penalty of sin and of spiritual death.
Now, in the few minutes remaining, I alluded earlier to the biblical feast called First Fruits which, as mentioned a few minutes ago, occurred on Nisan 17.
Interestingly, though not coincidentally, Yeshua referred to the Feast of First Fruits Himself, in John 12.
23Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
27“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 29The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
The Feast of First Fruits commemorates (Leviticus 23:9-16) the beginning of the barley harvest, the first grain to ripen in Israel, and signals the start of 49 days until the harvest festival of Shavuot (Pentecost) comes. (Messianic believers honor the Counting of the Omer during this period, but that is another teaching for another time). First Fruits is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the Sabbath Saturday that falls within the week of Unleavened Bread, the first Sunday after the 15th of Nisan (Aviv).
In brief, so not to cause your eyes to glaze over.....there was great controversy in Yeshua's day as to when First Fruits should begin. The Pharisees thought it should always be celebrated on Nisan/Aviv 16, and the Sadducees believed it should be calculated as I have stated above, the first Sunday after the 15th of Nisan (Aviv). I believe “the preponderance of the evidence” shows the Sadducees were right on this point.
Therefore, both First Fruits (and Pentecost) always fall on a Sunday. As Zola Levitt so beautifully put it:4
"Thus it happens, so early in the Bible {Leviticus}, that God honors Resurrection Sunday, the Sunday after Passover, as representing particularly the things that come up out of the ground spontaneously and miraculously after the long, dead winter."
Jesus' resurrection miracle brought life to mankind, who had been enslaved to sin for 4000 years."
The ceremonies surrounding First Fruits are:
the waving of a sheaf of barley (wave offering) see Joshua 5:11
a defect-free male lamb was offered, along with bread and wine, See Leviticus 23:13.
the very symbols Jesus used to ask us to remember Him ("Last Supper" aka Jesus' Early Seder)
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.
1 Cor. 15:20-23 (KJV)
How amazing that immediately after Jesus' resurrection, we find recorded only in Matthew's gospel that, in the aftermath of the crucifixion earthquake and Easter morning earthquake the graves were opened and that some of the dead were likewise resurrected, as the incredible resurrection power of God spilled over that area! (Matt. 27:52-53)
In closing, 1 Peter 1:3-5 (NET) - -
{This from the man who had not only denied His Lord 3 times, but who had 3 days later held the empty grave clothes in his hands...}
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he gave us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 that is, into an inheritance imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. It is reserved in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are protected through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Alleluia!
Well, my time with you for this week is up. I wish you all Chag Pesach Sameach and a blessed Resurrection Day.
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