Passover's Meaning
Let's look at the three Passover prophecy events to clarify their meaning and relevance to Jesus' ministry and our lives. We will take them in their historical order: Joseph, Miriam/Mary, Joshua/Jesus.
Joseph in Egypt
Joseph was a younger brother in a large family. As a teenager he developed questions about his future and God replied with dreams that showed him in an exalted leadership role. As the father’s obvious favorite, along with these dreams that lowered their status, his brothers hated him. Murder was discussed but an opportunity arose, so they sold him into slavery.
He wound up in Egypt, rose in prestige, but was the target that wound him in jail under false charges. Circumstances developed so that he fit in a leadership role, which allowed him to talk with a variety of prisoners and use his dream interpretation gift.
He used his gift when two prisoners were brought in from Pharaoh's court. His interpretation of their dreams came true, but he was quickly forgotten.
Then Pharaoh had dreams that disturbed him. His wise men could not provide satisfactory answers. The former prisoner remembered Joseph, told Pharaoh of his dream gift, and Joseph was summoned.
Pharaoh was impressed, saw God working through Joseph, so he made him the magistrate over the famine rescue project.
The famine kicked in, the Middle East suffered, and families travelled to Egypt to get food. This included Joseph’s family, but they had no idea that God blessed Joseph. Joseph saw an opportunity to cleanse his family of their wickedness and turn them into a true family of God.
Scripture provides us with a lot of details about this. At the time this was written writing material was scarce. Usually, we have the Cliff Notes version of the story. Not here. That tells us it is extremely important and needs to be taken in and well understood.
The details begin in Genesis chapter 42 and end around Genesis chapter 48. Joseph’s family lived in Canaan. Jacob, Joseph’s father, heard there was food available in Egypt. He chastised his sons for sitting around and sent them to Egypt to buy food. Ten of the eleven sons go, and Benjamin remained behind, as the sole remaining son of Jacob’s favorite wife. Joseph had sons with four women.
In Egypt Joseph recognized them, accused them of being spies, and locked them up for three days. Then he did a conditional release. One of them, Simeon, remained imprisoned and they needed to return with Benjamin to show they had told Joseph the truth.
They left, went home, told their father what happened, and things got ugly. Jacob berated them for destroying his life by taking everyone from him. “I’ll be left with nothing” (Genesis 42:36). Rueben, the eldest son, spoke up and offered his two sons as hostages. If he failed to return Benjamin, Joseph could kill them. Jacob refused.
The famine got worse. They consumed all their food. Jacob told them to return, but they refused to go. The Egyptian emphatically warned them they will not be welcome back without their brother. Judah talked Jacob into letting Benjamin go, that he put his life on the line for Benjamin. He will suffer the consequences personally for anything that happened to Benjamin.
Jacob gave in. The brothers rushed down there. They offered to repay for the previous food, since the money mysteriously reappeared in their bags. They were assured all was well, Joseph received their money the first time. They ate dinner in Joseph’s house and left the next morning. On their way out of town Joseph sent his men after them. They were accused of stealing his money. The guilty person would stay in Egypt as Joseph's slave.
The missing item showed up in Benjamin’s bag. All the brothers went back and threw themselves to the ground before Joseph. Judah spoke from a broken heart about how destroyed their father was, torn by losing his sons. Judah offered himself as Joseph’s slave and pleaded with Joseph to send Benjamin back to his father.
Joseph couldn’t take it any longer. He ordered all the Egyptians out and cried out to his brothers. He revealed himself and assured them of his love.
Word spread and Pharaoh was happy for Joseph. He invited the family to move to Egypt and they agreed. Jacob was ecstatic and spent the rest of the narrative saying blessings for people as he appeared in the story. Joseph deepens his relationship with his brothers, and they become a strong family of God.
Joseph arose as the wise man of God in Israel’s family. Blessed by God and man, seen to be a man who fulfilled his destiny. Earlier in the story Judah couldn’t stand to be with his family. He separated himself to avoid the pain. Yet later he is willing to lay down his life to take Benjamin’s place. He fulfilled Christ’s nature at that moment. Simeon turns out to be a clue from Joseph. He selected Simeon, whose name means ‘hearing’, to send a message to his family. Pay attention to hearing the voice of reason and God pervading the situation. And Jacob goes from a man broken with bitter grief to being a fount of sweet perpetual blessing.
I would say the first Passover event in Israel was about family. The need for healing was obvious. The healing process was a step-by-step coming to the truth required by reality. God was behind it and expected a strong outcome, which developed on several levels. The strong family of God motif is what we see as a result that holds for generations. We see this at the start of the book of Exodus. Joseph laid a solid family foundation, which endured and brought much blessing to his family.
Miriam in Egypt
The book of Exodus begins with a quick review. These are the family members who moved to Egypt with Jacob – all of them, seventy people. The generations aged and died, but the family remained prolific. The Egyptians depended on Israel as a strong work force. A new Egyptian Pharaoh grew concerned and manipulated circumstances and enslaved Israel.
Worse, Pharaoh tried to kill the males off at birth, so the females would be assimilated, and the people of Israel evaporated. Pharaoh was fearful that Israel would side with Egypt’s enemies in the next war and destroy them. He worked hard to eliminate them, but they resisted annihilation. Instead, Israel thrived.
In this atmosphere of persevering assertiveness, a couple had a male child, destined to die. But they hid him and kept him alive. He grew and his cries grew too. They put him in a basket and placed him in the river. The sister Miriam watched, saw a royal family member’s interest, and offered to get a Hebrew woman to nurse him. The family member named him Moses since she drew him out of the river. He grew up in royalty.
The rest of the story becomes the Exodus adventure. Moses leads Israel out of Egypt due to God’s involvement, using a series of plagues to break Pharaoh's resistance to God's request. They leave on the exact day they entered the land, 430 years later. This becomes the second Passover event, the one celebrated annually by Jews. Miriam, the brave woman who rescued her brother, joins the family counseling sessions during the wilderness journey to the Promised Land.
The second Passover is about Miriam, a Hebrew name for rebellious. Exodus 1 and 2 shows us Israel had to be rebellious against the dominant culture’s world view to survive, and even thrive. She became an example of the civil disobedience that flourished in the strong family spirit that Joseph generated.
The words selected at the start of Exodus are lifted from the creation of humanity account in Genesis 1. Their fulfillment of God’s destiny, living out the role God gave humanity, made them look like a possible threat to the Egyptians, where fear ruled humanity again.
Exodus 1 became the practical fulfillment of Genesis 1. This is how God intended humanity to fill the earth, dominate their environment, and resist all opposition. Like Israel to the Egyptians, Joseph was seen as a possible threat to his brothers. Both sought to destroy God’s plan. Both failed.
The second Passover is about the need to face the culture you are in with divine influence, no matter the results. We need to develop the sophisticated mindset of civil disobedience that results from a heart steadfast in standing up for its God-given dignity. This is the spirit that shows itself as thriving. This is how we take our rightful place in the world.
Joshua in the Wilderness
Joshua showed up in the background of Israel’s journey to the Promised Land. He was Moses’ assistant. He supported Moses during key events. Once the tabernacle was built, he often stayed behind after Moses left it, to commune with God. At a time in history when assistants were mentored and prepared to be the next leader, Joshua replaced Moses when he died.
Joshua became the leader of Israel as it entered the Promised Land. They crossed the Jordan River just as spring began. There were covenant commitment ceremonies. An angel appeared and clarified how things were to proceed. It was Passover time (Joshua 5:10-12), the third time Israel crossed national boundaries during Passover. God was setting up a seismic lesson of life. Joshua was the capstone.
Israel’s entry into the Promised Land at Passover was a significant event. All their past was behind them. They are a born-again nation, ready to follow God’s directions as they conquered God’s enemies. They are to possess the land and cultivate it for God’s kingdom. It’s the garden of Eden restarted in the Promised Land. Passover’s new nature emerged. This became a type (model) for Jesus’ ministry mindset, the most evident aspect of His ministry. Jesus infused the people with a new vision and understanding of God.
The third Passover was about establishing the authority of God’s kingdom in your area of influence. Joshua had to battle, kill, and expel those who occupied the Promised Land. Jesus used a better way, utilizing God’s authority to undermine the opposition’s control of the people. He worked miracles, used insightful teaching, and lived an impactful quality life to reorient the people to God’s kingdom mindset. He strategically appeared publicly during key national events to make His message viral. But the religious system could not yield to divine influence. They killed the messenger instead of accepting the message He lived. But the message was full of eternal life, so the messenger was resurrected to live forever.
The first Passover sets up the family of God. In the NT Jesus teaches and trains His disciples to be the family of God. The second Passover resists the culture and establishes a beachhead for God’s expanding Kingdom. Jesus’ disciples experience Jesus’ modus operandi for civil disobedience and did the same. The third Passover sets up a territory under God’s authority where the Kingdom’s influence is established. The apostles go out and create churches. They teach the people how to live as Kingdom leaders, to expand into their communities, creating patches of Eden’s lifestyle. The kingdom of God churches radically lived love and transformed the culture into the Holy Roan Empire. Granted, it became corrupt and problem-filled, partly because it failed to maintain the three Passover prophecy of the true Christian nature.
This is the mission of God’s people until Jesus comes back – spread the authority of God’s kingdom in pockets of resistance to the death culture seeping the world. And this is what will continue to happen once Jesus returns and visibly sets up God’s kingdom. It will grow and pervade the earth, like the garden of Eden was supposed to.
We are to live the structure, process, and spirit of Passover as a deepening relationship with God. This enables us to function as a special nation. We can demonstrate to our neighbors how to live constructively, in a “love your neighbor” culture rather than “the strong exploit the weak” culture. We can help turn pagans into spiritual Israelis. If you check the history of the Middle East I think you will see that what is happening is basically resistance to this conversion.
Jesus’ Family
Jesus’ family was the epicenter of the Passover dynamic. Joseph, Mary and Jesus. They did all three Passover lessons: became a God-based family, resisted the worldview of the dominant culture, and took back the Promised Land. They brought Israelis back under the authority of God’s kingdom, under the rulership of king Jesus. The disciples experienced and internalized all three historical Passover events rolled into one as Jesus utilized these in His life and leadership.
Jesus’ father Joseph showed this from the start. Mary’s supernatural pregnancy did not cause a negative response from him. He wanted divine assurance, and he received it, with a series of dreams. God was with him, and he obeyed. God, Mary, and Joseph were a healthy God-based family from the start.
This was the opposite of how Joseph, the son of Israel, experienced his family when God began to work with him. He too had a series of dreams. But they resulted in anger, hatred, and animosity. His brothers debated how to kill him when a slave trade caravan wandered into their area. They quickly sold him into slavery. Not at all God’s family. They exercised the fullness of familial sin!
Jesus’ mother Mary resisted the dominant worldview and thrived on God’s promise. She had a child out of wedlock. Mary could have easily been publicly humiliated by Joseph, shunned by her family, and ostracized from society. She could have been treated as a second-class citizen, of slave status, and lived with a broken mindset. We see an example of this later in Jesus’ ministry, when He healed the woman by the well, in John 4. She had a similar background to Mary's situation, but with a very pain-filled outcome.
Mary instead rebelled against the dominant worldview, walked closely in following God’s steps through the cultural traps, to a healthy family atmosphere and cherished role of one of God’s chosen people. She resisted the dominant culture and thrived in life with God. She followed her son’s lead in His Joshua role, into the depths of God’s Promised-Land life.
Jesus showed what battling God’s enemy looked like as He reconquered the new Pharaohs, the Pharisees. He brought the land back under the influence of the kingdom of God. He plagued the Pharisaical Pharaohs with challenge after challenge, to let the people of Israel be freed from the elder’s traditions, binding them to a subhuman relationship with each other and God. He kept proclaiming truth until His enemies could not take it any longer and killed Him. He died a martyr’s death, perfect, spotless, sinless. He served God well, right up to the point of being the sacrifice that eliminated peoples’ sins.
What’s more, He rose from the dead and transformed His relationship with the Holy Spirit so that they could live together permanently in born-again followers. The Holy Spirit filled His people. Life would never be the same again as we journeyed out of our personal Egypt’s, on our way to our Promised Land lives.
Just before Jesus’ crucifixion He took three of His disciples with Him to a mountain top, in Matthew 17 – the Mount of Transfiguration. Moses and Elijah appeared with Him and talked with Him. Jesus mentions this was about His death, but the Greek writing of this passage uses ‘Exodus’, which is translated as ‘death’. Jesus thought and acted as if His ministry was the Greater Exodus, alluded to throughout several Old Testament passages. Here He labeled it as such, and a study of the Gospels show several parallel dynamics between the Exodus events and Jesus' earthly ministry.
Summary
It's true that masses of people decay to the worst social way. Its a historical fact. We devolve into the worst societal behavior. Christianity takes a lot more personal surrender than people can usually give in one event. It often takes a lifetime of learning to see truth honestly and surrender profoundly to progress in openness to God’s ways.
We see in the Passover prophecy background that Joseph showed us we can let God add to our lives in ways that heals it's foundation. Our family issues can be resolved in a way that brings long-term stability, even blessings. We can have a new, restructured life.
Miriam's Passover showed us we can do righteous rebellion against the culture of death, where the strong weaken the rest, to rule them. We need to face the culture with divine influence, no matter the results. We need to develop the sophisticated mindset of civil disobedience that results from a heart steadfast in standing up for its God-given dignity. This is the process that shows itself as thriving. This is how we take our rightful place in the world. We live with moral clarity and reset societies' moral compass: all men are created equal!
Jesus' Passover showed us what battling God’s enemy looked like as He reconquered the new Pharaohs, the Pharisees. He brought the land back under the influence of the kingdom of God. He led the people of Israel to be free from the elder’s traditions, binding them to a subhuman relationship with each other and God. He kept proclaiming truth until His enemies could not take it any longer and killed Him. Then he raised up a church to go and do likewise, a few weeks later. We are part of that movement.
How do we do these three things, forming a new life's structure, a revitalized societal process, and a transformative way of spirit-based influence? We see God calls us to Him individually, to establish a talking relationship with Him, making room for Him in our heart and mind. We can live under the influence of God’s spirit, adjusting our thinking and feelings, making us compatible for His coming Kingdom. We introduce His Kingdom influence in us, to our life's circle, inviting others to join us. We find over time that this is what we really want out of life and joyfully, passionately pursue.