This Morning and This Evening

A wee history and fun fact (for geeks like me): This morning at 7am, for the first time in 28 years comes the celebration, Birkat Hachamah. A rare Jewish holiday celebrating the "birth of the sun." Every 28 years, it is believed, though I'm not sure of rhyme or reason, Birkat Hachamah is the event that marks the sun returning to its exact location in the sky when it was created on the fourth day, as is recorded in Genesis 1:16, 19.

"One who sees the sun at its turning point should say, "Blessed is He who reenacts the works of Creation." And when is this? Abaya said: every 28th year." --Talmud, Tractate Berachot 59b

Interesting.

As well, at sundown today (Nissan 6, 5769 on the Jewish calendar, i.e. Wednesday, April 8th, 2009) and going through nightfall, April 16, Passover is celebrated all around the world by both observant and even not-so-observant Jews. Christians most places, though some calendars go a week or two in either direction, celebrate Easter.

What does all this have to do with you and me? Well, briefly Y'eshua, Jesus was (is) Jewish. We are sons and daughters of Abraham by faith in the Son of the Living God. Should we celebrate Passover, then? If you feel like it. But unless you are Jewish by blood, I don't see a reason. Why?

Jesus is our Passover.

Christ is the Passover lamb, the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world! We are saved from death by His power and mercy. It is the greatest gift of God, His Grace. For this it took Him to die. This Lamb whose blood we not only paint our lintels with, but bathe in, and partake of in this celebration, often (and should be so) initiated by what was for Christ, the Passover meal, the Last Supper - Communion. It is His body and His blood we must remember, partake of and be joyous over. He is our food, our drink, the very fuel we live on - He is our source of life!

Ah, and that brings us back to Birkat Hachamah (the sun celebration) - What is our physical source of life? What dies and is reborn with each new dawn? What symbolizes and, indeed, gives us what we truly need for physical life? Whose glorious rays shine upon us daily? The sun, another gift from God - one so powerful and glorious that civilizations have worshiped it as the Creator, Himself. But it is not. Nor are we. But He did come. He came as one of us, suffered with us, dies for us.

Today, we can celebrate the birth of our physical light-giver and the start the celebration of our spiritual life-giver. The true Creator of all. The One who Lives, the Lamb who was slain for us, died, buried and rose again. All for us, all for Him.

To God be the glory, in Christ our Savior,
Forever and ever, Amen.