I have long believed that many Christians are woefully deficient in their knowledge of both the Hebrew Scriptures and Judaism in general. This creates problems for our interactions with Jews, often contributing to anti-Semitism, but it also hinders our own faith journeys. For example, many Christians have little knowledge about the Hebrew concepts of Sabbath, Jubilee, and shalom, to name just a few!
One aspect of Judaism that Christians are especially ignorant of are ancient Jewish festivals and holy days. There are many insights that these holidays can give us into God’s character. In 2011, I studied in East Jerusalem for five months, becoming friends with many practicing Jews. I celebrated Sabbath, Purim, and Passover, and grew so much in my own faith as I gained insights into the spiritual significance of these holidays. As I learned more, it led me to this question:
Yom Kippur is the most important Jewish holiday of the year, centered on the atonement of sins. If Jesus’ death was mainly for the forgiveness of sins, as many Christians seem to believe, then why did he die at Passover, and not Yom Kippur?
This is something I’ve thought a lot about over the past few years, and have talked through with a number of people. I believe I have a conclusion, with some big implications for Christians. Below is the argument, with four main points.
- God chose the time and place where Jesus would be killed
- Other holidays could have made sense too, but Jesus’ death is connected to Passover
- Passover’s significance is not about forgiveness of sins, it is about liberation from oppression and death
- This connection with Passover should give us a grander picture of what Jesus’ death on the cross accomplished
Thus, while Jesus’ death on the cross certainly brings forgiveness of sins, the deeper implication is that his death and resurrection brings us victory over death and the devil, and liberation from the kingdom of darkness.
Let’s run through the parts of my argument.
1. God Chose the Time and Place Where Jesus Would Be Killed
In the Gospels, Jesus faces death on numerous occasions, but miraculously dodges it each time (Matthew 2:13, Luke 4:29-30, Luke 13:31-33, John 7:1, John 7:30, John 8:59, John 10:22-39). Yet when Passover of his final year of ministry approaches, each of the Gospels make clear that he deliberately heads towards Jerusalem, the center of opposition to his ministry. Once in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, Jesus had many ways he could have once again escaped death—fleeing the city, scaring Judas away before he kisses him, gathering a mob to defend himself, arguing his innocence to Pilate, calling down a legion of angels, etc.—but God the Father allows Jesus to be crucified by the Romans at this moment, and Jesus willingly goes along with it. There seems to be some purpose behind being killed in this specific time and place: Jerusalem during Passover. Indeed, the apostle Peter says this timing was not random: “This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23). I believe there is a reason Jesus’ death was connected to Passover, which I’ll get to below.
2. Other holidays could have made sense too, but Jesus’ death is connected to Passover
Granted, there were many Jewish holidays that were celebrated during Jesus’ time, most of them commanded by God in the Torah. Each holiday had a specific cultural and religious significance. If Jesus wanted to connect his death and resurrection to some other culturally significant event, he would have had lots of options:
· If Jesus’ death mostly signified the start of a new era, he should have been killed at Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
· If Jesus’ death mostly signified the forgiveness of sins, he should have been killed at Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement of sins via killing of a bull and a scapegoat (see my blog here).
· If Jesus’ death mostly signified God’s provision, he should have been killed during Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles, which commemorates the Israelites’ journey in the desert and celebrates the harvest)
· If Jesus’ death mostly signified his body as a new temple or altar, he should have been killed during Shemini Atzeret (‘Eighth Day of Assembly,’ following Sukkot (see my blog here)
· If Jesus’ death mostly signified a fulfillment or replacement of the Torah, he should have been killed at Simchat Torah (which celebrates the conclusion and restarting of the annual Torah reading cycle)
· If Jesus’ death mostly signified the importance of preserving one’s ethnic and religious culture, he should have been killed at Hanukkah, which commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabee rebellion against the pagan Greeks. [In fact, Jesus is in Jerusalem during Hanukkah in John 10:22, and the text explicitly says that his opponents tried to seize him to stone him, “but he escaped their grasp” (John 10:39).]
· If Jesus’ death mostly signified resisting violent rulers, he should have been killed at Purim, which celebrates the saving of the Jewish people from genocide in the Book of Esther
· If Jesus’ death mostly signified the giving of a new law and set of commands, he should have been killed at Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai
I think an argument that can be made that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection have resonances with each of the Jewish holidays listed above. However, the holiday that is clearly associated with Jesus’ death and resurrection is Passover. That is significant, because…
3. Passover’s significance is not about forgiveness of sins, it is about liberation from oppression, slavery, and death
The full story of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt would take too long to summarize here, but I want to make one main point clear. When the Israelites sacrificed lambs on the night of Passover, the reason was not merely to survive the plague of the death of the firstborn, though that was the immediate result. The real reason they sacrificed lambs was so that they might be delivered from slavery in Egypt!
If we line up the Exodus story with the story of Jesus, we can see some fascinating correlations. This chart–which is not exhaustive by any means– is based on my notes from studying the Gospel of Mark and comparing it to the Passover narrative in Exodus:
As you can see here, there are remarkable connections between the story of Passover and the story of Jesus, and there are more that I could have listed but left out to save room. All this is to reiterate: Jesus’ death on the cross certainly brings forgiveness of sins. But the deeper implication is that his death and resurrection bring us victory over death and the devil, and liberation from the kingdom of darkness.
4. This connection with Passover should give us a grander picture of what Jesus’ death on the cross accomplished
Some Christians argue viciously about the various theories of atonement; i.e., what did Jesus’ death on the cross actually accomplish? Those who hold to Penal Substitutionary Theory or Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory generally argue that Jesus’ death was solely to forgive our sins by being a sacrifice to God in our place. If that were true, then the holiday that would best correspond to Jesus’ death would have been Yom Kippur. In Yom Kippur, a bull would be slaughtered and a scapegoat would be driven away to take away the sins of the people. But as we’ve seen, Jesus did not choose to die at Yom Kippur. To put it more bluntly, Jesus was not the bull of God or the goat of God, he was the lamb of God (John 1:29)!
So, if we look at the cross with Passover in mind, Jesus’ death is not a payment to God to satisfy a desire for justice. Instead, it is how God’s people are liberated from their true enemies: sin, death, and the devil. Instead of an exodus of people out of Egypt, Jesus’ death on the cross brings an exodus of people out of the kingdom of darkness (Ephesians 4:8, 2 Corinthians 2:14). Thus, this strengthens the Christus Victor Theory of atonement, wherein the death of Jesus represents a total victory over the powers of evil.
Now, please hear me: I’m not saying that Jesus’ death doesn’t bring forgiveness of sins. What I am saying is that forgiveness is merely the vehicle to bring humans out of our captivity to the kingdom of darkness and into a new kingdom to be his people. Forgiveness itself is not the end-all be-all, any more than the sacrifice of the lambs was the end-all-be-all of Passover. Each of those things is in service of a bigger picture.
I want to close by noting that for the Jewish people, Passover is the foundational narrative. It all goes back to being liberated from captivity in Egypt. Other Jewish holidays matter, but for them that’s the main origin story of their entire people group (even more prominent than God’s calling of Abraham in Genesis 12). So for Christians, I believe we would have a much different perspective of God if we saw Jesus’ death and resurrection not as a “get out of jail free card,” but instead as the foundational turning point wherein he deals a fatal blow against the powers of darkness in order to liberate his people. And I think the connection to Passover helps to make that very clear.
Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, he utterly conquers our arch-nemesis and liberates us out of slavery and into glorious freedom. That’s the meaning of Passover, and that’s the meaning of the cross.
