The Lord’s Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. On the fifteenth day of that month the Lord’s Feast of Unleavened Bread begins; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. On the first day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. For seven days present an offering made to the Lord by fire. And on the seventh day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work (Leviticus 23:5–8).

The holy day, Pesach (Passover), announces the arrival of spring on the Jewish calendar. Its importance to the biblical plan can be seen in the timing of the festival. As one looks at the major holy days in Scripture, a striking parallel can be seen. Major days are bunched in two groups in two different times of the year. The spring holy days of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and Pentecost occur within a fifty-day time span from March to June. A long summer intervenes until the fall holy days of Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, usually in September and/or October. The chronology of these days perfectly fits the salvation plan of God through his Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth as you will see.

The meaning of Passover is found in Leviticus 23. The Hebrew word “pesach” means “to spring, jump or pass over” something; hence the English name, Passover. This is a historical reference to God’s deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt as recorded in Exodus.

Because of the increasing hardness of Pharoah’s heart, God had to send ten plagues to persuade the blinded leader to let Israel go. As devastating as the first nine plagues were, it wasn’t until the tenth and final plague that Pharoah acquiesced to the God of Israel. In this judgment, God said he would send the Angel of Death over the land of Egypt to take the firstborn boy of every household.

With every judgment of God there is also a way of escape. Any household that put the blood of the sacrificial lamb on its doorpost was given a special promise: “...when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you...” (Exodus 12:13).