Last night, approximately 2000 years ago, Messiah Yahusha would have taken His last opportunity to make His New Covenant marriage proposal to His disciples via THE MASTER'S TABLE, aka, The Lord's Supper. It was a marriage proposal that His disciples eagerly accepted and it is through that very same covenant 'entry rite' of eating the bread and drinking the cup as Torah obedient followers of Messiah Yahusha that we too must enter into The New Covenant if we're to have any reason to believe we are engaged to Him as His Bride and Wife to be! The Lord's Supper was not the Passover Seder as so many preach. The only way to have a legitimate Passover Lamb to eat was to have taken a one year old lamb to the Temple to be slaughtered with the assistance of a Levitical Priest. That Pesach slaughter is an Appointed Time and that Appointed Time had not yet arrived and therefore no Levitical Priest would have overseen the slaughter of any Passover Lambs at the Temple before The Lord's Supper had taken place. In all likelihood there would have been no Passover Lambs slaughtered the year that Messiah Yahusha gave Himself as the Passover Lamb of Yahuah. The Lord's Supper took place the evening of the 13th 'before' the afternoon of the 14th when the Pesach slaughter took place 'between the evenings', i.e. the 9th Hour. I'm reckoning days according to the Scripturally mandated Sunrise to Sunrise Genesis 1 account. Not only is The Lord's Supper not the Passover Seder but it is not an annual event either, it can be participated in as often as is needed for the 'entry rite' of new converts into The New Marriage Covenant of Messiah Yahusha!
My computer says it's Sunday, April 11th, 8:28 AM, but then it's just a computer, garbage in... garbage out! But there is another method for reckoning time, a method abandoned by men, according to that method of reckoning time the 3rd Hour of the 14th Day of the 1st New Moon of an unknown year since creation that men have assigned the number 2021 A.D. approaches.
If we go back to this exact moment in time to the year that Messiah Yahusha was crucified as the Passover Lamb of Yahuah we would see Him struggling under the weight of the thick wooden beam He would soon be nailed to once He finally manages to get to the crucifixion site. He had already been mercilessly scourged with a cat-o'-nine-tails, beaten to the point of being unrecognizable and yet it is demanded of Him to bear the burden of the instrument of His ultimate death from Fort Antonia across the Kidron Valley to the precipice of the Mount of Olives where the Red Heifer would have been burned to ashes outside the camp, it is there that He'll die for the sins of ALL MANKIND a few hours later.
You say, "Ken, what are you talking about? We celebrated His resurrection last week on Easter Sunday!" I know... I know! Unfortunately, both the Jews and Roman Catholics love their TRADITIONS... so much so that they've elevated their TRADITIONS above the AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE!!!
So let me ask you, "Did you keep the Passover according to the TRADITIONS OF JUDAISM or did you celebrate His resurrection according to the TRADITIONS OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM?
I only ask because neither of these TRADITIONS can be reconciled to the unyielding AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE! Nowhere in Scripture can a case be made for the Jewish TRADITION of using the First Visible Crescent as the beacon for the beginning of months, nowhere! Nowhere in Scripture can a case be made for the Roman Catholic TRADITION of using the 1st Sunday after the 1st Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox as the date of the resurrection of Messiah Yahusha, a date that was established at the Council of Nicea in 321-325 A.D., nearly 300 years after His crucifixion and resurrection!
Based on SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY, today is the 14th Day of the 1st Full New Moon, it is the Preparation Day of Passover. As I continue to write it is now 9:22 A.M.... Scripturally speaking, the 3rd Hour of the 14th Day has already begun and Messiah Yahusha, your Redeemer and mine, has been nailed to the cross and elevated along with the two thieves. Now it is only a matter of time before He breaths His last, no one comes off that cross alive!
According to Scriptural time keeping there are no Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, those names were given to the week days of the Roman Empire's Julian Calendar and carried over to the Gregorian Calendar, which the world uses today, each day being devoted to the pagan deity that bears its name. This of course is the worship of the host of heaven, the very pagan planetary gods we were commanded in Scripture not to worship! And because neither the Julian Calendar nor the Gregorian Calendar recognizes the Full Moon as the beacon for the beginning of months and Rosh Chodesh as a day of worship, a separate class of monthly day that does not belong to the weekly cycle, it thereby creates an unbroken chain of weekly cycles and Friday, Saturday and Sunday rarely align with the 6th, 7th and 1st Days of the Scriptural week and the Passover (6th Day), Feast of Unleavened Bread (7th Day) and First Fruits (1st Day) narrative. Today, Sunday April 11th, is actually the 6th Day of the Scriptural week and the Passover should ALWAYS land on both the 6th Day of the Scriptural week and 14th Day of the 1st New Moon. That is only possible if the weeks are reset according to New Moon Day (Rosh Chodesh) being observed as a day of worship that never falls on a work day or Sabbath.
At some time between the 3rd Hour and the 6th Hour Messiah assured the thief on the cross that he would indeed be with Messiah Yahusha in paradise, He did so with these words... “Truly, I say to you today, you shall be with Me in paradise.” What did He mean by that and what should our take away from it be? Clearly, Messiah Yahusha didn't ascend to any paradise that day so any thought that the thief on the cross was saved and went to heaven to be with Messiah Yahusha is nonsense. Yahusha would spend the next the rest of the 14th on the cross and then the tomb, He spent the entirety of the 15th in His tomb and then finally early on the 16th He rises from the tomb and eventually ascends to heaven as the First Fruits offering. So in no way, shape or form was the thief on the cross saved and transported to heaven to be with Messiah Yahusha that very day. The take away for us should simply and powerfully be this... on that day, the 14th Day of the 1st Month, Messiah Yahusha made an immutable promise to the thief on the cross that he would one day be in Paradise, or Heaven or The Kingdom, whatever term you choose, with Messiah Yahusha. The thief on the cross was being promised salvation that day but not in the sense that he had had an epiphany and was immediately saved and would immediately ascend to paradise that day to be with Messiah. Not at all, the thief on the cross was being promised an ultimate salvation but that salvation would be conditioned on a restoration to obedience to the Torah of Messiah Yahusha. Our take away from the thief on the cross story is that we all will be saved, not as we are but as He wills us to be, FAITHFUL and OBEDIENT! The thief on the cross story is thoroughly immersed in UNIVERSAL SALVATION!!!
It's now 12:52 PM, we're into the 6th Hour of the 14th Day and a Divine darkness has fallen upon the land. Have you ever been outdoors in the country, away from city lights, during the Dark Moon Conjunction and cloud cover? That is the kind of darkness we're talking about here! It is so dark that if you need to walk more than a few steps you will instinctively reach your hands out to protect your face because you can see absolutely nothing! I believe this darkness that prevails from the 6th Hour to the 9th Hour prevented any chance of Passover Lambs being slaughtered in the Temple before the 9th Hour began. With this darkness, our Father Yahuah is getting the attention of those in Jerusalem that day, they won't soon forget this darkness!
I've just now viewed the Sun and it's approximately the 9th Hour... the once and forever Pesach slaughter of the Passover Lamb of Yahuah, to be executed "between the evenings" on the 14th Day of the 1st New Moon, has been fulfilled! According to Matthew and Mark's account at the 9th Hour, still hanging in the dark, He cried out...
“Ěli, Ěli, lemah sheḇaqtani?” or “My Ěl, My Ěl, why have You forsaken Me?” quoting Psalm 22:1.
Shortly later, according to Luke's account, He said...
“Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.” quoting Psalm 31:5.
Can you imagine the words “My Ěl, My Ěl, why have You forsaken Me?” falling on the ears of His Father who had turned His head momentarily that the fullness of the payment for mankind's sin be complete? As a father, I can't! The last verse of Psalm 22, actually verse 24, says, "For He has not despised Nor hated the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard." The Father "heard"! In the midst of Messiah Yahusha's isolation from everything good, having taken mankind's sin upon Himself, a separation from His Father that He had never experienced before He cried out to His endlessly merciful and unwaveringly faithful Father and His Father "heard"!!!
Moments later Messiah Yahusha full of confidence says,“Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.”
In Psalm 31 from which Messiah Yahusha quoted verse 5 when He said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.” three times the words "loving-commitment" are used, you'll find them in verses 7, 16 and 21. What is this "loving-commitment"?
The events of this entire day are being played out according to a covenant that the Father and the Son entered into before the foundations of the world 100% GUARANTEEING THE REDEMPTION OF ALL MANKIND and the restoration of the entire creation. It is known as 'The Covenant of Redemption' and it is the "loving-commitment" between the Father and the Son to save humanity, every last one of us!
We can see this in the Exodus when the first Passover took place. The Hebrew fathers of households took the blood of the Passover Lambs and placed it upon the door posts and lintel of their homes in Egypt and not a single life was lost to the destroyer. Should we think that every Hebrew first born was a righteous person worthy of being saved? You don't have to look far ahead in Scripture to discover that the Israelites were anything but righteous but they were redeemed by the blood of the sacrificed lambs nonetheless. In the context of the Passover Lamb of Yahuah being slain for the household of Yah we're talking about every man, woman and child that has ever known life in the history of mankind, the righteous and unrighteous alike, just as was the case in the original Passover in the Book of Exodus.
Matthew 27:50-54 tells us...
And יהושע cried out again with a loud voice, and gave up His spirit.
And see, the veil of the Dwelling Place was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth was shaken, and the rocks were split,
and the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the set-apart ones who had fallen asleep were raised,
and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they went into the set-apart city and appeared to many.
And when the captain and those with him, who were guarding יהושע, saw the earthquake and all that took place, they feared exceedingly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of Elohim!”
I believe it would have been impossible to have slaughtered any Passover Lambs at the Temple in the midst of this utter chaos of the 9th Hour which further corroborates there were no Passover lambs slaughtered on Passover the year Messiah Yahusha fulfilled the type and shadow of the Passover Lamb of Yahuah by shedding His own blood and surrendering His life for the remission of ALL MANKIND'S SIN.
This ultimate act of love has been carried out according to the plan of Yahuah not to save you as you are but as He wills you to be, FAITHFUL AND OBEDIENT to His Son, our Redeemer, Messiah Yahusha!!! Trust in Him, just as Messiah Yahusha trusted in Him the day of His crucifixion, to bring you to that point, either in this life or the next, when you will believe in Messiah Yahusha as Messiah Yahusha knows Himself to be, the Torah Observant Savior of the WHOLE WORLD!!!
I pray this blog has been a blessing to you Brothers and Sisters, may you be filled with the Ruach HaQodesh to overflowing as you seek to know and keep The Master's ways!!!