18th April 2025 (5785)
Week of 13 -19 April 2025
Readings: Parasha: Leviticus 14:1-15:33; Haftarah: Malachi 3:4-24
Pesach, from Jewish tradition to Christian tradition
Shalom to all from Israel-Jerusalem!
I take advantage of the favourable time of Pesach, which is celebrated by Jews and Christians at this time, to present a reflection that I would like to share with you.
The celebration of Pesach, in the Christian tradition, encapsulates the fundamental principle of faith in Jesus who died and rose again and who becomes the source of salvation for humanity. It’s meaning is based on the biblical Pesach, the Pesach of the Jewish people, of which Jesus is a part. The texts of the Gospels describe the end of Jesus’ ministry and the process of his death at the time when he was preparing for the celebration of Pesach: “On the first day of the Feast of unleavened Bread, when the Pesach lamb was sacrificed, his disciples said to him, ‘Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Pesach lamb?’” (Mk 14:12; Mt 26:17); “The day of Unleavened Bread dawned, on which the Pesach lamb had to be sacrificed, Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the Pesach meal.” (Lk 22:7); “Before the feast of the Pesach, Jesus knowing that his hour had come to depart from this world to the Father…” (Jn 13:1).
The texts teach us that Jesus is preparing to celebrate the Pesach of his people and together with his people. In fact, it is only through the experience of Jesus’ resurrection, lived by the group of his followers, that it became possible to proclaim faith in Him as the Messiah expected according to the tradition of his people, as taught by the Scriptures and their interpretation. Therefore, faith in Jesus, a Jewish man, as the Messiah, God made man, arises from the celebration of Jesus’ Pesach with his death and resurrection; thus, faith in Jesus is proclaimed only after the last celebration of Jesus’ Pesach – a post-Passover faith.
The Church, since the Second Vatican Council, has been insisting in its documents and teachings on the need for in-depth knowledge of Judaism before Jesus, the Judaism of Jesus Christ’s time and even the Judaism in our day, as an essential source for knowledge for the Christian faith.
First of all, the expression Pesach comes from the Hebrew word meaning to pass or to jump. It can also be understood as going from one situation to another. Moses, in the book of Exodus, chapter 12, which describes the celebration of Pesach by the Hebrew people as they prepare to be taken out of Egypt by God, guides the fundamental text about the origin of Pesach. The Jewish people lived in slavery, dominated by the Pharaoh, and God intervened to free his people from this reality of suffering, from death to freedom and life. Here are some of the most important verses for understanding the subject, but it is important to keep the entire chapter in mind: Exodus 12:1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Speak to the whole assembly of Israel: On the tenth day of this month each of you shall take a lamb for your family, one lamb for your households … 7 They shall take some of its blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the doorframe of the houses in which they eat it. 8 That night they shall eat the meat roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs … 13 The blood on the houses where you live shall be a sign for you: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague of destruction shall not come upon you when I strike Egypt. 14 You shall keep that day in remembrance by celebrating it as a feast to the Lord; you shall do so from generation to generation, for it is a perpetual ordinance … 17 you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on that day that I brought your armies out of Egypt. You shall observe this day from generation to generation; it is a perpetual ordinance… 20 you shall eat no leavened bread; in all your houses you shall eat unleavened bread.” … 24 You shall observe this ordinance as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children… 26 And when your children say to you, ‘What does this rite mean?’ you shall say, 27 ‘It is the Passover sacrifice, in honour of the Lord, who struck the Egyptians and passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and preserved our houses.’… 47 The entire assembly of Israel shall celebrate the Pesach.
The commandment not to eat leavened foods is an invitation to acknowledge the creature before God and refers to suffering and the misery of existence. On the other hand, leaven signifies pride; leaven makes things grow, it is an attitude of arrogance. The complete cleaning of the house to free it from leaven is a pedagogical exercise for preparing for the feast of the Lord, without pride or malice, but celebrating it like unleavened bread. Paul makes reference to this in his letter to the Corinthians when he interprets Christ as Pesach and asks his pagan followers to be like the Pesach Matzah: “Your boasting is not at all beautiful! Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse yourselves from the old leaven that you may be a new lump, for you are unleavened bread, since Christ our Pesach has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the matzah of purity and truth” (1 Cor 5:6-8).
This act of making memory is well exposed in the text of the Haggadah of Pesach, which is the text (narrative) used for the liturgy of the night of Pesach, containing the reading of the story of the liberation of the people of Israel from Egypt as described in the book of Exodus. The text says: “In every age, each of us has the duty to consider himself as if he had left Egypt, as it is said: ‘In that day you shall say to your son, “This is what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.” It is in this vision that the Lord acted for me when I came out of Egypt’ (Ex 13:8). That is why we have the duty to thank, sing, praise, glorify, exalt, celebrate and bless the One who performed, for our ancestors and for us, all these miracles. He brought us from slavery to freedom, from anguish to joy, from mourning to celebration, from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom. Let us sing in his honour, hallelujah.”
This means that throughout history, Israel will remember and renew all these gestures, making them present and alive in each celebration. The Gospel of Luke confirms this practice when it mentions that Jesus and his parents did this every year: “Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of the Pesach” (Luke 2:41). Jesus is part of this practice and therefore remembering is renewing the events, assuming the meaning of the sacrifice of the lamb (of God) that is set apart for God as the source of new life.
Therefore, the (last) Pesach that Jesus celebrated according to the tradition of his people, signifying the passage from death to life, from sadness to joy, from slavery to freedom, will be assumed entirely in the death and resurrection of Jesus as the definitive Pesach, the eschatological Pesach. The blood of the lamb that saved the Hebrews from death in Egypt is now the blood of the Lamb of God that extends salvation to all humanity. The experience of Pesach lived by the people of Israel, as freedom, new life, new time, now, through Jesus who died and was resurrected, is offered to all humanity which was not included until then in Israel’s promises; humanity passes from a life without God to life with God who reveals himself to Israel and through Jesus Christ to all humanity. Consequently, in Jesus all humanity makes the passage from death to life. Therefore, the definitive Pesach proclaimed by the death and resurrection of Jesus does not invalidate or replace the Jewish Pesach; on the contrary, it can assume its full meaning only when understood from the perspective (within) of the Jewish Pesach.
My wishes to Jews and Christians are that in this Pesach time for both, they may celebrate and experience God who is present and who brings liberation to his sons and daughters. Hallelujah! Hag Sameah!.
This week’s Parashat Metzora Commentary was prepared by
Elio Passeto, NDS, Jerusalem-Israel, Director
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