God’s Strategic Plan for His Holy Purposes
FROM THE
PRESIDENT
Dear friend,
Happy Passover and Easter!
I love this time of year. As a Jewish believer in
Jesus, my faith and love for my heritage converge
in perfect harmony during the Passover/Easter
season. At this time of year, we celebrate the
coming of the perfect Lamb of God, which was
predicted in the biblical passages that tell the
story of Passover and in Isaiah chapter 53. He is
the One who died for our sins, rose from the
grave, and ascended to heaven—and now we wait
patiently for His return!
Chosen People Ministries will have more
Jewish people attend our Passover Seders and
come to faith in Jesus during this season than
at any other time of year. So please pray for us
as we have Messianic Passover Seders in dozens
of cities in North America and in sixteen other
countries around the globe where we serve
among the Jewish people.
Passover in the Bible
Passover is an eight-day festival that combines
the one-day Feast of Passover with the seven
days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As Moses
2 The Chosen People | APRIL 2019
said to the children of Israel, “In the first month,
on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight is
the Lord’s Passover. Then on the fifteenth day of
the same month there is the Feast of Unleavened
Bread to the Lord; for seven days you shall eat
unleavened bread” (Leviticus 23:5–6).
Jewish people traditionally observe the holiday
by celebrating a Passover Seder (Hebrew word
for “order”), or dinner, on the first two nights
of the holiday.
Growing up in a Jewish home in New York
City, my family always attended the Seder led
by my grandfather in Brooklyn. He was a very
religious Jewish man, and I loved him dearly.
He had fled eastern Europe before the First
World War, as Jewish people were terribly
persecuted, and came to the “Golden Land” of
America where he hoped to live as a Jewish
man without fear.
I am sorry to say he was not very happy when
I became a believer in Jesus at nineteen years of
age. No matter how many times I explained it
and attended all of our traditional family
holiday celebrations, my faith was still foreign
to my beloved grandparents.
It is not easy being Jewish and believing in
Jesus. I often feel like an outsider in my own
family and community. But Passover is a great
comfort and joy to me since it is evident that
Yeshua fulfills the festival in so many glorious
ways. The lamb of Exodus 12 points to Jesus.
The lamb was killed and its blood shed so that
the firstborn sons of the Israelites would be
spared. Now, we understand that this points to
the blood of the perfect Lamb that spares us
from the consequences of our sin! As Paul,
the great Jewish apostle wrote, “For the wages
of sin is death, but the free gift of God is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”
(Romans 6:23). We have this great gift of
salvation through His shed blood and
atoning sacrifice.
Jesus was sinless and innocent. According to
the prophet Isaiah, this perfect lamb would die
an undeserving death and rise from the grave
(Isaiah 53:10–12). This is the triumphant
message of grace and redemption—for the
One who died now lives forever, and we will
live forever with Him.
of with the seven
days the of Moses