I would like this Easter weekend to take a few minutes to explain what this celebration of Easter really means, it is the most important thing we can celebrate as believers. The Passover feast has its history in the Old Testament when God's people lived in the lands of Egypt. At that time people had been oppressed and abused by the Egyptian government and cried out and prayed to God to deliver them from this suffering. The Lord to respond to these faithful sent Moses who was a Hebrew raised by the court of Pharaoh who had been exiled from Egypt. When Moses returned to Egypt, God decided to send a series of plagues on Egypt because the king did not want to let the people go. On the night of the last plague, the people were to sacrifice a lamb and put its blood on their doorposts. The Lord spared the firstborn of the Hebrews that night, but not those of the Egyptians when he passed through the houses; this is the meaning of the Hebrew word Passover. So Pharaoh let them go. The New Testament also mentions the feast of "Passover" as John calls it in several places. It was especially during the week of the Passover feast that Jesus spent his last week on earth. He was crucified on the Friday the celebration was to take place and was buried shortly before the start of Easter Saturday. The paschal lamb announced in the Old Testament was finally sacrificed to overcome sin and death. Unlike the Exodus story, the spiritual significance is eternal, impacting the past, present, and future. It affects everyone on this earth. We are all slaves in Egypt under Pharaoh. We live in bondage to sin in a world dominated by the prince of this world as Jesus calls him. Just as Moses foreshadowed God and pronounced his judgment on Pharaoh, Holy Week is not so much the false judgment of Christ, but rather, as the Lord says, the judgment of the world and the devil. The immaculate one-year-old paschal lamb of the Old Testament is Christ, immaculate and perfect, meek and humble like a little child. It is the blood of the lamb that symbolically protects and identifies the people of Israel, which means that it is our acceptance of Christ that allows us to identify ourselves as spiritual Israel. It also means that it is Jesus who fights and is victorious in this battle against death and sin. Now it is up to us to apply this victory in our lives. This is where the people had to act and physically leave Egypt, but not only. Likewise, we must strive through the victory of Christ to act to eliminate sin from our lives. Killing a lamb or accepting Jesus is not enough, you have to repent, which means turning to Him. The freedom of the people of the Hebrews against the Egyptians was not really acquired until after the episode of the Red Sea. This stage under water but with dry feet is symbolic of baptism by total immersion. Baptism itself is a symbol of Easter because it notably symbolizes the death of Christ and his resurrection. When they emerged from the river, leaving the defeated Egyptians behind, it was a new beginning both for them and for the one being baptized. But this is not the final victory as the rest of the story shows. Shortly after, alas, the people were condemned for so quickly turning away from the Lord. For the preparation of the Passover meal, the Lord had given the people a detail, which was to sacrifice the lamb and “roast it in the fire” and burn the remains. The Lord Jesus atoned for our sins in Gethsemane and was crucified. It is the slaughter of the Lamb. The consumption by the fire intervenes symbolically when he resurrects. Like the remains of the lamb destroyed by fire, the bruised body of the Lord is no longer in the tomb when Mary comes to see it. The Lord has fulfilled his mission, he is purified by eternal divine fire to reign forever and ever. The implication for us is that water baptism is not sufficient to effect spiritual transformation and that it is essential to diligently seek the baptism of fire of the Holy Spirit which enables this profound and lasting change of mind.
