Christian and Jewish Passover History

As seen in the Torah book of Exodus chapter twelve, Passover was first celebrated with a meal as death passed over the Israelites and killed the first born Egyptians. Passover thus became a yearly celebration that involved every Jewish family ritualistically being involved in the Passover meal and sacrifice. When the Jewish nation developed in the later part of Exodus, the rituals involving animal sacrifice became modeled after the Passover such as in the case of redeeming a first born donkey by the slaying of a lamb in order to cause death to 'pass over' the donkey as seen in Exodus 34:20. Passover thus became the template even for caring for animals as the blood of animal sacrifice was needed to protect every firstborn male.

In the development of Jewish thought all animal sacrifice would have in some way corresponded to Passover. Even Passover would have corresponded to an earlier time when Prior to the Israelites entering Egypt, Abraham the single ancestor of all the Israelites was about to kill his first born son Isaac, in the book of Genesis, but instead God provided a animal substitute for Isaac. Overall, the Passover thus linked the sacrifice of Abraham to Egypt with the sacrificial lamb, and then latter when King David and Solomon had the first Jewish temple built Passover would also be linked, through the sacrifice of Abraham, to the yearly sacrificial lamb offered by the High priest in order that death may Passover the Jewish nation as a whole.

During times when animal sacrifice was not a possibility for Jewish worship such as during the time of the destruction of the first temple, Jews may have continued to practice Passover because it was a celebration of death passing over that involved family heads killing an animal per household, having a meal, and distributing the blood accordingly. When the second temple was built, the temple again became the central focus for animal sacrifice, and thus Passover centered around the temple in Jerusalem perhaps even more so than with the first temple because the Jewish religion was proven very serious to the world when the temple reemerged despite incredible occurrences that needed to take place in order to reconstruct the temple. Thus the Jews returning to the homeland and the second temple being rebuilt caused Passover to be far more central to the temple than ever before as Jews would gather form all over the world in order to worship in Jerusalem during Passover time.

Jesus Christ thus entered Jerusalem during Passover, and instituted communion with the Passover elements as they became his blood and his body. Christ then was crucified as the sacrificial lamb of God, and he became the High Priest that offered himself as a animal sacrifice in the temple in heaven in order that death may Passover those that believe in him. Thus Christ also fulfilled the sacrifice of Abraham as the lamb of God (Christ himself) was used in substitution of Isaac (God's people).

When the second temple was thus destroyed in 72AD and the Jews got scattered all over the earth, some of them believed in Jesus Christ and some did not. Those that believed in Jesus Christ would have celebrated Passover weekly or even more than weekly as they practiced communion with a expectation of the world coming to a end every soon. Those that did not believe in Jesus Christ would most likely have stopped doing animal sacrifice all together because the temple had become central to animal sacrifice and thus Passover, and it was destroyed causing Jews to end their sacrificial worship. Overall, today Jews that do not believe in Jesus Christ continue to practice Passover as the Seder, and the Seder promotes order and structure as opposed to blood atonement.