Most people who are bound by something do not know how to get free. For them the story of Passover can have great meaning. In his book Simchah, Rabbi Abraham Twerski explains how Passover is all about the breaking of chains:
Many families gather together for the Passover Seder. They eat the matzah and the bitter herbs, drink the four cups, and recite the Haggadah [the story]. The house is free of all chametz [that is, leaven]. In our prayers we refer to Passover as “the festival of liberation.” These are wonderful mitzvos [good things to do]. But, what do we take from Passover into our daily lives?…The deeper significance of Passover occurred to me when a recovering drug addict told me that when his father began reciting the Haggadah at the Seder, and said, “Avadim hayinu (we were slaves),” he [the son] interrupted him. “Abba,” he said, “can you truthfully say that you were a slave? Your ancestors were slaves, but you don’t know what it means to be a slave. I can tell you what it is like to be a slave. All the years that I was on drugs, I had not freedom. I had to do whatever my addiction demanded. I did things that I never thought I was capable of doing, but I had no choice, no free will. I was the worst kind of slave.”
This is a precious insight. Slavery is not limited to a despotic Pharaoh or a slave owner. A person can lose his freedom and be a slave to himself, to his habits and negative character traits. A person who cannot break free from cigarettes is a slave, as is someone who cannot break free from gambling, from excess food, from the Internet, and even from the office. A person whose self-concept is dependent on what others think of him, or whose behavior is totally determined by what he thinks others want him to be, he, too, has no freedom. He is not free to do what he thinks is right and proper, but what others think is right and proper. Anytime one loses control of any aspect of one’s behavior, he is a slave…the entire Haggadah is essentially a text on breaking free from all forms of enslavement, internal as well as external.[1]
Are we in bondage to something? Do we yearn to be free? As we approach Passover, which begins this year at sundown on April 12, 2025, let us remember that we have a Messiah who came to set the captives free (Luke 4:18), and that he can set us free from every kind of enslavement. Our Messiah breaks all shackles, ropes, and cuffs. He is the bondage breaker and his Hebrew name is Yeshua, which means “The Lord saves.”
For Messianic Jews, the festival of Passover is an annual time to fix our eyes on Yeshua the Passover lamb through whom we experience a spiritual exodus. Consider how John the Immerser (the Baptist) described Yeshua, his cousin:
The next day, John [the Immerser] sees Yeshua coming to him and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” … Again the next day, John [the Immerser] was standing with two of his disciples and watched Yeshua walking by. He said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (John 1:29, 35-36).[2]
John the Immerser had an epiphany that Yeshua was the “Lamb of God.” By “Lamb of God,” did he mean “Passover Lamb” or some other kind of Lamb? Craig Keener explains the range of exegetical possibilities and concludes that “Passover Lamb of God” is most consistent with the context:
In the Fourth Gospel’s distinctive chronology, Jesus dies on Passover; the temple cleansing, which in the Synoptic tradition occurs in his final Passover, opens his public ministry, framing his whole ministry with the shadow of the passion week and its Johannine association with Passover. “Lamb of God” is thus a very appropriate title. Scholars have proposed four main backgrounds for the lamb of 1:29: apocalyptic lambs; the lamb of Isa 53:7; and Passover and sacrificial lambs …The primary background must be that of the (sacrificial) Passover lamb, as many scholars have contended….That the Fourth Gospel later portrays Jesus’ death in terms of the Passover lamb (18:28; 19:36) and writes in the context of a new exodus and a new redemption (1:23) expected by Judaism indicates that this is the sense of “lamb” in view in the Fourth Gospel.[3]
The beloved disciple’s[4] description of Yeshua as the Passover Lamb of God comes into focus particularly in John 19:
It was the Day of Preparation for Passover, about the sixth hour [noon]. And Pilate said to the Judean leaders, “Behold, your king!”…Pilate also wrote a sign and put it on the execution stake. It was written, “YESHUA HA-NATZRATI, THE KING OF THE JEWS”…It was the Day of Preparation [for Passover], and the next day was a festival Shabbat [Sabbath]. So that the bodies should not remain on the execution stake during Shabbat, the Judean leaders asked Pilate to have the legs broken and to have the bodies taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then the other who had been executed with Yeshua. Now when they came to Yeshua and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. He who has seen it has testified, and his testimony is true. He knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, “Not a bone of His shall be broken” (John 19:14, 19, 31-36).[5]
Why does John’s Gospel focus on Yeshua’s legs not being broken? And where in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) does it state, “Not a bone of His shall be broken”? Given that Yochanan (John) was a Second Temple Jew who lived in the land of Israel and was thus familiar with Passover halakhah (Jewish law) and custom, it is likely that in John 19:31-36 he is alluding to the Law of Moses:
Then Adonai said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the ordinance of the Passover . . . It is to be eaten inside a single house. You are not to carry the meat out of the house, nor are you to break any of its bones. All the congregation of Israel must keep it” (Exod 12:43, 46-47).[6]
They [all the congregation of Israel] are not to leave any of it [the Passover lamb] until morning, or break any bones. When they celebrate Passover they are to observe all its regulations (Num 9:12).[7]
John 19 provides the apostle’s detailed eyewitness account of Yeshua’s crucifixion (“He who has seen it has testified, and his testimony is true” [19:35]). But what exactly did John see with his “spiritual eyes” on the Day of Preparation for Passover at Gulgolta (Golgotha)? When John saw Yeshua on the Roman execution stake, he saw a Passover lamb with unbroken bones! He saw the unblemished Lamb of God that all previous Passover lambs pointed to—the Passover Lamb who was sent from heaven to take away the sin of Israel and the nations.
In modern Messianic Jewish Passover seders, the zeroah (lamb shank bone) is not just one more element on the Passover seder plate. The shank bone represents “Messiah, our Passover Lamb” (1 Cor 5:7), the central focus of our Passover seder. He is the long awaited “KING OF THE JEWS” (John 19:19) sent by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to deliver us from sin and death and all other bondages. He is the bondage breaker with no broken bones who was buried, resurrected, and returned to us like the Afikoman.[8]
Whether we are Messianic Jews or Gentile Christians, this year during Passover week (from sundown April 12 to sundown April 20) let us behold the Passover Lamb of God, who can break all of our chains. Let us also praise the Lamb this Passover, even as John was taken up into heaven and saw myriads of malachim (angels), and other heavenly creatures, singing with all their hearts in the throne room of God:
“Worthy is the [Passover] Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and riches
and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
And I heard every creature in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea and everything in them, responding,
“To the One seated on the throne
and to the [Passover] Lamb
be blessing and honor
and glory and power forever and ever!”
(Rev 5:12-13).[9]
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Footnotes:
[1] Abraham J. Twerski, Simchah: It’s Not Just Happiness (Brooklyn: ArtScroll Shaar Press, 2006), 107-108. [2] All Scripture quotations are from the Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society. [3] Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary I (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003), 452, 454. Italics mine. [4] See John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20. [5] Cf. Matt 26:17; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7. [6] Italics mine. Cf. Exod 12:5 (“Your lamb is to be without blemish”). [7] Italics mine. [8] The Afikoman is half of the middle matzah broken off at the beginning of a traditional seder, wrapped in a white cloth, hidden, and returned toward the end of the seder. See David Daube, “The Significance of the Afikoman” and “He That Cometh,” in New Testament Judaism: Collected Works of David Daube II (Berkeley: University of California, 2001), 425-40. [9] Italics mine.