Friday, March 14, 2008

Passover/Easter....

So... I've been having a problem with this Passover and Easter not coinciding this year. I don't understand all the intricacies of how they "choose" when certain holidays will fall, but these two are supposed to happen together in my mind. At least they did in the Bible, with great historical and religious significance.

Passover is the Jewish holiday where the Jews in Egypt painted the blood of Passover lamb over their doorposts so that the Angel of Death would passover their homes when he came through the land to take the firstborn, the tenth plague. After that plague, when all the Egyptians woke up to find their firstborn sons dead, the pharaoh let the Israelites leave Egypt - he freed them.

The very first Easter, Jesus entered Jerusalem on what Christians call Palm Sunday, which is the Sunday before Easter. He was arriving for the Passover festival, which lasts a week. His Last Supper was a Passover Feast and he rose from the dead, or conquered the Angel of Death, on the last day of Passover.... no coincidence there. It was planned that way by God, although I'm not sure that modern Jewish culture recognizes the significance of the two events happening exactly the way they did.

So, back to 2008... just doesn't seem right to me! Easter with no Passover!

1 comment:

Kathryn said...

Hi, D
Passover is celebrated on the 15th day of Nisan every year.

The differences as to when holidays coincide are due to the fact that we're not all using the same calendar world-wide. We use the Gregorian calendar; the Jewish year is not the same length as our solar year. However, Jewish holidays are always celebrated on the same day every year.
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/jewfaq/calendar.htm