SECOND CHANCES

Matthew 18:21–22                                                                                                     Sivan 11/ בסון יא

Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?  . . .

Yeshua said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.

As they were leaving Egypt, God gave Israel commands concerning their lives in their Land. One of them was to celebrate the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:19). If this command was already given in Exodus and in Leviticus 23, why is it repeated in Numbers (Numbers 9:1–5)?

The distance from Mt. Horeb to the borders of Israel is not great and at the times of Numbers, the children of Israel should already have been in the Land. The problem was that they were delayed at least three months by the golden calf incident. The Torah allows second chances. We may orchestrate the most elaborate fail-safe plan against sin, but life has a habit of throwing curve balls at us. In spite of our loftier dreams and ideals, at the end of the day, we have to deal with the reality on the ground, and it seems that Hashem is fully aware of it.

In Numbers 9 we also have the case of a family who would miss the precious Passover celebration because of a death. In this case, Hashem again gives them the chance to celebrate Passover on the following month. This case foreshadowed Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. The two men cared for the Master’s body on the night of Passover 2,000 years ago so being ritually contaminated, they could not eat of the Passover lamb that year.  It was a traditional belief with the early Jerusalem believers that the two men reclined at the Passover table on the second month of the year for what is called: Pesach Sheni: The Second Passover.

It takes maturity and godliness to not be frustrated at the way things are compared to the way they should be. I know someone who when things do not work out the way he has dreamed he says, “It is what it is.” I think sometimes that Hashem looks at us with empathy and says, “It is what it is,” and then, he tries to give us a second chance. He tells us that we can celebrate the Passover in the desert instead of in the Land, or that we can celebrate it on the second month if reality kept us from doing it on the first. The whole idea of redemption and atonement is in fact about second chances.

Again we stand in awe at the perfect Almighty God, creator of the universe, as he seems to be able to bend to the bare facts of our lives on earth. He proposes and offers us the great ideals of his Torah with the full knowledge of our imperfectness towards it and seems to say, "It is what it is."

How much more then should we be able to bear with each other’s imperfection? How much patience and forgiveness and bending ability the Father has for each one of us should be the standard of ours towards others? The novice forgets about his own imperfections and looks at others condescendingly wondering how come they don’t toe the line better. The seasoned mature leader and disciple of the Master knows life, that “It is what it is,” and deals with it not according to his lofty dreams but according to the realities on the ground.

May we learn from Hashem, the great Father who loves us so much that he gave us a second chance in his Messiah. May we also have the maturity to accord that second chance to those we meet in this life's journey. 

P. Gabriel Lumbroso

THE PASSOVER OF THE KING

Matthew 26:29

I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."

Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. … He did what was right in the eyes of ADONAI and walked in all the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

As King Josiah undertook the restoration of the Temple of Hashem, the Temple's secretary handed him a Torah scroll found in the Temple. The scroll was opened at Deuteronomy 28, the passage about the blessings and the curses. As Shaphan read the text to the King, the King tore his clothes (2 Kings 22:11). In Josiah's days, most people in Israel had forgotten the Torah. They practiced religious forms and traditions inherited from earlier generations and adopted from foreign nations. They did not fully realize that their worship of God was polluted with idolatrous practices. Josiah's mother had taught her son a healthy fear of Hashem, and the words of Torah worked in his heart.

The king wanted the land to repent, but instead of sending edicts and rebuke the people, the king made repentance something personal,

And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before ADONAI, to walk after ADONAI and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant ( 2Ki 23:3).

Josiah also undertook a series of religious reforms where he deposited the priests of Ba'al, overthrew the altars to the foreign gods, and went on an all-out campaign against idolatry. This campaign culminated to a renewing of the Passover observance like no other,

And the king commanded all the people, "Keep the Passover to ADONAI, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant." For no such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, or during all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was kept to ADONAI in Jerusalem (2 Kings 23:21—23).

A similar situation exists for believers in Yeshua today. They have not totally forgotten Torah, but because of erroneous theological assumptions they have declared it obsolete and mixed it with pagan religious elements. Like in the days of Josiah, today many are rediscovering the Torah of Moses and experiment religious reforms in their hearts. Sometimes all congregations go through these reforms.

These attempts at restoration are great but they are very fragmented and confusing due to a lack of leadership. We look a lot like, "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judg. 21:25). We desperately need the King to return and as Josiah lead us with a strong hand in this reformation. When he does, he will also lead us into the marriage supper of the Lamb and partake with us from the Seder cup which he omitted to drink when he celebrated an early Passover dinner with his disciples (Matt. 26:29; Rev. 19:9).

May it be soon Abba, even in our days!

THE TAMID OFFERING

http://yedideiadonai.weebly.com/1/post/2013/03/the-tamid-offering.html

Hebrews 7:25

He always lives to make intercession for them.

Contrary to what is commonly assumed, the five korbanot ,קורבנות offerings described in the beginning of the Book of Leviticus are not meant for sin atonement. While the sin and guilt offerings portray an acknowledgment and confession of sin, the others are statements of thankfulness, gratefulness, praise, and dedication. The main atonement offering in the Levitical system is what is called the Tamid תמיד, the daily perpetual morning and evening offering (Lev. 6:8-13).

Like two book ends, the Tamid opened the day's offerings, and closed it. These two offerings are the foundation of the two main prayer services in the Temple, and are still today the theme from where the synagogue service and daily personal prayers were conceived. When Luke in the Book of Acts mentions,   "And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes …" (Acts 2:46), he informs us that the disciples attended these lamb offering based services. Peter and John are also mentioned going to the temple’s evening service (Acts 3:1). This is important information as it teaches us that the disciples of the Master continued to attend Temple services and liturgies even after Yeshua’s resurrection. They had never stopped.

The two lambs offered one in the morning and one in the evening provided a continual lamb presence on the altar before God. Those who did not come to the Temple prayed in synchronicity in their homes facing Jerusalem.

At his last Passover on earth, our Master was nailed to the cross at the time the priests offered the morning offering. All day while Yeshua was on the cross, throngs of locals and pilgrims offered their Passover lambs. The Mishnah records that at the end of the ordeal towards mid-afternoon, the High-priest who worked hard in the hot Jerusalem sun says, "I thirst", and is offered a drink. At the end of the whoel thing this same high-priest declares, "it is finished'. Our Master, the high-priest from above, concurred these very words while on the cross, then remitted his Spirit to his Father at the very time of the evening offering that closed the day's services (Mark 15:25,33,34). As Yeshua was put in the tomb just before dusk, Jewish families put their striped and pieced unleavened breads in their ovens.

The Tamid is therefore a perfect picture of the intercessory role of Messiah in our lives. As the writer of the Letter sent to the Messianic believers of Jerusalem says of him, "He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them" (Heb. 7:25).

Yeshua the innocent righteous victim,  truly stands at the right hand of the Father always ready to intercede for us because, "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working" (James 5:16). 

REMOVING THE LEAVEN

Before being worthy of eating the Passover Lamb, the Children of Israel were to clean their houses from leaven. Leaven represents sin. Before celebrating the special meal which would initiate the signal to leave Egypt behind and follow God for a new life in a new country, people needed to clean themselves from the sin of Egypt. Have you ever tried to remove all forms of leavens from your house after a year of cooking and baking? It is hard work to go through all the cracks and crannies of your house, and even after you are done, can you say for sure that you did not forget one single grain? No. That is why traditionally we pray: “Any leaven … that is in my possession … which I have not seen … should be annulled … (Siddur). Yeshua annuls that which we cannot remove! The disciples of the Master followed that tradition and the room where they celebrated their early memorial Seder was leaven-free. Even Judas was gone for most of the meal. He was gone to do his dirty work while Yeshua washed the disciples clean. Now they would all be very clean for celebrating the Passover on the very next day, eating the Passover Lamb itself, while the Master had just been crucified. Some may think that because in Yeshua our sins are forgiven, we do not need to seek for leaven anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth. That would be like saying that because I discovered this new powerful cleaning agent, I don’t need to do the hard work of finding dirt and cleaning it. Part of the job of ‘cleaning’ our soul is finding the ‘dirt’ and being ashamed of ourselves. It doesn’t happen without our conscious participation. It is not like an operation under full anesthesia where the surgeon removes the cancer while we are asleep! After eating the memorial Passover meal with the disciples the Master shared the Afikomen saying, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." He then lifted the third cup of the Passover Seder and said, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:19-20). The Exodus from Egypt was now associated with a Messianic Exodus from this world of sin. Remembering Him each time we drink this memorial Exodus cup prepares us and our children for another meal following another Exodus: the meal that we will all eat with Him after He has come as the final universal ‘Leaven Remover’ (Revelations 19:9). First leaven will be removed from His assembly; at that time, judgment starts with the house of God (1 Peter 4:17; Daniel 12:10; Matthew 24:15-22), then the world gets purified. As we are benefiting from Hs daily cleansing, may we walk worthy of our calling that we may be a good show-case to the world of the greatest cleaning agent on the planet, the only one who has been given the power to truly remove all leaven from our souls.