7th Intermediate day of Pesach April 25 08

"From the day after the day of rest-that is from the day you bring the sheaf for waving, you are to count seven full weeks until the day after the seventh week; you are to count fifty days and then you are to present a new grain offering to Adonai". (Vayikra 23:15-16)

We count the omer for 50 days from Pesach to Shavuot which is the culmination of the journey of Kehal Israel when Moses went up onto Har Sinai to receive the Torah. This journey signifies our walk toward holiness. At this point we have reached the climax with the giving of the Torah to us through the Hand of God.

The walk from Goshen, Egypt to the Promised Land should have taken 11 or the most 12 days but instead it took us 40 years. Why? "…in case, God thought, the prospect of fighting makes the people change their minds and turn back to Egypt" (Exodus 13: 17b).

What would have made them change their minds? In Egypt the Jews were comfortable. After having lived many prosperous years in Goshen a new Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph and fearing that we would take over, he turned our lives into bitterness and slavery. Once a slave mentality has been developed, it is very difficult to get rid of. It robs the people of any will, desire or ability to make decisions on their own. This last generation in Egypt would need to die in the desert so that the next generation could be strong enough to conquer and build eretz Israel.

How can we relate to this idea today?

During this long journey from Egypt, God was in the process of ridding the people of the mental and emotional chametz caused by the slavery. Passover becomes a time for us also to get rid of the chametz caused by the slavery to the nature of our old lives.

When a person has lived in prison for many years, they do not know how to live like free men. Once released, many men will commit crimes again so that they can go back to the safety of prison life. There they do not have to make the simple decisions that a free man must make everyday…when to get up, when and what to eat, what to do with his free time. This can be overwhelming for a person who has never had to do it.

How many believers still live with a prisoner mindset or slave mentality instead of choosing the freedom that God wants to give us? We all have experiences from the past which we constantly try to pull us back to our own Egypt prison.

The true message of Passover is that Yeshua our Messiah did not die in vain. His blood was pictured by the blood that was put on the doorpost of the houses. The Angel of death "passed over" allowing us to escape death and freeing us forever from slavery. By Yeshua's death and resurrection He has set us free from prison like Moses who set us free from Egypt. We now have a choice but if we continue to hold onto the prisons of our past we will never grow in maturity and walk the true journey of faith that God has for us. When we admit our failures and turn to the living Word (Yohanan 1), Yeshua slowly changes our old natures and develops in us the new nature that we were meant to have. "If we say 'We have no sin" we are deceiving ourselves and truth has no place in us; if we acknowledge our sins, he is trustworthy and upright so that he will forgive our sins and will cleanse us from al evil. If we way, 'We have never sinned and we make him a liar, and his word has no place in us." I John 1: 8-10.

Like the tradition of the Bedikat Chametz which I described to you in last week's message, let us continue daily to search our own hearts and to have God reveal the areas where we are still prisoners to the past. Once we bring these areas to Him to cleanse by His Ruach ha Kodesh, we gradually become free to live and rejoice in the fullness of what God has for us in this life and beyond. Let us then be sure that we have searched our hearts for the chametz and that we are not hiding from knowing the truth about who are. "Examine me, God and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is in my any hurtful way and lead me along the eternal way" Psalm 139:23-24.

May God add blessings to his Word!

Rabbi Percy Johnson (Rabbi Netanel Ben Yochanan)

     Rabbi Percy Johnson
     [nxy [b lantn

     © 2008 Use by Permission

     Kehilat She’ar Yashuv