Passover is so much more than an historic event, or even a special annual feast. It’s an ongoing symbol of freedom from slavery.
As Haman was hanged on the gallows he had built for Mordecai, the Jew, in ancient Persia, so Iran’s Khamenei (sound familiar?) has come to grief in these days. And it’s all happened during the feast of Purim, celebrating the unravelling of a mass murder plot 2,500 years ago.
And, notwithstanding Trump’s temporary ceasefire announcement, as modern Persia is being bombed into submission by the very nation it has vowed to destroy for the past 47 years, so we pray for a successful conclusion to the war this Passover.
With reports of another likely uprising along with mass desertion from its forces, we could very soon be witnessing a replay of that ancient exodus in terms of liberation from Iran’s poisonous tentacles, just as we have been watching a virtual re-enactment of Purim.
Though the Israelites eventually, after 40 years, entered the Promised Land, they have since been surrounded by enemies making them feel decidedly unwelcome. And this has especially been the case since Israel’s re-birth nearly 78 years ago, with a succession of wars intent on strangling the new nation.
But when the Dragon (see Revelation 12:3) repeatedly failed, a propaganda war commenced with the invention of a Palestinian people whose land Israel had supposedly stolen. And since the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iran has kept their finger on the trigger of violence, notably through their terrorist proxies, aimed at obliterating the Jewish state they have effectively ‘enslaved’ to a perpetual combat readiness.
They should have been safely back in their ancient homeland these past 78 years, but instead they have been in the ‘wilderness’ of constant conflict imposed by those who hate them. Many Jews, both in Israel and here in the UK and elsewhere, struggle to understand why they are so mistreated when they only wish to live at peace with their neighbours.
The latest antisemitic incident in north London has seen four Jewish ambulances set on fire. Thankfully, no injuries have been reported. But why are they hated so? The answer to that question is summed up by Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah, who asked: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.” (Luke 12:51)
People have always been divided over the claims of Jesus, and over his people, the Jews, and never more so than at the present time. For the current conflict engulfing the entire Middle East and much of the world reflects the spiritual warfare in heavenly places to which the Apostle Paul refers in his letter to the Christians at Ephesus (chapter 6).
What is happening in the heavenlies – a gargantuan battle in which Satan and his minions are writhing about like a wounded snake spitting venom at the God of Israel – is being reflected on solid ground from Tehran to Dubai and everywhere in between. For the war is ultimately over the question of who is God? Who’s in charge of this world?
The God of Israel, actually. He who commanded the Angel of Death to pass over his people, setting them free from the clutches of an evil tyrant – from slavery into a future of hope and peace. It was the blood of a lamb painted on the doorframes and lintels of their homes that spared the Israelites from the death of their first-born and caused Pharaoh to let them go. And today, through the blood he shed for our sins on the cross, Yeshua – our Passover Lamb – has provided for our eternal redemption, not only from present strife, but for life everlasting.
By marking his blood, metaphorically speaking, on the doorposts of our hearts, we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free.
I pray that we shall see a miraculous deliverance from the Iranian despots as their people break free from the chains of Islamic fanaticism and Israel is at last spared the wrath of their evil regime, with the ‘sea’ of fear, trauma, bombs and sirens dried up – including the Strait of Hormuz – leading to a new day of peace, for a time at least.
Yet while people will continue to be divided over Yeshua, they are also reconciled through him. For the cross reconciles us with God, and with each other. Witness the many Jewish and Arab brothers and sisters amid Messianic congregations who love and care for each other because of Jesus.
And it didn’t end on the cross, just as Jewish suffering isn’t forever. Yeshua has risen from the dead!
Easter this year falls, as it often does, in the middle of Passover on April 5th, which happens to be the 26thanniversary of the day my late wife Irene died. When, at the funeral, I first saw her coffin and wondered how I would cope with delivering the eulogy I had prepared, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper to me: “She is not here; she is risen!”
And I was thus revived and emboldened with the sure hope of her resurrection!
Charles Gardner is author of Israel the Chosen, available from Amazon; Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com; To the Jew First, A Nation Reborn, and King of the Jews, all available from Christian Publications International.
