Christian Review Magazine Issue 4 - April 2015 | Page 26

THE

HISTORYOF
AN ARTICLE BY
GARY WILKINSON

E

aster has many different
meanings for people
around the world today.
For me growing up Easter was
about eating chocolate bunnies,
eggs, and hot cross buns. I really
couldn't understand what
chocolate bunnies and eggs had
to do with Jesus. I could make
some sort of connection with hot
cross buns as Jesus died on a
cross. I think Christmas was as
equally confusing but I didn't let it
bother me at the time. Later on
when I became a Christian,
celebrating Easter was about the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. I
would still eat hot cross buns and
chocolate easter eggs. Recently I
produced a documentary entitled
“I Believe in Easter”. The
documentary looks at questions
like, what are the origins of
Easter? Are Passover and Easter
linked? What are some of the
Easter traditions and where did
they come from?

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EASTER

PASSOVER
Easter and Passover are deeply
connected. Passover is important
to the story of Easter as it
symbolically points to Christ being
the sacrificial Lamb of Passover
and it is the time when Jesus was
crucified and resurrected. The
bible tells us that Passover is the
Jewish festival that remembers
the freedom of the Israelites from
Egyptian slavery. It lasts seven
days from the 14th day of the
Jewish month of Nisan. The Old
Testament Passover story is about
God’s deliverance of Israel from
slavery in Egypt through ten
miraculous plagues. The final
plague was how the death angel
struck all the firstborn in Egypt
dead. The angel passed over all
the houses where the Israelites
lived and left them unharmed.

The Israelites were instructed to
kill a year old male lamb without
blemish and to put the blood over
their doorposts and lintels. This
ensured that only the firstborn of
Egypt would die. It was the blood
of the slain lamb that protected
the Israelites.
Exodus 12:14-15 E.S.V - This day
shall be for you a memorial day,
and you shall keep it as a feast to
the Lord; throughout your
generations, as a statute forever,
you shall keep it as a feast. Seven
days you shall eat unleavened
bread…

PROPHECY OF THE
TRUE PASCHAL LAMB
Around 800 BC the prophet Isaiah
prophesied about the coming of