Each spring, Jewish and Christian believers alike gather to remember the night when the blood of a lamb turned away death. For best-selling author and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, Passover isn’t just a remembrance—it’s the very heartbeat of salvation.
“It is celebrated by two peoples on Earth,” Cahn says. “One are the children of Israel by flesh and blood… the other are the children of Israel by adoption, by the Spirit, who are born again and grafted in.”
At its core, Passover is about a divine rescue mission, Cahn explains. Drawing from Exodus and the Gospels, he connected the dots between the first Passover in Egypt and its fulfillment in Jesus, the Messiah.
“If you are born again… this Feast is created by God, not by man,” he says. “Messiah our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the Feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
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During the traditional Seder, each element tells part of the redemption story. Cahn held up the z’roa—a shank bone—and revealed its biblical mystery. “The z’roa can be translated as the arm of God,” he says. “Isaiah says, ‘To whom has the z’roa, the arm of God, been revealed?’ What’s it saying? The greatest revelation of the power of God is not that He could create the universe—it’s that He could give His life for you.”
One of the most striking moments comes when Cahn draws a powerful visual connection between Exodus and Calvary.
“They put the blood of the lamb on one doorpost, the other doorpost, and the top—forming a triangle,” he said. “Over a thousand years later, God would answer that. He would take His Lamb on beams of wood and put one blood here, one blood there, and one blood there—forming a triangle from heaven to earth. You put it together, and you have the Star of David, the covenant of God.”
The cup of judgment, Cahn reminds us, symbolizes the wrath Jesus took upon Himself.
“When the Lord said, ‘Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me,’ that was the cup,” he says. “This is the judgment that you will never know, because someone else took it for you forever.”
But perhaps the most soul-searching moment of the evening arrives in a challenge.
“When you see the blood, you have to pass over it,” Cahn says. “There are people who sinned against you, who hurt you… but when you see the blood, you have to lift the judgment. You have to let go. You have to forgive.”
The Passover, he explains, is more than a meal or a moment in history. It’s an invitation to freedom.
“You are saved by the blood of the Lamb. You are set free by the blood of the Lamb. You are new by the blood of the Lamb,” Cahn says. “If you have the love of God, you are rich in this world.”
And just like the Israelites walking out of Egypt, Cahn says, “Once that Passover came, they were free… The past has no claim on your life because the blood of the Passover Lamb sets you free from everything that has ever been.”
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James Lasher is staff writer for Charisma Media.