• Numbers 9:2
  “Let the people of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time.
  Numbers 9:3
  On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time; according to all its statutes and all its rules you shall keep it.”
• Numbers 9:7
  And those men said to him, “We are unclean through touching a dead body. Why are we kept from bringing the Lord’s offering at its appointed time among the people of Israel?”
• Numbers 9:13
  But if anyone who is clean and is not on a journey fails to keep the Passover, that person shall be cut off from his people because he did not bring the Lord’s offering at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin.

Easter is over and now is the appointed time for the Passover. It cannot be any clearer in this calendar year that the two events are not connected. They each have different appointed times.

I am not Jewish and I do not understand the statues and rules that must be kept. Even if I did understand them, I would not keep them. Because I am not Jewish I do not understand two of the above passages. What offenses disqualify a Jew from celebrating Passover? Secondly why were those on a journey given a pass on not keeping Passover?

Romans 2:29

But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

We who are in Christ are members of one body. He was a Jew and only from the sense that we are adopted is there a need to understand what it means to be Jewish. That only holds meaning in the life Jesus lived and since we follow Jesus who was perfect in performance, how any other Jew might keep their appointed times is meaningless. What Jesus asks of us is all that matters.

Since the point of the Jewish Passover was death passing over because of the blood of the lamb, then in Christ we have already received the only Passover Lamb that matters.

John 8:51

Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”

This is the whole purpose behind Passover, to never see death.

I know what it means to keep my word but what does it mean to keep His?

Romans 1:20 (English Standard Version)

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

While having lunch with my accountability partner the waitress recognized me and revealed herself as being a neighbor from my past. Her words cut me to the quick. “Why didn’t you tell me about Jesus back then?”

My answer was honest about that time. “You were a minor with a mother that hated me and I did not have the right to violate parental control.”

What wasn’t said might have been true but would not have been comforting to either of us at that moment. Her appointed time had not yet come.

God knows best how to receive His own.

Matthew 10:14

And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.

Her mother would not receive me nor listen to my words. It was not my place to overthrow her house.

In the end, God found the minor child and received her after a life to repent. The devil would try and blame me for not spreading the gospel that would fall on deaf ears. While this is true it is also true the minor child saw that I was a man of God from afar or otherwise how would she have known to ask me that question at the restaurant?

Our testimony is as much the life we live as the words we share.

Satan would like to blame us for missed opportunities. Don’t allow it.

God knows their appointed time.