The donkey and the Lamb — a Passover reflection

By Charles Gardner, UK Correspondentby Charles Gardner

My wife Linda and I have just spent a precious few days in the tranquil surrounds of the New Forest in the south of England. It’s a beautiful expanse of both wooded and open countryside famously home to wandering wild ponies requiring drivers to be extra cautious.

Perhaps less known is the preponderance of wild donkeys mingling among them. We watched a long line of them gently strolling past us, and I noticed they all had crosses on their backs, their markings all bearing the same stark symbol. It’s common to them all, I’m told, and yet no-one seems to know why.

Could it be that this gentle, humble creature is so honoured because it once carried Jesus, the Lord of Glory, on its back? On Palm Sunday, a week before Easter, we remember how Yeshua (Jesus) rode into Jerusalem to welcoming crowds, fulfilling the prophet Zechariah’s words: “Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! …See your King comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey… He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River [Euphrates] to the ends of the earth.” (Zechariah 9:9f)

Yes, he was – and is – the King of the Jews. But first he had to die for them. That humble creature was surely performing one of the most significant of all tasks ever given to an animal, carrying the ultimate Passover Lamb to a cruel death – at Passover – for the sins of the whole world, both Jew and Gentile.

Within a week Jesus would be nailed to the cross at Calvary, just outside the city walls, where his atoning blood would be shed so that all who trust him would inherit life forever, forgiven for eternity.

It was all prefigured when Moses raised the bronze serpent in the desert so that the many snakebite victims who looked upon it would be healed. In the same way, those of us who acknowledge that we have all been infected by Satan’s poison of sinful rebellion against God will be ransomed, healed, restored and forgiven as we figuratively mark the blood of Jesus on the doorposts of our hearts.

This of course beautifully fulfils the exodus from Egypt of the enslaved Israelites who, 1 500 years before Christ, found their freedom by daubing the lintels of their homes with the blood of a sacrificial lamb.

The Jewish people were the main beneficiaries of this wondrous release. But now, in Jesus, the whole world benefits, as our Lord said: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Nevertheless, God has a special place in his heart for his ancient people with whom he has struck an everlasting covenant of love. While he was on Earth, Yeshua indicated that the times of the Gentiles having oversight of Jerusalem would come to an end (Luke 21:24) and that the Jewish people would eventually welcome him back and “look upon the one they have pierced” (Matthew 23:39, Zechariah 12:10).

Tragically, however, just as the Jews as a nation did not recognise the time of God’s coming among them (with severe consequences of nearly 2 000 years of exile – see Luke 19:44), we are now living at a time when the Gentiles, including much of the Church, are failing to recognise the time of God’s coming upon the Jewish people – restored as a nation state and a world leader after less than 77 years.

Are we witnessing the time of the Gentiles coming to a close? I have just received a newsletter from Jews for Jesus reporting of a man in his 30s raised as an atheist in a secular-Jewish home who finally fell to his knees in repentance after Yeshua appeared to him three times in dreams and visions. He contacted their Tel Aviv office to find out what to do next and has since been baptised in the Jordan while passionately spreading his new-found faith.

Thankfully, there are also signs of a growing recognition among Gentile believers of the importance of their Jewish roots. One couple I know here in Yorkshire have managed to persuade their church leaders to celebrate Passover on Easter Sunday! They are truly going back to the roots of their faith, and it all makes perfect sense.

As Rev Aaron Eime¹ puts it: “Without Passover, Easter makes absolutely no sense.”

Helpfully, the feasts once again overlap somewhat anyway, as they did last year. After all, Jesus died at Passover; the symbolism was intentional. And, praise God, he rose again on the third day to prove, once and for all, that he had triumphed over death and hell, the firstfruits of the spiritual harvest to come.

Jesus is our Passover Lamb, sacrificed for the sins of both Jews and Gentiles. For he boldly claimed: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:53f)

In this context, bear in mind Yeshua’s response to the devil’s temptation during his 40-day fast in the Wilderness: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Quoting Deuteronomy 8:3)

We need to be living on the bread of his word, and the blood of his sacrifice. Surely, it’s time to look at Yeshua, the one who saves, who says: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…” (Isaiah 1:18).

¹General Director of CMJ UK, the Church’s Ministry among Jewish people

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