Sabbath Thought – Passover Love

In just a couple of weeks we will gather for the Passover service. There is so much to consider in that festival, in our calling, in God’s plan of salvation for mankind, what our role is in His plan and more. Everything about our calling begins with Christ being our Passover. If Christ had not died for our sins so we could be reconciled to the Father, our life would truly be vanity. If Christ had not died for the sins of mankind, then the rest of the plan of salvation, revealed through the balance of God’s Holy Days, would not be possible.

God loves us – mankind. We can say this so often it can begin to lose its impact, but the Father did send His Son to die for the sins of mankind (John 3:16). It is easy to think that God did this as an afterthought, but at some point in pre-history the Father and Son decided to expand their family (Revelation 13:8b, Hebrews 2:10a) from two to untold billions – and they chose to do this through the perfecting of character generated only by freewill. In granting freewill there is the possibility of choosing wrong, and in matters of character God defines this as sin (1 John 3:4). Left unchecked, or unpaid for, sin only brings death (Romans 6:23).

This is where the sacrifice of Jesus Christ comes in then. Christ humbled Himself by coming as a man and obeying the Father’s will that He come and die as payment for our sins (Philippians 2:8). Do we fully appreciate what Christ did for us? He created us (and everything else), and yet was willing as our Creator to humble Himself and become a physical and spiritual sacrifice for us. He was made flesh (John 1:1, 14) – in the likeness of us in our sinful flesh (Romans 8:3) – and in doing so took upon Himself the form of a servant (Philippians 2:6-7). Christ took on “the curse” (the penalty, Galatians 4:4) of violating God’s law for us through His sinless life, and in doing so redeemed us from the curse of the law (death – Galatians 3:3).

Jesus Christ did all of this for us, while never violating God’s perfect law and in doing so became the sin payment for us so that we could then become the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our Christian walk is all about becoming the righteousness of God in Christ. What a tall order – but a task that Christ will complete in us (with our own effort as well) because what He has begun He will finish (Hebrews 12:2)!

We have a lot to keep in mind as we partake of the Passover and set our feet on the path of rehearsing God’s plan of salvation through His Holy Days. No matter what we have faced in the past year in our walk, no matter what we will face in the coming year(s), the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory God will reveal in us at Christ’s second coming (Romans 8:18). All of it begins with Passover, through a Messiah who was willing to die for our sins.

I wish you a very meaningful Sabbath,

Dan Dowd

7 March, 2026