The ManicaPost
Kingdom Matters
Pastor Lee Fore
THE mandate of the church is to glorify God, evangelise and fellowship, but it has been provoked as the Covid-19 pandemic has spread across the globe.
The life of the church was threatened and disrupted, because it is the nature of the church to gather and have fellowship.
Now as Covid-19 wrecks havoc across the world, the church is subjected to confinement and physical distancing.
As this modern day plague reaches biblical proportions, congregations can assemble online during these Passover celebrations.
Christians can celebrate via video conferencing and any other means that do not expose them to the highly contagious virus.
ln the book of Romans 8:28 KJV, Apostle Paul says: “And we know that all things work together for good, to them who love the Lord, to them who are called according to His purpose.”
When times such as this one came upon the early church, it marked the spread of the gospel and the growth of the church to the rest of the world.
We are not yet out of the woods and therefore we should ensure that our treasured annual gatherings abide by the World Health Organisation and Government’s Covid-19 protocols.
May it be God’s will that science leads us to the Promised Land.
The well-known Easter, originally known as Passover in the Hebrew word Pesach, is referred to as the Passover Feast.
In the New Testament, Passover and Easter are tied together.
Jesus enters Jerusalem and gathers his disciples to celebrate the Passover meal, or the Last Supper as it is referred to as by Christians.
Passover (or Pesach in Hebrew) is one of the most important festivals in the Jewish year.
It is a spring festival that begins on the 15th day of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish calendar. lt commemorates the escape of the Israelites — led by Moses — from Egypt as recounted in the book of Exodus.
Prior to the departure of the enslaved Israelites, God delivered a series of plagues on Egypt, culminating in the killing of the first born son in every Egyptian family, including the first born of the livestock.
The Israelites, however, place the blood of a lamb on their doorposts to signal that the “destroyer,” an angel responsible for the killing, should skip, or pass over, those homes.
This story came to function as a powerful narrative of persecution and liberation for Jewish people.
The command to celebrate and remember the exodus from Egypt is encoded in the Bible itself.
According to the book of Exodus, God commands Moses — even prior to the Israelites’ departure from Egypt — that the Israelites and their descendants are supposed to commemorate this event.
The celebration of the Passover includes a script called the Passover Haggadah which contains ancient rituals, some of which may have been practiced as early as the second century A.D.
However, the full script exists in later, medieval manuscripts.
There are some who argue that Passover and Easter are not the same thing.
Others question if Passover is the same as the last supper.
They regard Easter as a pagan holiday, despite its significance.
However, while the Synoptic Gospels present the last supper as a Passover meal, the Gospel of John makes no explicit mention that the last supper was a Passover meal.
lt presents the official Jewish Passover feast as beginning in the evening a few hours after the death of Jesus.
It is for this reason that Passover is celebrated by Jews and Christians alike.
I therefore encourage all saints to pray for mercy as we continue to seek the grace of God in fighting the spread of Covid-19.
Although the pandemic has changed our way of doing things as a church, let’s hold on to our faith.
Let us continue to abide by the health recommendations, and avoid unnecessary travel to avoid the spiking of cases during this holiday.
◆ Pastor Lee Fore can be reached on +263 773 469 191 or +263 712 314 734. Email [email protected]
