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the feast, the past and the future

2 Chronicles 35:1-19

2 Chronicles 35:1 Josiah observed Yahveh’s Passover and slaughtered the Passover lambs on the fourteenth day of the first month.
2 Chronicles 35:2 He appointed the priests to their responsibilities and encouraged them to serve in Yahveh’s temple.
2 Chronicles 35:3 He said to the Levites who taught all Israel the holy things of Yahveh, “Put the holy ark in the temple built by Solomon son of David king of Israel. Since you do not have to carry it on your shoulders, now serve Yahveh your God and his people Israel.
2 Chronicles 35:4 “Organize your ancestral families by your divisions according to the written instruction of King David of Israel and that of his son Solomon.
2 Chronicles 35:5 Serve in the holy place by the groupings of the ancestral families for your brothers, the lay people, and according to the division of the Levites by family.
2 Chronicles 35:6 Slaughter the Passover lambs, consecrate yourselves, and make preparations for your brothers to carry out the word of Yahveh through Moses.”
2 Chronicles 35:7 Then Josiah donated thirty thousand sheep, lambs, and young goats, plus three thousand cattle from his own possessions, for the Passover sacrifices for all the lay people who were present.
2 Chronicles 35:8 His officials also donated willingly for the people, the priests, and the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, chief officials of God’s temple, gave twenty-six hundred Passover sacrifices and three hundred cattle for the priests.
2 Chronicles 35:9 Conaniah and his brothers Shemaiah and Nethanel, and Hashabiah, Jeiel, and Jozabad, officers of the Levites, donated five thousand Passover sacrifices for the Levites, plus five hundred cattle.
2 Chronicles 35:10 So the service was established; the priests stood at their posts and the Levites in their divisions according to the king’s command.
2 Chronicles 35:11 Then they slaughtered the Passover lambs, and while the Levites were skinning the animals, the priests splattered the blood they had been given.
2 Chronicles 35:12 They removed the burnt offerings so that they might be given to the groupings of the ancestral families of the lay people to offer to Yahveh, according to what is written in the book of Moses; they did the same with the cattle.
2 Chronicles 35:13 They roasted the Passover lambs with fire according to regulation. They boiled the holy sacrifices in pots, kettles, and bowls; and they quickly brought them to the lay people.
2 Chronicles 35:14 Afterward, they made preparations for themselves and for the priests, since the priests, the descendants of Aaron, were busy offering up burnt offerings and fat until night. So the Levites made preparations for themselves and for the priests, the descendants of Aaron.
2 Chronicles 35:15 The singers, the descendants of Asaph, were at their stations according to the command of David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun the king’s seer. Also, the gatekeepers were at each temple gate. None of them left their tasks because their Levite brothers had prepared for them.
2 Chronicles 35:16 So all the service of Yahveh was established that day for observing the Passover and for offering burnt offerings on the altar of Yahveh, according to the command of King Josiah.
2 Chronicles 35:17 The Israelites who were present in Judah also observed the Passover at that time and the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days.
2 Chronicles 35:18 No Passover had been observed like it in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel. None of the kings of Israel ever observed a Passover like the one that Josiah observed with the priests, the Levites, all Judah, the Israelites who were present in Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
2 Chronicles 35:19 In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, this Passover was observed.

the feast, the past and the future

In the same year that Josiah rediscovered the Book of the Law, he reinstituted the Passover, and celebrated it as none had ever done in his lifetime. It was a tremendous celebration of God’s grace, which looked back to the time that the LORD rescued the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, and looked forward to the day when the Messiah would die on a cross to rescue all sinners from death. Christians regularly remind ourselves of that grace when we partake of the LORD’s supper. That feast looks back on our deliverance at the cross, and forward to the day when we celebrate his grace in the renewed earth that grace will make possible.

LORD, teach us to look back at your grace, and forward to its result.