Passover is also known as the Festival of Freedom (Hag haCherut – חג החרות) because of the dramatic way God liberated the twelve tribes of Israel after centuries of slavery in Egypt, making them finally free. It’s a special family time with symbolic foods to remember that day of deliverance. In addition to the educational elements on the Passover table, retelling the story is central to the celebration.
God instructed His people to retell the story in first person, as if it happened to us… because in a sense it did.
“You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’” (Exodus 13:8)
We relive the Passover story in our own days, and relate it to our own lives, so the story is kept perpetually alive in our communal consciousness. Pretty much every Jewish holiday follows the familiar pattern: “They tried to kill us, God rescued us, let’s eat!” Today, some 3500 years later, that story doesn’t seem so far away.
Levels of liberty
There is a lot of freedom all over the place in the Exodus story. Obviously the main event is the eventual escape from slavery in Egypt cutting straight through the Red Sea, but there are so many levels of liberty in this Feast of Freedom.
– First of all, the Hebrew slaves were free to believe or to doubt when Moses came back with his stick and a divine plan of redemption.
– Second, they were free to choose whether to obey the instructions God gave when the plagues hit: they had the choice to put the blood of a lamb on their doorframes… or not.
– Third, they were free to stay in Egypt if they chose, or to take the way out that God provided. They didn’t have to go.
– Fourth, they didn’t have to agree to enter into a covenant with God, but they did.
God values freedom. Way more than we might realize.
God then gives His law, and makes the covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai. He lays down the Ten Commandments and starts giving the instructions on how to live as free men and women. And you know what the first item on the agenda is?
“When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing.” (Exodus 21:2)
Top of the list, that was. The thing about slaves is that they must be set free.
But it doesn’t even stop there. God says when slaves are given their freedom, they can choose to stay of their own free will if they want to. Those who stay undergo a strange ritual involving more blood on doorposts:
“But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.” (Exodus 21:5-6)
They are free to go and they are free to stay. It’s their free choice, and a matter of love.
No wonder Passover week is known as “Zman Cheiruteinu,” the time of our liberation. It is the Festival of Freedom.
Why free will is so important
Without real freedom to choose, there can be no real love. If we are forced to follow, we are still slaves. But God, in giving freedom — in insisting on freedom — makes sure that if people follow Him it’s because they really want to. Because of love.
This is important because love is so fundamental to God. Free will is what gives human beings real agency and allows for an actual relationship with God, which is what He created us for. He puts the choice before Israel clearly: Life or death, blessing or curses, urging them, “Choose life!” We are also given that choice today.
However, freedom, as they say, is not free. A great price is paid, but not by us.
God has done all the heavy lifting when it comes to redemption: we just get to walk out of slavery, blinking in the light, like prisoners who found the doors had swung open and their captors had vanished.
He has done it.
The Passover lamb is the perfect picture of the redemption that was yet to come. It was by no merit of the Israelite households that the destroying angel passed over their houses, sparing them. God was not looking at their lives, he was looking at the blood on the doorposts. Passover points to the freedom from sin that was paid for by Yeshua the Messiah who laid down His life so we could walk free. But only if we want to.
The Torah, the Law given at Sinai, was a handbook given to an emancipated people, teaching them how to live in freedom after generations of slavery. You can take the people out of Egypt, the saying goes, but you then need to take Egypt out of the people. Freedom can happen in a moment, but the slavery mindset takes a bit more time to overcome.1
We, too, need to learn how to walk in the freedom that was acquired for us at great expense, and not slip back into old mindsets and slavish habits.
“For freedom, Messiah set us free—so stand firm, and do not be burdened by a yoke of slavery again.” (Galatians 5:1)
Fighting for freedom
This Passover time Israel is at war with the Islamic Regime of Iran, the mastermind and financier of all the terror groups determined to destroy the Jewish state, in a fight for freedom. And it seems that the Islamic Regime, like Pharaoh, is stubbornly refusing to let the people go.
Just as Pharaoh forced his people to throw Hebrew babies in the Nile, the Ayatollah has been forcing the people of Iran to chant “Death to Israel! Death to America!” for decades. Death is pretty much the opposite of freedom, and the Iranian people have had enough. The vast majority are refusing to join in the genocidal aspirations of their regime and are trying desperately to shake off their shackles.
Catherine Perez Shakdam, a modern day Esther, is a Jewish woman who lived undercover in Iran for ten years as a journalist, and met all the leaders of the regime. In a recent interview she contrasted the liberty found in cultures based on the Bible with the oppressive theocracy in Iran.2
“No one should tell you how to say things and how to be and what you believe,” she insisted. “You are born free. We walked out of Egypt and I don’t think that anyone has a desire to return under the yoke of a man,” noting that Passover was almost upon us. “Before the Israelites could walk out of Egypt, we had to speak freedom,” she said. “Walk out of Egypt. Do it now.”
On the one hand, 47 years of oppression under the Islamic Regime in Iran is a drop in the bucket compared to 2,500 long years of Persian history. One the other, the IRGC has had almost 50 years to invest in terror. They are very well-equipped and the battle is fierce.
“Freedom is not free, as we say in America,” said Iranian pastor, Reza Safa. “it’s usually a very costly price, but the beauty of that is that out of that tyranny and that willingness to persevere and fight against evil forces, a lot of good will come.”
He encouraged us to be patient and says paying a little more for gas for a while will be worth it.
“I believe a new Iran will become a place of freedom,” he says. “Christianity will spread throughout the entire Middle East. Because, you know, since we started broadcasting 24/7 into Iran, tens of thousands of Muslims have come to Christ and many of them now are ministers. They are in Afghanistan preaching. They are in Azerbaidzhan. They are in Turkmenistan. They’re all over the place spreading the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Can you imagine? One of my dreams is, as soon as this regime falls, I will go to Iran and build a university, Christian University. And we could raise pastors for the entire Middle East.” 3
“You have a young generation in that land — very active, very energetic, love the West, love America, love Israel. I think it will be the brightest days of the Middle East ahead of us,” he says. “They have been dreaming of a day such as today. They are hoping for change, for freedom… They want deliverance from this evil regime,” Pastor Safa continues. “They’re so desperate for a change. You know, I have I have never understood freedom until I heard the cry that is coming out of Iran… I believe God has heard their prayer. I believe God has heard their cry. And they are seeking, they are craving, hungry for freedom.”
“Our people here in America, we know what freedom is. We fought for it. We pay the price for it. We still are. I pray to God that we may understand this and join our forces and our hearts together with the Iranian people and let them experience that. In Jesus’ precious name,” he prayed.
Another Iranian believer named Farnoosh confirmed Pastor Safa’s hopes for a new day of freedom coming to Iran.4
Farnoosh told Dr. Erez Soref, “I am very excited for what’s coming to Iran. It’s come to me in revelation what’s coming, and it’s going to be the work of God’s hand. And the world is going to know God is real, and Jesus is the way,” she said. “These people that are been with a false god, and paying for freedom, the truth will set them free. They’ve been asking, crying for a king, and they’re going to have the King of kings be their king. And this wave, this fire, is going to go to Israel, go to all across the world, and people are going to say, God is real. And in this revival, I believe with my whole heart that Iran is going to be the epicenter of it all, and this is why I’m excited.”
Iran has a great destiny yet to be fulfilled. Let’s join their heart cry this Passover: “Let my people go!”
- Os Guinness, The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai’s Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom (2021)
White Horse Inn podcast, Os Guinness on The Future of Freedom, October 3, 2021
As much as the Old Testament Law might seem primitive to many New Testament followers, it was a radical departure from the tyranny and slavery of the cultures around them. The Law laid down the infrastructure of a fair and free society. Os Guinness is a thinker who has written much about the extraordinary and liberating nature of the Mosaic covenant, calling it a “Magna Carta” for humanity. He observes that there is a form of separation of powers, by which even kings are subject to the law since the prophets had the right to call them out according to its standards. The law brought in a new degree of equality, the value of human life, and many other fundamental principles which form the basis of Judeo-Christian societies in the West. In short, God’s law was given to enable people to live freely. God took His people out of slavery in Egypt, but they had to learn to be free. - Revelation TV interview with Catherine Perez Shakdam https://revelationtv.com/watch-video/the-middle-east-report-true-story-undercover-in-iran-face-to-face-with-evil-146246
- CBN interview with Reza Safa https://youtu.be/ZAo9DWMTLCg?si=vXar2YDOtSRqPSnu
