The Full Picture of Passover
Matzah must also be pierced, as was Jesus, for the prophet Zechariah says, “They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced.”20
This is certainly enough evidence to connect the Passover lamb with the Messiah, and the Messiah with Passover. There is also a further tradition that points to the connection between the Messiah and the matzah. At every Passover table, the matzah bread is presented in something called a matzah tosh. This is a unique “bag” which even the rabbis cannot agree upon its origin or significance. In his book Christ in the Passover,21 Moishe Rosen believes that this tradition, along with the following tradition have their presence due to the first century church’s influence, Jewish believers who were still active in all aspects of Israel’s religious life.
The matzah tosh is a square or round fabric bag, displayed very prominently on any Passover table. It is a single bag, but is divided into three separate compartments. Imagine three file folders together and you’ll have a clearer picture. A whole piece of matzah bread is place inside each layer or pocket, comprising three pieces in all. At the appropriate time, in a service still a mystery to the sages and rabbis of Judaism, the middle matzah is removed. It is broken, wrapped in linen, symbolically hidden or buried, ransomed, and revealed again. This center piece of unleavened bread which is broken is the second mysterious tradition. It is called, not by a Hebrew name but a Greek name, the afikomen, which literally means, “he came.”
As the matzah tosh infers, there is something unique about the middle matzah. Could it be the middle personification of the unified Godhead: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Christ, who is represented in every way in the matzah bread, was also broken, buried, ransomed, and then revealed again, and as the name afikomen testifies, He came!
Jesus, speaking as a prophet, took the bread, broke it, and told his disciples that it represented his body, broken for them. Could they imagine that 40 years later, with the destruction of the Temple, that this ritual of the matzah tosh and the afikomen would become the standard observance in Jewish homes for centuries to come? Did he know that his own brethren of the flesh, and the multitude generations to follow would substitute the lamb for the bread—the two becoming one?
The pictures for us are many and they are only a few out of the entire observance that is Passover. They all speak of Messiah, of his character and of his sacrifice. They are ever present in the Christian observance of communion, though often veiled by two thousand years of separation from Jerusalem and our Jewish, biblical heritage. They are shadows, to be sure, whose reality is Christ. The cost was great, but the revelation of Messiah resurrected, eternally rewarding, is greater still.
Category: Biblical Studies, Summer 1999
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