Many folks do not realize God gave provision for a second Passover service for those who were unable to attend the regular service on the 14th day of the first month. Numbers 9:1-14 outlines the second Passover. We will have a quick study on the second Passover.
At the end of the first year in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, God commanded Israel to again keep the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. God wanted a yearly repetition of the exodus Passover from Egypt. However, not everyone inside the camp of Israel were able to participate in this Passover service. We pick up their situation in Numbers 9:7 as they went to Moses. Some men were defiled from a dead corpse, they were unclean and could not participate in the regularly scheduled Passover service. Moses then inquired of God what to do.
“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If anyone of you or your posterity is unclean because of a corpse, or is far away on a journey, he may still keep the LORD’s Passover. ON the fourteenth day of the second month, at twilight, they may keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall leave none of it until mourning, nor break one of its bones. According to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it. But the man who is clean and in not on a journey, and ceases to keep the Passover, that same person shall be cut off from among his people, because he did not bring the offering of the LORD at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin. And if a stranger dwell among you, and would keep the LORD’s Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover and according to its ceremony; you shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger and the native of the land.’” (Num. 9:9-14 {NKJV}).
We see God giving personal instruction to Moses for this situation. For today the same principle carries forward. If any Christian was unable to partake of the first Passover service on the fourteenth day of the first month, then the Christian CAN partake of the second Passover service. Just as with the original Passover service we must prepare ourselves and make sure we do NOT partake of it “unworthily.” (I Cor. 11:28-29). Pre-reading John chapters 13-17 before the second Passover service is highly recommended.
