While Passover always draws crowds of worshipers to the Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem, circumstances can sometimes prevent us from being able to celebrate this significant holiday during the appointed time. Happily, God, in His mercy, made a provision for this so we wouldn’t have to miss out.

Some say their glass is half full. Others say it’s half empty.  But blessings to those who pick up their glass, walk over to the sink, and refill it.

Today is the day to refill your glass of life.

Today is the day of second chances—Pesach Sheni (The Second Passover).

Passover commemorates Moses leading the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to freedom.

After the tenth plague, before which the Jewish People put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts so that the Angel of Death would pass over their homes, they departed from Egypt and were able to worship God in freedom!

The Jewish People were instructed to celebrate this with a holiday that lasts for seven days each year.  That holiday happened last month.

“Praise the LORD. Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty heavens.”  (Psalm 150:1)

So What is Second Passover?

God designed Pesach Sheni as a one-day holiday for the people who could not keep the first anniversary of the Passover in Egypt due to being unclean.

Second Passover is proof positive that God hears the cry of our hearts when we are separated from Him and call out to Him for help.

What makes this holiday unique from all the other holidays in the Bible is that God gave it in response to unclean people asking to be included!

“But some of them could not celebrate the Passover on that day because they were ceremonially unclean on account of a dead body.  So they came to Moses and Aaron that same day and said to Moses, ‘We have become unclean because of a dead body, but why should we be kept from presenting the Lord’s offering with the other Israelites at the appointed time?’”  (Numbers 9:6–7)

On this day of second chances (The Second Passover), the Israelites who celebrated it did not have to clean their houses and keep the feast for seven days as they were required to the month before.

Instead, God gave them a one-day pass to bring their Passover offering to the Temple and eat unleavened bread.

“When any of you or your descendants are unclean because of a dead body or are away on a journey, they are still to celebrate the Lord’s Passover, but they are to do it on the fourteenth day of the second month at twilight.”  (Numbers 9:10–11)

Although we don’t have to clean our houses of chametz (yeast products) to celebrate the Second Passover, we are required to eat matzah when celebrating this holiday.

Finding Mercy

“Have the Israelites celebrate the Passover at the appointed time. Celebrate it at the appointed time, at twilight on the fourteenth day of this month, in accordance with all its rules and regulations.”  (Numbers 9:2–3)

Second Passover is a wonderful picture of missed opportunity and the merciful nature of God.

Although God had set the time for Passover on the 14th of Nissan, He revealed through this Second Passover that it’s never too late to worship and thank the Lord for His miracles and mercy.

Certainly those who were ritually impure (tameh) or who were too far from Jerusalem — traveling on some distant road — should have missed Passover.

But they refused to accept their exclusion, and God gave them their hearts’ desires to worship Him.

“Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  (Psalm 37:4)

A Jewish man prays at the Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem.

Being Restored

Like these determined Israelites, we should never think that we must remain on the outside looking in because of something we did that made us unclean.

Yes, we may have missed an important opportunity, but don’t despair.

Perhaps we have also traveled a distant path that has led us far from intimacy with God and fellowship with other Believers.

We must always remember that God can and will bring us back when we call to Him.

“Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.”  (Isaiah 59:1)

Therefore, let us remember the lessons of Pesach Sheni and refuse to be excluded from the fullness of life simply because of circumstances or the mistakes of our past.

God hears us when we call, and Yeshua (Jesus) promised results if we would ask:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”  (Matthew 7:7–8)

Prophetic Fulfillment of Second Passover

Second Passover has a prophetic aspect, as well.

Perhaps the ultimate second chance to refill a glass nearly empty is God’s end-time gathering of Israel.

“In that day the Lord will reach out His hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of His people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.” (Isaiah 11:11)

This seems to have been fulfilled with the reestablishment of Israel in 1948.

For almost 2,000 years the Jewish People were disbursed throughout the world, but in the last century, God drew millions of Jewish people back to their Biblical homeland.

And God is not finished!

Every year, thousands of Jewish people from around the world are making aliyah (moving back to their Biblical homeland).

In these end times, as we witness Bible prophecy being fulfilled before our very eyes, we can be assured that God will fulfill everything He has promised, and we can rejoice in the mercy and faithfulness of the God of Israel.

Passover at the Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem