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Passover (Pesach), was instituted before any of the other feasts. It was a commanded celebration before the Almighty gave the Torah to the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai.
The children of Israel were still in slavery in Egypt (Mitzrayim) when the Lord told Moses to tell them to prepare for their Exodus.
Ex 12:3 “Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the 10th of this month (Aviv), they are each one to take a lamb for themselves according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household.”
Ex 12:5 “Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old”
Ex 12:6 “You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.”
Ex 12:7 “Moreover they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two door posts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.”
Ex 12:12-13 “For I will go throughout the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast: and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments—I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you and no plague will befall you to destroy your when I strike the land of Egypt.”
The obedient children of Israel were spared the death of the firstborn sons, and Pharoah told them to leave Egypt.
Ex 12:14 Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance.”
We too have been in Mitzrayim. The literal meaning of the word is “a place of narrowness”. I like to think of it as being in narrow straits. Why were we there? Because our sins separated us from our Father. In his letter to the Romans, Paul says that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). The consequences of our sins produce narrow straits in this life and if we fail to repent, can cause us to lose our life in the world to come. (Rom 6:23)
Yeshua is our Passover lamb. It is through his sacrifice that we obtain righteousness before God.
John 1:29 “The next day he [John the Immerser] saw Yeshua coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Eph 1:3-8 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Yeshua HaMashiach, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Messiah, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Messiah to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which he made abundant toward us.”