Redeemed - Pt. 10

 

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on 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 are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12:1-13 ESV).

 

The scenes in our reading for today are quite graphic, and they may be shocking if you haven’t encountered them before. By painting the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of their houses, the enslaved people of Israel were spared from a plague of death. Seeing the blood on their doorways, the Lord passed over them. But the plague took the lives of all the Egyptians’ firstborn sons. There was wailing throughout Egypt because the hard-hearted Pharaoh would not listen to God’s plea through Moses: “Let my people go!”

 

The Jewish Feast of Passover has been celebrated every year since that day long ago. And it’s no coincidence that Jesus’ last supper with his disciples was during the Passover feast. He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God” (Luke 22:15-16). At that supper, Jesus showed his disciples that the bread and wine of the meal symbolized his body and blood, given and poured out for them. And on the next day he gave up his life to be sacrificed as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). As the ultimate Passover Lamb, Jesus freed us from being slaves to sin (John 8:34). Because he took on the punishment for our sin, the judgment for sin has passed over us. Believing in him, we have new life to live with joy and trust in the Lord forever!