The Passover

Story: The Passover

Passage: Exodus 12:1-28

Characters:  God, Israel

Summary:

The Lord told Israel what He was about to do and what they had to do to be spared.  Each household was to take a lamb without blemish and keep it for four days and then kill it.  They were to smear the blood of the lamb on their doorposts.  Then they were to eat the lamb along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They were to eat it with their shoes on, their belt buckled, and their staff in hand.  God would kill every firstborn in Egypt, but when He saw the blood, He would pass over the Israelites.  They were to celebrate tis with a feast every year.  For seven days, they would eat unleavened bread.  Now work would be done for those seven days.  Moses told the elders what to do and they obeyed.  

Notes:  I have nowhere near enough time to do Passover justice in this post, but here goes!  The feast of unleavened bread is the first celebration that God gives Israel, and it is the first aspect of the law that we see.   Since Christ fulfills the law, every time we study part of the law, I will try to show the way that Christ fulfilled it!  The Passover was a time when God showed mercy to Israel and delivered them from Egypt.  Throughout the Bible, Egypt represents sin, the flesh, and death.  God was going to deliver His people from sin and bring them to the Promised Land.  Let’s look at how He is going to accomplish this!  First, every household is supposed to find a lamb. This lamb needs to be perfect.  Interestingly, a lamb is needed for each household.  (Spoiler alert: Jesus is the ultimate Passover lamb)  In order for Christ’s sacrifice to cover us, we must become part of God’s household.  Fortunately, we see this all throughout the New Testament.  We are adopted as heirs; we are the sons of God.  This lamb was not just chosen and killed, it was kept for four days by the family.  This lamb became a part of the family and lived with them for a short time before they killed it.  Likewise, Christ lived among us for a short time before we killed Him.  They were to eat it while prepared to move.  When we are saved, we need to be ready to go.  Salvation is the beginning of a journey, not the end.  God specifically says that He will execute judgment on all the gods of Egypt.  We have already seen how the plagues were a direct attack on specific Egyptian gods.  Here God states that that is what He is doing.  Egypt worshipped these false gods, so the true God attacked each one to prove that He is the only true God worth worshipping!  God is not happy when we give the glory and worship that He deserves to something we create ourselves.  We see a taste of His wrath in His treatment of Egypt.  God has done many many miracles already for Israel, but this is the first one that He wants them to commemorate with a feast forever.  During this feast, there is to be no leaven present.  Yeast is a leavening agent.  Yeast is later referred to in the New Testament.  Yeast mixing through bread is compared to sin working through our lives.  By having no leaven, the Israelites were symbolically keeping themselves pure from sin.  This was obviously important, because twice God specifies that if anyone has leaven in their possession, whether Israelite of foreigner, they are to be cut off from Israel!  This was a serious deal!  Moses specifies that this is to be celebrated even after Israel arrives in the Promised Land.  This is the most significant moment in history so far, and it is possibly one of the most significant moments in history ever up to our current place in history!  The Passover laid the groundwork for how God was going to redeem His people to Him.  This was more than foreshadowing, this established the structure and meaning of what Christ would later do for the entire world!  God is God and could have saved us in a number of ways, but He chose to save us through innocent blood taking His wrath in our place.  This is the first time we see this play out and this is the precedent for what Christ did for us!  Christ did not have to die because the Passover happened, rather, the Passover had to happen and Christ had to die, because that is how God decided to structure our redemption!  The fact that many people died in the Passover is tragic, but necessary!  For the Israelites to be saved, they had to be saved from something!  For us to be saved, we must be saved from something!  The emphasis should not be on the fact that God killed Egyptians, but rather that He spared the Israelites!  In fact, we see that that is what the Feast of Unleavened Bread is for: to remind future generations of the way that God spared them.  The focus of the Feast is not on the death of the Egyptians, but on the life of the Israelites!  Likewise, our focus should not be on the fact that there are people who are not saved, but rather on the fact that there are people who are saved!  Salvation makes no sense!  Judgment on the other hand is totally logical!  We are broken and have strayed from the purpose of our design and creation.  We deserve death!  When people die, they are getting what they and we deserve!  It is the right thing for bad things to happen to us!  The illogical and strange thing that happens is that some are saved!  Grace is by definition not deserved, and if we feel we must question God, do not question His judgment, but rather His grace!  He has every right to judge us and destroy us!  If you think differently, you do not understand His holiness!  He had no conceivable reason though to judge and destroy His own son so that we are passed over.  Take some time and just worship God for His mercy and grace which He has lavished on those of us who don’t even deserve another breath!

Questions:  Why was the death of a lamb necessary?  Who exactly was going to pass over Egypt? 

Lessons:  The lessons in this passage are somewhat apparent!  This story speaks volumes about God’s mercy and grace.  Some see this as an example of a judgmental God.  I see this as a story of a merciful God full of grace!  In fact, how can there be mercy without judgment?   A life was taken in every house in Egypt, but in Goshen, that life was not the one deserving of death.  Keep in mind, that even though we have been given life, a life was still taken: a life that was infinitely undeserving of death.  Keep this in perspective, and never give in to the temptation of believing that our grace is deserved!