Day 1045: Our Passover lamb - Exodus 12 vs 1 - 14

1-4 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 neighbour shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb.”

5-7 “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. 8-10 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.”

11-14 “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 judgements: 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. This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute for ever, you shall keep it as a feast.” Exodus 12:1-14 English Standard Version

We read in the New Testament that when the man called 'John the Baptist' saw Jesus, he pointed to Him and said: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) Many Jews who heard him may have immediately thought of the Passover feast. We see in vs 1-4 of today's reading that God gave instructions for this feast through Moses just before the Israelites left Egypt. A lamb was to be killed for each household. But did it matter what sort of lamb was used? (vs 5-7)

It needed to be a lamb without any blemish. There was to be no imperfection in it, and they were then to put some of the blood on the entrance to their house. We see too that they had to eat the roasted flesh, and whatever was left over was not to be treated lightly, but consumed in the fire. The lamb was a total sacrifice. The apostle Peter probably had this in mind when he reminded Christians that “it wasn't with perishable things, such as silver or gold, that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” (1 Peter 1:18-19)

Verses 11-14 describe what was going to happen that night, and show clearly why the feast would be known as a pass-over. What was the other instruction given in those verses?

It wasn't a leisurely meal of relaxation, but was to be hastily eaten (with bitter herbs) and a readiness to set off on their journey to freedom. The feast would thereafter be one of remembrance of how God had freed them from their bitter years of bondage and, upon seeing the blood of the lamb, had passed over their households so that their firstborn had not been destroyed.

One can't read of this Feast given to Israel without realizing how much it pointed to the coming Messiah. Indeed, in 1 Corinthians 5:7, the apostle Paul spoke of Christ's sacrifice as being “our Passover lamb”. Think too of Jesus' own words when He said “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6:53) Just as the lamb had to be 'without blemish', so we read: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21). It's through our Passover lamb that God's wrath can pass over us.