January 25th - A Passover Promise

A Passover Promise

(Exodus 12 - 13)

The Passover in the Holy Family:

Gathering Bitter Herbs

By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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Who is like the Lord our God, with His brilliant prophetic symbolism?

I love the way the Savior is revealed throughout the Scriptures, even in the earliest pages of the Old Testament. The entire account really is His story.

Today’s Bible reading includes the miraculous Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, as God Almighty delivered them from the hand of Pharaoh.

My favorite part of the story is the account of the Passover lamb and how its blood shielded the Lord’s people from the angel of death. When God’s judgment fell upon the firstborn of all of Egypt, the Hebrew people were protected by the blood.

The spotless lamb’s blood was placed on the doorframes of the homes of the Lord’s people (see Exodus 12:23), even as the Word of God would someday be (see Deuteronomy 6:9). God’s angel would pass over these homes, recognizing them by the blood.

For millennia, Jewish families have faithfully repeated the biblical tradition of Passover. Jesus’ own family must have done so (as pictured above).

In the same vein, all who trust the Lord are sheltered by precious blood of the Firstborn of all creation (see Colossians 1:15), the Messiah, Jesus Himself.

God instructed Moses and Aaron that no bones of the Passover lamb must be broken (see Exodus 12:46, Numbers 9:12 and Psalm 34:20), even as Jesus prophetically was protected from broken bones during His agonizing death on Calvary’s cross (see John 19:36). Although we may seem somewhat squeamish discussing the painful details of Christ's crucifixion, His shed blood is the bedrock of our faith.

Without the blood of Jesus Christ, who died an unimaginably painful physical death and then conquered sin and death by His bodily resurrection, we are without hope.

“Christ, our Passover Lamb,

has been sacrificed for us.”

(1 Corinthians 5:7b, NLT)

We recognize this truth every time we partake in the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion. When Jesus marked this dinner with his twelve apostles in Jerusalem (see Matthew 26:26-30), they actually celebrated a Passover Seder. The following day, He was crucified during the Passover week.

The blood of Jesus, the Passover Lamb, is our only qualification for God’s deliverance. If we will only trust Him and confess our need for deliverance from ourselves, His blood will cleanse us forever. The blood of Jesus will be our covering, so that we need not fear death. The angel of death will pass over us, if we are protected by the redeeming blood of Christ.

What a Passover promise.

How can we not trust this great God, who holds all of history (His story) in His powerful, but ever-loving, hands?

Will you pray with me?

Precious Lord,

Spotless, sinless, perfect

Passover Lamb of God,

How we thank You

For shedding Your own blood

To save us from sin,

To deliver us from evil,

And to purchase our eternal deliverance.

May we praise Your great Name

Forever.

Amen.