Behold The Lamb Of God! Series

We began our Lenten journey to Easter via the Cross earlier this week on Ash Wednesday. Like any journey, it’s important to begin by being prepared, Ash Wednesday prepares us by eliminating any unwanted burdens of sin that would make our spiritual journey difficult. By confessing our sins that God knows anyway, repenting of those sins to prevent their recurrence, then asking for forgiveness, those sins no longer need to burden us. This isn’t just done on Ash Wednesday, but for those here on Wednesday, we visualized such forgiveness by listing the sins we wanted to be forgiven for on a paper, thereby confessing them, then presenting them to Jesus at the Cross where He had paid the penalty for those sins so they could be forgiven. As we each placed our papers in the water at the Cross, we watched those named sins disappear, and after expressing repentance of those sins, we were assured they had been removed from us forever. Having ashes imposed on us reminded us of our mortal sinful natures, and sorrow for having sinned. Because, as humans, we continue to sin, confession, repentance, and forgiveness should be a regular part our Christian life.

To continue our spiritual journey on this first Sunday of Lent, we begin with an essential recognition of Jesus’ identity as the Lamb of God. It’s an identity that was previewed in the OT, and developed further in the NT. Christians miss a lot of the rich imagery of the OT if we don’t recognize it as a preview for the NT. We regard Jewish celebrations, like Passover, as OT Jewish religion, separate from NT understandings. But our Christian roots were established in the Jewish faith of the OT, just as Jewish faith has not understood the fulfillment of the OT previews in the NT. Christianity is the evolvement of our Jewish roots into total fulfillment by Jesus in the NT. Our OT and NT readings this morning strongly exemplify that relationship.

Our reading from Exodus is the basis of the Passover. God had heard Israel’s suffering under Egyptian slavery, and had sent Moses to bring them from Egypt to the Promised Land. The Promised Land was actually the land that God had promised Abraham, by covenant, that would belong to his descendants forever. That promise was passed down through Abraham’s only son, Isaac, then to Isaac’s son, Jacob, the twin brother of Esau, but not to Esau. Many years later, Jacob had to leave that promised land to bring his family of 70 to Egypt to survive a severe famine. You might recall Joseph’s role In bringing his father’s family to Egypt. Joseph had been sold as a slave by his brothers, but he had been elevated to the second highest office in Egypt by interpreting Pharaoh’s dream, revealing to Joseph God’s way to guide Egypt through the famine. The grateful Pharaoh welcomed Joseph’s family, even giving them fertile land to live in Egypt.

But a later dynasty of Pharaohs, with no loyalty to the Hebrews, and because the Hebrews were multiplying so rapidly, feared they would take over Egypt, or side with their enemies to defeat them, and so made the Hebrews slaves for their remaining years in Egypt. Over the years, Israel had accepted the many gods of Egypt, while growing distant from God. But, with the shreds of their Hebrew faith, they cried out to God for deliverance until God decided it was time to bring them back to their Promised Land. But there were major challenges ahead.

During their 400 year absence, the Promised Land had become occupied by pagan nations, who would not welcome Israel back to take over their land. And secondly, they would need to abandon their Egyptian gods and once again trust and obey only God. But, the once 70 people of Jacob’s family residing in Egypt now numbered over 600,000 men, plus their families. They were the major part of the Egyptian labor force, so Pharaoh refused to simply set them free. Through Moses, God levied nine progressively more difficult plagues on Egypt to force Pharoah’s hand, but the hardened heart of Pharaoh remained unmoved. God’s final plague would cause the liberation of His people from slavery to Egypt under Pharaoh, but would also be a preview of God’s greater plan to liberate His people from slavery to sin under Satan.

From our OT reading, on a date God specified, the Angel of Death would pass over the land of Egypt, killing the firstborn of every household. But, the Israelites were told that each man was to choose a one year old lamb unblemished lamb, in other words, a perfect lamb, for his family on the tenth day of the month, and care for it for four days. At twilight of the fourteenth day of the month, the lambs were to be slaughtered. Then, they were to put the blood of that perfect lamb on the top and sides of the doorframe of the house where they would eat the lamb. The complete lamb was to be roasted and eaten completely that night, with nothing being left until morning. Anything uneaten was to be burned completely. At midnight, the Angel of Death would pass over the land, killing the firstborn of both people and animals unless protected by the blood on their doorframe posts, identifying those who had trusted and obeyed God.