From His Hands And Feet Series

Series: Jesus’ Blood for Me

“From His Hands and Feet”

Exodus 12:21-28

Pastor John Bright

Exodus 12 “21 Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. 22 And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning. 23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the [g]lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. 24 And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever. 25 It will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service. 26 And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ 27 that you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.’ ” So the people bowed their heads and worshiped. 28 Then the children of Israel went away and did so; just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.”

Like most years, the dates for the Sundays in March are the same as those in February. Every four years, we have a leap year. Why? A year is 365.25 days –more precisely, 365d 5h 48m 47.26s. It used to mess up the solar calendar. That gives rise to the need to reconcile those leftover hours, minutes, and seconds. February 29 reconciles those days as we leap over them every four years – we redeem these partial days.

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I want to be up front with you today. I have two goals for this Lenten sermon series:

• I want to make you uncomfortable. I want you to be uncomfortable with the gruesome process by which Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, was tortured and executed. Why make you uncomfortable? We tend to forget the price of our redemption was suffering and death.

• Take away all your excuses. In 1991, a book came out entitled, “Yes, Lord I Have Sinned, but I Have Several Excellent Excuses” (James Moore, 2012, 20th ed.). We love our excuses, justifications, and “yeah-buts.”

Police officers probably get more excuses than anybody (other than God). Here are some I found around the internet: “Sorry officer, I was throwing those beer cans out the window so my wife won’t see how much I drank tonight.” 😊

“If you are going to write me a ticket, please do it quickly as I was trying to get to a bathroom.”😊

“Yes, officer, I know I was speeding, but I was trying to get to the gas station before they raise the price again.”😊

So, prepare to be uncomfortable and prepare to lose all excuses as we explore the seven ways Jesus bled for our redemption. Today, we start with a familiar story from Exodus 12.

This is the beginning of that story where God tells the Israelites what they needed to do:

1 – Kill the Passover lamb

2 – Collect the blood in a bowl

3 – Put the blood on the two sides and top of the door

The result would be what God promised to do – pass over their houses with the final plague of the death of all firstborn in Egypt. These firstborn were dedicated to the Egyptian gods. This was a conditional promise: if you do this, then God will do that. Put another way, if you don’t - He won’t.

Repeat after me: “If I don’t – God won’t.” This is true even if you have several excellent excuses. What about the Hebrews? What if they had collected the blood and not applied it? Then, their firstborn would have died – no excuses or yeah-buts.

First Key Principle for Redemption: Blood must be shed and blood must be applied

In the wilderness, God instituted worship and the sacrifice of animals for the forgiveness of sin, but not just sins – sins, transgressions, and iniquities. The High Priest would take the blood into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle it on top of the Ark of the Covenant – the Mercy Seat. – seven times. Leviticus 16:14 “He shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side; and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.”