JESUS, GOD’S PASSOVER LAMB
EXODUS 12:1-14
Historic Route 66 was one of the original highways of the United States Numbered Highway System. It stretches 2,400 miles, crosses eight states and three time zones. Route 66 takes you from east to west, from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California.
Jesus traveled Route 66, but not the one on the map. The route Jesus traveled is the 66 books in the Bible. Although His name is not mentioned on every page of the Bible, every page in the Bible points to Him. So we are taking time to discover the journey of Jesus through the 66 books of the Bible.
In Genesis, Jesus is the Creator. John declares in John 1:1-3, In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him, nothing was made that was made.
In Exodus, Jesus is God’s Passover Lamb. 1 Corinthians 5:7 teaches, Christ, our Passover Lamb was sacrificed for us. The Passover Lamb of Exodus 12 was God’s plan to deliver His people from the bondage of the Egyptians. Jesus, God’s Passover Lamb is God’s plan to deliver you and me from the bondage of sin.
The people of Israel had been held in captivity by Egypt for more than 400 years. Upon crying out to God for deliverance, God sends Moses to secure their freedom. Pharoah refuses. So God sends terrible plagues upon Egypt, still Pharoah does not budge. God, then, sends an angel to kill every firstborn male of every household in Egypt. But, in His grace, God provides protection over His people through the Passover Lamb. SCRIPTURE
Jesus became our Passover Lamb because, like Israel, ……
WE NEED A NEW BEGINNING
What do you see as the most important date in your life? Your birthday? Your wedding anniversary? Some of you have dates which are significant to you because something big happened on that date. You were declared cancer free. You became sober. A loved one died. The event marked you. You will never be the same again and will remember it the rest of your life.
When Exodus was written, cultures varied in how they organized their calendars. Some started the new year in the Spring. It was more common, though, to organize the year around the harvest. The end of harvest in the Fall would mark the end of the year and the beginning of a new one because when your whole life is organized around farming, the harvest shapes your life.
In Exodus 12, God gives His people a new beginning, redefining their whole calendar, giving them a new reference point which would become more important than anything else. Their whole reality is redefined around this one event, the Passover. 1-2, 14 Israel would celebrate this day forever, the day God delivered them.
A new beginning! The past of slavery to Egypt was behind them and God was opening them to a new life. It is the hopes and dreams of so many people to be set free from their past, their sins, their failures, and their mistakes and be given a new life. The good news is, God offers to each us a new beginning through our Passover Lamb, Jesus.
WE NEED A SUBSTITUTE
God told Moses He would send an angel to every household and take the life of all the male first-borns from every family. Yet, God made a way for the people of Israel to escape this plague through the Passover Lamb.
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. (13) For the Israelite’s firstborn to be saved from death, the death of a lamb was not enough. The blood of the lamb had to be applied for it to bring deliverance.
If God had seen tears in that household, but no blood of the lamb, death would have come. If God had seen a lovely Scripture verse over the door, but no blood of the lamb, death would have come. If God would have seen a loving and kind family in that home, but no blood of the lamb, death would have come. They were only safe if they were under the blood.
The same is true for us. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:7) The only currency God accepts for the forgiveness of sin is the blood of Jesus. The Passover lamb had to be killed, and its blood applied to the doorpost to be saved from the angel of death.
At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. (Exodus 12:29)
Every house experienced death. The only difference is, who died? A lamb or a child? The lamb became a sacrifice, a substitute. It died a death in someone else’s place, paying the penalty for the judgment the house rightly deserved.
John the Baptist looked at Jesus and said, Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29). There was a Lamb who is spotless, who became our substitute, taking the death we deserved. Jesus! Christ, our Passover Lamb was sacrificed for us. (1 Corinthians 5:7)
We all deserve judgment. The only question is whether we will pay the judgment ourselves, or will a substitute take our place, offering His life for ours fully satisfying the judgment which rightfully belonged to us.
Do you believe Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead? Do you believe Jesus took the judgment you deserved? Do you believe God the Father is completely satisfied with the payment for your sins Jesus offered?
If so, then these words of Jesus are true of you. The one who believes in Me has eternal life. (John 6:47) God opens His arms wide to embrace you as His own child. He accepts you, forgives you, cleanses you, and restores you to Himself because you have believed in Jesus as your Savior, applying the blood of God’s Passover Lamb to your life. He is not counting on you to be perfect. He is asking you to count on the perfect One, Jesus.
