The Lord's Passover

Background to passage: the last of the 10 plagues and a foreshadowing of the Lamb of God that prevents eternal destruction in our lives by the shedding of his blood

Exodus 12:3 ESV

3 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.

Exodus 12:5–7 ESV

5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 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. 7 “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.

Exodus 12:11–13 ESV

11 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. 12 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 judgments: I am the Lord. 13 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.

Opening illustration:

Exalting Jesus in Exodus The Passover (Exodus 12:1–13:16)

This idea of remembering God’s grace is an important practice for Christians. We are a forgetful people. The Scriptures urge us to “Remember the great and awe-inspiring Lord” (

Main thought: the remembrance of the death and resurrection of Christ, his instituting of the New Covenant and promise to return will be our spiritual nourishment and power to all those who believe as we partake together in unity.

1) Remembering Death

Explanation: the blood covenant started back in the garden, at least with Cain and Abel. Here is it established as a permanent observance to remember the Death Angel passing over every house with the blood on the door posts. It had to be a male lamb, a one-year old lamb, and a spotless lamb. It would save Israel, as individuals and as a nation for all who believed.

In the NT, the blood covenant fulfilled the promises of Jer 31 and Ezek 37 and Isa 53 with the death of the Lamb of God for the permanent forgetting of sin. Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins. He bore our sins in his body on the cross. He was separated from God on the cross. It was finished on the cross. It was paid in full on the cross for all those that would in obedience believe.

Isaiah 53:4–6 ESV

4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Colossians 2:13–15 ESV

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

1 Peter 2:21–25 ESV

21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Hebrews 9:28 ESV

28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Illustration: “There is nothing about death that should make Christ cease to love us; our bodies will be under his protection and guardian care, and our souls shall be with Christ, which is “far better” than being anywhere else. Do not, therefore, fear death.” -Spurgeon

Application: Here at the Lord’s Table our message is remembrance. The Lord established the Passover for remembrance. Our love for God is based on two things who He is and what He has done, and even those are linked together. Think about what God has done for you. Whether you are 8 or 88, what has God done for you? If I were to ask you to write about the two or three greatest moments in your life, even if some of them are the lowest points at which God met you in the darkness, in the valley, what two or three things would you write?

Of course, in this supper, where we eat his body and drink his blood, we are called to remember one thing: six hours one Friday. This was a time that even a day before, he agonized over it in the garden, even though he had always known this was the purpose for which he came. Think of the physical pain, the separation from his Father for the first time ever, the insults and unbelief, the weight of the sin of a hundred billion people upon his shoulders, millions upon millions of eternal punishments poured out on our wrath-bearer.

But the Lord’s Table doesn’t instruct our memory to stay there.

2) Remembering Life (v. )

Luke 22:7–20 ESV

7 Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8 So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.” 9 They said to him, “Where will you have us prepare it?” 10 He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters 11 and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 12 And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.” 13 And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. 14 And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

2) Remembering Life (v. )

Explanation: This passage comes from the day that Jesus instituted the Supper. The Passover also celebrated life, deliverance from bondage, freedom, and fulfilment of the covenant. Jesus said that he had looked forward to celebrating this Passover with them because of their communion, its meaning, and its finality.

Covenants were always sealed with blood/sacrifice. The last sentence he used related to the supper was that the cup IS the New Covenant. Jesus’s blood established the new, better, once and for all, unconditional covenant with God’s people. The disciples would have heard this language and immediately jumped to the scriptures regarding the new covenant. They knew that it meant a massive shift in God’s work among his people, and this was HUGE.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 ESV

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Ezekiel 37:26 ESV

26 I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.

Illustration: have you ever known someone that has had an organ transplant? Usually they are sick for a long time, on a list for a long time, and if they get it and it goes well, they have new lease on life. Coach Parker is the AD at the Academy and was Mackenzie’s softball coach. About four years ago, his kidneys went from bad to worse and it was determined that he was near complete kidney failure. Transplant was the only option. A former player who had not seen him in several years dropped by for visit at Christmas two years ago and told him she was donating a kidney to him. After the successful transplant, new life began to flow, literally. He became a whole lot kinder, and less grouchy. He didn’t feel terrible all the time. He surprised his wife with a vow renewal ceremony here at the church one night. Things changed as his health renewed.

Our spiritual health was not nearing failure is was completely dead. God didn’t rescue us as we were drowning, but he pulled us up off the bottom of the lake. He didn’t reach down a hand as we were hanging on to a branch over a cliff, he resurrected us after we fell to our death. And we have New Life in the New Covenant.

Application: For us this New Covenant means a unilateral promise of God to write the “law” on our hearts. It’s not a list of rules, a required obedience to endless and impossible to achieve prescriptions of religious practices to continually push out sin year by year. It is God giving our dead hearts life. It’s God saying that He will change us from the inside. He will give us new desires.

It eliminates the priesthood as a human mediator because we who know Christ will not have to be taught to know the Lord, but all who repent and believe will know him. Sins had to be forgiven and forgiven, sacrifices upon sacrifices made under the old covenant for sin. There was no life, peace, freedom, security, or hope. The New Covenant secures for us permanent, once and for all, never to be repeated, complete and total forgiveness of sin because God says he will remember our sins no more.

There is life for us under the New Covenant!

Closing illustration: The most recent commercial in the “He Gets Us” series is about Jesus showing us about true greatness. It shows how true greatness is helping people...no reference to the truest, greatest, demonstration of helping people: the death and resurrection for eternal life with God both now and forever.

At the table we remember the most earth-shattering, God-glorification, demonstration of the love of Christ, who laid down his life for us. He promised that if he laid it down, he would take it back up again. He did. Paul says as often as we drink of the cup we, do it until He comes! Dead hearts raised to life now. Rebels turned into friends now. Slaves adopted as sons and co-heirs now. Abundant life now. Then endless, ever-increasing joy in the presence of his glory forevermore once we join him. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And when he returns, a bodily resurrection for all those that believed.