Passover Lamb

How many of you know what is coming up this Wednesday?

Passover

How many of you know what passover is?

PESAKH which is the Hebrew word for passover, is one of the Bible’s most important festival meals. The backstory and meaning of passover is found all the way in the beginning of the Bible.

Who remembers the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors?

Josephs father, Jacob, had made him a coat made of various different colors. Now Joseph was the youngest of all of the brothers and when the older brothers saw this coat that was made for Joseph by his father they became JEALOUS. So jealous that his brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt where Joseph would become a slave and then would somehow through various events get promoted to become the second most important person in Egypt directly under Pharaoh.

Not long after this there was a severe famine that came upon the land of Israel and Josephs brothers came to Egypt, alongside 70 others, to escape the famine where they were reunited with the brother they thought was dead because of their betrayal. When the brothers were reunited there was an exchange of forgiveness for how they mistreated Joseph and the brothers and the 70 others who were with them recieved favor from that Pharaoh because of Josephs high standing with him.

Now eventually that Pharaoh dies, and when that Pharaoh dies so does the favorable standing that they had enjoyed with that Pharaoh. Another Pharaoh comes to power and that Pharaoh and the ones that succeeded him resented the Hebrews. They felt that the Hebrews have overstayed their welcome in their land.

So the Hebrews that are there in Egypt become enslaved. The Egyptians use them for slave labor and they kept them enslaved for 430 years.

During the course of these 400+ years that initial group of 70 would grow into a few million people living in the land of Egypt. They would be used by Pharaoh to build some of the great ancient cities of Egypt. The bible says that over the course of these 400 years the Hebrew slaves cry out to God.

They have been mistreated and oppressed. The bible says their cries go out to God and He sees their oppression and God raises up a prophet from among them named Moses.

He raises up Moses to set the people free from slavery in Egypt and to lead them back to the promised land of Israel. A land they have never seen because for the past 400 years the Israelites have only known slavery in Egypt, and they have never been to the promise land.

Moses confronts Pharaoh and demands that he let their people go. Pharoah was very angry and very reluctant because why would he let go the people that he had been using to make the great cities of ancient Egypt. So God begins to unleash a series of 9 plagues to ware Pharoah down.

What were the 9 plagues?

Turning the Nile River to blood

Bringing frogs to invade every part of Egypt

Gnats

Flies

Death of livestock

Boils on the skin of the Egyptians

Hail

Locusts

Darkness

So God unleashes these 9 plagues to encourage Pharoah to let them go but Pharoah is still reluctant.

So God unleashes a 10th plague, the most sever plague of them all. This plague is so severe that Pharoah not only allows the Hebrew slaves to go back to Israel but he orders them out of Egypt.

This 10th severe plague was the death of the firstborn.

God would strike down the firstborn of every family and every animal among the livestock among the land of Egypt because of Pharaohs stubborn refusal to let God’s people go. So therefore God unleashes this most devastating plague. The firstborn shall die.

Well among the Hebrews that are living there at this time their firstborn is protected because God gave them careful instructions.

They were to slay a lamb and when you slay the lamb you are to take the blood of the lamb and a hyssop branch used like a paintbrush and they were to splash the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of their home so that when God passed through the land to administer the sentence of death He would PASSOVER those homes that were marked over by the blood of the lamb. That is where they got the term ‘Passover’.

God passed over the homes that were marked by the blood of the lamb and death did not come to those that were in that home.

This brings us to ‘Passover’.

Passover is an 8 day feast that God told the Israelites “I want you from this day forward to commemorate this great miraculous deliverance” because at this point after the 10th plague Pharoah ordered the Hebrews to go and to the promised land they went.

God commanded that they have an 8 day feast to always remember God’s great deliverance on this day. The first of the 8 days was called ‘Passover’. The day on which the lamb was slaughtered and when the lamb was eaten as a family meal.

Now how would y’all feel if God commanded us to have an 8 day feast. Sounds awesome right? Well while we might fill this feast with our favorite foods and dishes this isn’t exactly the same way they were commanded to. They had foods, bitter foods, to remind them of the oppression and bitterness of their life in Egypt. This is how they would spend their passover meal.

The seven days that followed was the feast of unleavened bread.

Why unleavened bread?

As part of their rushed departure the Israelites made when they left Egypt they didn’t have enough time to add yeast to their bread. They just grabbed their kneading bowls of bread and ran, because they didn’t have time to add the leaven for the yeast to rise and make bread. They were to commemorate this great miraculous deliverance by eating unleavened bread, or matzah, as what it is called in Hebrew.

This whole feast is to commemorate this deliverance.

The blood of the lamb that saved them,

The eating of matzah or bread without yeast to remember

How they left in such a hurry without time for their bread to rise,

All of this happens as part of Gods divine plan of deliverance from the slavery of Egypt.

The main purpose of passover it to commemorate the deliverance of the Jews from the slavery of Egypt.

Jewish families all around the world still celebrate this and soon Jewish families will eat a passover meal together called a Seder meal, in fact Oso Creek is doing one and I encourage any of you that is interested in Jewish history and tradition to join us for that.

This feast is a time that symbolizes freedom, national pride and a time to be with family. When they share this meal together they will have different foods that will remind them of their hardship as slaves in Egypt. They will recite prayers and sing songs to commemorate God’s miraculous deliverance from slavery.

Then Jesus comes along and describes an even greater miraculous deliverance.

As he is sharing this meal with His disciples, a meal that they have celebrated every year their whole lives, He brings new meaning to the passover feast. Luke 22 shows us this new meaning Jesus brings.

Luke 22:19 ESV

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.”

Here Jesus takes the bread. The unleavened bread they have known to be a reminder how they were delivered from Pharaoh, how they were delivered to freedom from the enslavement of the Egyptians and He breaks it and gives it new meaning. He says “This is my body, which is given for you, broken for you. Take this and eat in remembrance of me.”

The disciples never heard this before, this is brand new to the passover meal. Here Jesus is sitting with His disciples before he is about to be crucified saying this is a picture of my body and of my life.

Bread without yeast,

a lamb without blemish,

life without sin, a life that was given for you on the cross.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Jesus goes on and he takes the cup. There are 4 cups in a seder meal, the cup that he takes is the 3rd cup.

We know it’s the 3rd cup because the Bible says he takes it after supper, that is when the 3rd cup is given. That 3rd cup that Jesus takes is called the ‘the cup of redemption’. Jesus takes the cup of redemption and gives thanks.

The traditional thanks given for the 3rd cup is “blessed art thou O Lord our God, King of the universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.”

Jesus give thanks and then he adds this meaning in verse 20

Luke 22:20 ESV

And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Jesus, at this ancient passover feast is completely changing the meaning, He expounds the meaning.

It is no longer a reminder of the deliverance from God from 400 years in slavery, but is now about a greater deliverance that is intended for all of mankind through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

Jesus had taken this ancient passover feast that had always pointed back to their deliverance from their slavery in Egypt and is now pointing it forward to the greater deliverance of all people, deliverance for his disciples, for you and for me to be delivered from a greater bondage than slavery, the slavery of sin. The sin Jesus came to set us free from.

Jesus came to offer us freedom, forgiveness, and life in his name through His sacrifice on the cross. Through faith in Him, His body broken, His life sinless, hung on a cross to provide freedom for you, not just from the slavery of man but from the slavery of sin.

Jesus is saying to His disciples that this meal that you have been partaking in for the past 1450 years has been pointing to Me so that you might have a greater redemption in Me than you experienced in Egypt, so that you might be redeemed of your sin. So that the blood of the lamb would cause God to pass over you so that you wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of your sin.

Jesus spilled his blood as the final passover lamb.

It isn’t just Jesus who says that he is the passover lamb. John the Baptist says in John 1:29 when he sees Jesus coming to him he says “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” and the Apostle Pauls says in 1 Corinthians 5:7 “Christ, our passover lamb has been sacrificed”. That passage Paul writes

1 Corinthians 5:6–8 NLT

Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth.

When Paul wrote this he was addressing those in Corinth who were boasting about their sin and he was telling them to stop.

Individuals in the church who thought they were big and bad, who thought they were different or better because of their sin. Paul is saying to them to remove the wickedness from among you.

Maybe that’s a friend that is bringing sin into your life and you need to create distance between you and them.

Maybe that person is you and you are choosing to live in your sin and in your flesh over the new life God has for you.

Paul is saying that, Jesus Christ who was sacrificed for you, who has been beaten and whipped for you, has made you a fresh batch, a new creation.

So stop living in the wickedness, stop living in the sin, and stop boasting about it.

That is not what brings you life.

That while you may think you are “living life to the fullest” you are actually living a life that leads to a spiritual death and a life that is leading away from Jesus Christ.

Paul even tells them to deliver this man to Satan to destroy his flesh so that his spirit may be saved. Do not live in the flesh but live in the Spirit. Live in the sincerity and the truth of Jesus Christ.

He is the lamb that was slain so that God’s judgement may pass over the sin in your life. Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross brings forgiveness and redemption as the final passover lamb. Redemption for all who call upon Him as the Lord of their life.

I’ve heard people say

“You don’t know my sin, my sin is too big and too wicked how could I possibly be forgiven.”

“You don’t know the things I have done there’s no way I can be redeemed.”

To them I say, maybe I don’t know your sin, maybe I don’t know the awful things you’ve done but what I know is the death Jesus dies on the cross.

He was rejected by man, by His friends, His own people.

He was mocked.

Filled with anxiety to the point that He physically sweat blood,

He was whipped over and over and over until his flesh was ripped open.

His suffering was physical, emotional, spiritual.

He had thorns driven into His head.

He was dehydrated, humiliated, betrayed, abandoned, with every breath fighting the pain of the nails driven through his hands and his feet and the wood digging into his back, every time he had to pull himself up on them to draw a breath.

Jesus bore the weight of the sin of man while he died this painful death, so that you may have new life in him.

What does that look like for you?

Do you remember His sacrifice?

Do you celebrate your new life in Him as a new creation?

OR

Are you running from him?

Are you celebrating the sin more than the sacrifice?

Are you the yeast that spreads through the batch?

Whoever you were yesterday you have the choice today to be someone different.

Someone who is living as a new creation.

Maybe that means giving your life to Christ for the first time

Maybe you’ve done that but you have never truly lived for him, Maybe you have sin in your life that you keep running back to.

Today you have a choice, you have the choice for forgiveness and for salvation. John 3:16

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Your sin may separate you from God but there is forgiveness through repentance in the name of Jesus Christ.

God’s judgement can pass over you.

When you look at the door frame of your life what do you see?

Is it empty or is it stained by the redeeming blood of Christ?