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Many of you know that I am not a dog person.
However, I can appreciate the closeness that many of you feel towards your dogs.
They can bring warmth and companionship into a family in a unique way.
In recent years, there have been an increased number of therapy and service dogs who can even help in life-threatening situations.
Some of you have had dogs like that who you would trust with your life.
If we are honest, though, a dog’s ability to save a person’s life only goes so far.
This morning, we are going to take today’s passage and hopefully see that there is a different animal we need to trust in today.
In fact, if you catch nothing else from this morning’s message, I want to challenge you to choose to trust the Lamb.
We are continuing our look at Moses and the life of choices that he led.
We have seen that his parents made some great choices to start him off on the right track, and that he wrestled with the choice to believe God could do the impossible through him.
When we last left Moses, he was preparing to go back to Pharaoh and get him to let God’s people leave Egypt and go back to the land God had promised them.
When he went back to Egypt, Pharaoh hardened his heart and refused to let the people go.
God sent a series of plagues to show his power over Pharaoh and all the gods of Egypt.
The plagues got more and more severe.
By the end of the first nine plagues, the people of Egypt were worn out and had had their crops and herds decimated.
However, Pharaoh refused to let God’s people leave Egypt.
Because of the hardness of his heart, God sent one more plague against Egypt.
God describes this plague in .
He tells Moses that it will be so severe that the Egyptians will actually pay them to leave.
Around midnight on the prescribed night, God was going to go through the land of Egypt and kill the firstborn male in every household, both people and livestock.
However, to show that Israel was his people, God wouldn’t touch a single animal or person in Israel.
There was a unique ceremony the people were to go through in order to be protected by from the destroyer that night however.
God told Moses that the nation was to celebrate this event every year, remembering the time that God delivered his people from slavery and took them to the Promised Land.
To this day, Orthodox Jews
The celebration centered around a meal that involved the sacrifice of a lamb or goat.
That lamb’s blood was the symbol that caused the judgment of God to pass over their home.
Let’s make three observations from the text about what the first Passover was all about, and from there, we will see how God made this picture even better.
1) The Passover marks a new beginning.
(12:1-2)
Look at 12:1-2...
As God is drawing his people out of Egypt, he is marking a new beginning in his relationship to them.
God’s unique relationship to Israel began back in when God made a promise to Abraham that he would make his family into a great nation that would bless all the world.
He had taken Abraham to the land of Canaan and promised that his family would one day live in that land.
That promise was reiterated to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
With Jacob’s children, though, the family moved to Egypt, where they lived for 430 years.
That was all part of God’s plan, though.
In moving them to the location in Egypt where they settled, God was giving them a great place to grow from a family of 70 to a nation of over two million.
After Jacob’s sons die, though, we don’t hear much of anything from the Lord.
Generations go by, and it seems that God has just left his people alone.
Now, God has intervened again, and the people are starting a new chapter in their story.
They have been enslaved in a land that isn’t their home, and God is calling them out to freedom, to a beautiful, incredible place as their home.
The events that took place on that first Passover night marked a new beginning, so God called them to start their calendar over.
Now, this month is their fresh start, if you will.
(As an interesting historical note, this changed at some point and now, the Jews typically celebrate their new year during Rosh Hashanah, which is in the fall).
Here’s a question for you: why didn’t God make the actual day of Passover the first day of the month?
In those days, the first day of the month was determined by the first time you could see the sliver of a new moon.
Therefore, Passover would have occurred on a full moon.
Why is that important?
Because Pharaoh’s son would be thought of as the embodiment of the moon god, and he would be at the height of his power when the moon was full.
Yet, in an instant, God would take his life, showing that he truly was greater than all the gods of Egypt.
For the nation, then, this moment was a fresh start.
The fresh start for them revolved around the end of something else, though, which is why we see that...
2) The Passover requires a pure sacrifice.
(12:3-10)
Read with me how they were to go about observing the Passover.
Pick up in verse 3-10.
The Israelites were required to eat a sacrificial animal that night, either a lamb or a goat.
Did you notice, though, that it couldn’t be just any animal?
It had to be a one-year-old male with no blemish or spot.
This sacrifice starts the realization that sacrifices for sin needed to be pure.
Many years later, you read in Malachi about how God’s people tried to offer their deformed and sickly animals as offerings, but from the very beginning, the sacrificial lamb on Passover night was to be completely pure.
Not only was it pure, it was also completely consumed in the sacrifice.
The blood of the animal was sprinkled on the door posts of the house, which was the outward symbol that they were trusting that lamb’s blood to save them from God’s judgment on Egypt.
They were to cook and eat the entire animal, and anything left over in the morning was burned.
This wasn’t to be a nice, relaxing dinner, either.
The lamb was served with unleavened bread because they didn’t have time for it to rise.
It was roasted with bitter herbs, symbolizing the bitter hardships they were leaving behind in Egypt.
Keep in mind the faith here: they had seen God bring 9 plagues on the Egyptians, and he had just promised to destroy every firstborn male in the flock and in the family.
Think about that for a minute: you are trusting that the blood of this unblemished lamb will save your son’s life.
Isn’t that an incredible act of faith?
Moses and the nation of Israel were trusting in this lamb to save their lives, causing the judgment of God to pass by their house.
There was more going on, though, especially on that first Passover night.
You see, the last observation we make about the Passover is that it...
3) The Passover looks forward to the future.
(12:11)
Read verse 11.
When the Israelites ate that night, they ate with hurry and purpose, because something was about to happen: they were heading out to the land God promised.
That night unfolded exactly like God promised.
Jump down to 12:29-36.
They didn’t just let the people go, they paid them to leave as quickly as possible.
In trusting the blood of the lamb to save them from the judgment God was bringing on Egypt, they were also trusting God to take care of them from then on.
He had promised that this would mark their deliverance from slavery, and it did.
God protected those who trusted in his word and in the sacrificial lamb, passing over them and leading them out into a new chapter of their life with him.
To this days, Jews still observe the Passover supper with an air of expectation.
They still eat unleavened bread, and they still trust in the sacrifice of a lamb.
They have developed a new tradition, though, that isn’t found here in Scripture.
At the end of the meal, they will pour out a fifth cup of wine and set it in front of an empty chair.
They then open the front door of their home, believing that by so doing, they are inviting in Elijah the prophet.
Malachi, in the final prophesy to God’s people in the Old Testament, says that God would send Elijah to prepare they way for the Messiah.
By welcoming him into their home, they believe that they are readying themselves for the day their ultimate deliverer, God’s promised Messiah, would come.
One of the saddest truths in all the world is that they missed him.
tells us that John the Baptist was filled with the spirit of Elijah, and his ministry prepared the way for the Messiah to come.
That Messiah came, and his name is Jesus.
John recognized this, which is why he declared,
john 1:29
The Passover, year after year, celebrated God’s incredible work of using the blood of a lamb to save his people from death and deliver them from slavery.
Now, all of that is fulfilled in the true Lamb of God who doesn’t just protect for a night, but rather takes away the sin of the world!
It is Jesus’ blood, poured out on the cross, that is what was pictured in the blood of all those lambs that was sprinkled on the doorposts of Israel.
You see, apart from Christ, you are a slave to sin:
If you have ever done anything wrong, or not done the right thing, then you are guilty of sin and a slave to it.
You need someone to set you free from slavery and save you from the just punishment you deserve.
Jesus is the one who came to set you free!
Just before the verse we just looked at, Jesus said:
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