When we hear the word, "Passover,"
perhaps the first thing which comes to mind is a Jewish seder -- maybe
accompanied by a visual image seen on TV or in press coverage about
Passover customs. Passover and Jewish go together.
So why does the Bible call Jesus Christ, the central focus, the core of
Christianity, the "Passover lamb?"
To
begin to get the answer we must travel back some 3,500 years to
Egypt. The Israelites, descendants of the 12 sons of a man
named Jacob -- whose name God changed to Israel -- were in captivity
and slavery in Egypt. They cried out in prayer to God to
deliver them from their bondage. God, through Moses, demanded
that the Pharoah of Egypt let God's people go, but Pharoah refused --
after all, the economic reality was that they were Egypt's free labor
-- a considerable workforce of 600,000 men, plus women and children
(Exodus 12:37). He refused in spite of the plagues, the
demonstrations of God's power sent to bring Egypt to its
knees. God's final plague upon Egypt was to be death for all
firstborn sons. Of course, the Israelites were in Egypt, too,
but God had a way for them to escape that death, and to save
them. They were to slay and eat a lamb, but first they were
to take it's blood and paint it on the sides and top of their
doorways. When the Death Angel came to kill all of the first
born sons, he passed
over
those homes with lamb's blood around the doorways. God saved
the Israelites because of the blood of a lamb, but all first born sons
in Egypt not protected by the blood of a lamb died, including Pharoah's
first born. Pharoah finally allowed the Israelites to
leave. This was the first Passover. Annually since
then Israelites -- in recent millennia mostly Jews -- commemorate
Passover. They remember God saving them and freeing them from
their slavery in Egypt.
That first Passover was an incredible act of God's salvation, but
nothing at all compared to the Passover it foreshadowed.
Jesus Christ, Son of God and son of man, gave his life so we might be
saved. His blood painted the cross He died upon and
splattered on the ground below. And His resurrection from the
dead 3 days later proved forever that this truly was the Son of God
bleeding for us. It was no accident that His blood was shed
at exactly the same time lambs were being slain for that evening's
Passover commemoration. By the blood of that Lamb, the Lamb
of God, Jesus Christ, we are saved from the penalty of death our sins
earn us -- we are given freedom from the captivity of sin.
Jesus fulfilled the entire intent of the Passover by being the once and
for all sacrifice to save mankind from their sins. That's why
the Bible repeatedly refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God, and that's why
the Bible calls Him our Passover Lamb.
Jesus is our Passover! He invites us to paint the doorway to
a relationship with God with His blood, that our sins may be passed
over -- forgiven. And when we walk through that doorway of
relationship He gives us a new birth -- a new life of unity, communion
and fellowship with God: God the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. It is because God loves us so much that He made it
possible for this relationship with Him through Jesus. Jesus
is God's best expression of His love for us. |
