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The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 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. ⁴ And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 

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. ⁸ They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. ⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts.

¹⁰ And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 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. 

Prayer 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart 

be acceptable in your sight, 

O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. 

Introduction – 9/11 in Washington 

In the book “The Only Plane in the Sky,” it gives an oral history of the September 11th attacks from the perspective of hundreds of witnesses.  

One brief anecdote in the book always struck me. 

Mike Walter who was a correspondent from USA Today was in Washington that day and covering the attack on the Pentagon. 

He shares his interaction with a writer from the Wall Street Journal and who made the observation “this is the biggest story we’ll ever cover in our lives. I’m not even sure it’s going to end up on the front page tomorrow.” 

And I don’t take that as a complaint or someone being selfish in the face of tragedy. 

But the reason why it’s interesting is because I think there’s quite a bit of truth to it. 

Now, obviously the Pentagon was also part of the front page news the following morning. But on that day, in the aftermath, and for 20 years of documentaries and stories, the attack on the Pentagon has always been a bit secondary in its attention as compared to the attacks on the World Trade Center. 

I begin with that because I think it illustrates something about Exodus 12. 

All of last month, we covered the plagues of Exodus. 

That’s all we talked about. 

And here we come to the tenth and final plague. The death of the firstborn. 

It is far and away the most severe. 

But in Exodus 12, it’s almost secondary to the entire passage. 

Exodus 12 revolves more fully around Passover, it’s institution, celebration, and remembrance. 

The plague is in there, but it’s almost mentioned in passing. 

Exodus 12 is a long chapter. 51 verses. The tenth plague is covered in just four of those verses. 

It’s there, but it’s not on the front page. 

The headline is the Passover. 

That’s primarily what this chapter is about. The Passover is one of the most significant and enduring events of the Old Testament. 

Now there’s a lot going on in Exodus 12, so before we get into the passage, I want to give a brief summary. 

In Exodus 12, the Passover is an act of divine deliverance in the tenth plague where the Lord strikes dead the firstborn of the Egyptians but spares the Israelites. God instructs the Israelites to identify themselves as his followers by placing blood on the doorposts of their homes. Exodus 12 also gives instructions for a feast that the Israelites were to have in preparation for the Passover and also gives commands for continuing to celebrate the Passover as an annual tradition. 

Before and after the Passover, many elements of the feast are symbols to the Israelites about God’s deliverance. One last thing that we’ll see is that a lot of the symbolism points to the speed by which the Israelites were to leave Egypt. 

These are things we’ll all elaborate on more thoroughly as we get into the chapter. 

Something else we’ll discuss is how the Passover is ultimately fulfilled in Christ, and so we’ll look at the Passover today in three phases. 

Past, present – its fulfillment, and future – our hope. 

Passover past, present, and future. 

And the main idea of this passage is that the Lord saved by the blood of the lamb. 

And with that, we’ll jump into our passage and first point. Passover past. 

I should also mention that the first point will be the longest. 

Passover past

So at the beginning of Exodus 12, it gives the initial prescription of Passover. And from the beginning of the chapter, it will establish that the Passover is going to be something of monumental significance. 

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ² “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.

What the Lord is about to do will reorient the entire calendar for the Israelites. 

Think of how important and impactful Jesus is. Jesus split time in two. 

You could be the most ardent atheist, but it’s still 2021 and that’s because of Jesus. 

And the Lord says that the Passover is going to be the new year for Israel. 

The passage continues and will talk about a sacrifice which the people will need to make. 

 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.⁴ And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb.

Everyone in Israel is called upon to take a lamb. If someone doesn’t have a lamb, they’re to pool resources with neighbors and go in together and get a lamb. 

The passage will say that it is to be a lamb without blemish. 

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.

It matters that it be a lamb without blemish because it’s pointing to Jesus as the perfect and spotless lamb. It’s also instructive that God wants our best. 

The Israelites are to take and sacrifice their lamb. 

Once again, this points to the sacrifice of Jesus. It’s also beginning to introduce the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. 

That sacrifices were required for various sins and in association with various holidays. Sacrifices could be done in conjunction with prayers and also in praise of God’s answers to prayer. 

Sacrificing a prized animal was meant to be an act of faith. It showed trust in god’s provision. It was costly. It was meaningful. 

The language of sacrifice is picked up by Paul in Romans 12:1, where he instructs us: 

present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 

Because of Christ, there is no longer need to make sacrifices where animals are killed. But we are to live in gratitude to the glorious Lord who has forgiven us through the cross and be living sacrifices. Living our lives for the service of the Lord and to his glory as a living sacrifice. Giving what is valuable and prized to us. Our own hearts and lives to God. 

And again, the reason why we no longer need sacrifices involving death is that the true sacrifice has already happened. God did not spare his own son. Jesus, the perfect lamb was led to slaughter. His life was given as the final and ultimate sacrifice so that we could have forgiveness, atonement and life through him. 

But in the Exodus, on the verge of God’s great redemptive work of Israel, as a symbol of what was to come, the Lord asked the Israelites to sacrifice lambs.
Verse 7, we see the significance of the blood of the lamb. 

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. 

After sacrificing the lamb, they’d put blood on the sides of the door frames and the lintels of their houses.

The lintel is the top part of a door frame. Basically the part of the door that’s opposite the threshold. 

The instructions continue. Verse 8: 

⁸ They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it

Something which we will see with these instructions is that they aim at speed. These elements of roasted lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs have historically been part of the Passover meal, known as the seder. 

The Passover meal is really more about symbolism than culinary wonderment. 

These elements point to the haste through which the Israelites would flee Egypt and that carried over into the Passover meal. 

The flesh was roasted because that was the fastest way to eat it. 

That theme continues in verse 11:

 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.

Every part of this instruction is meant to indicate the quick fashion in which the Israelites would be called to depart from their land. They were supposed to be wearing sandals. They would carry the staff which was used for outside purposes. Even the speed at which they were to consume the food was to be fast!

The verse ends “It is the Lord’s Passover.” 

And Passover could not be more appropriate of a name for this holiday. Because on this first Passover, the faithful to the Lord were passed over, and their lives were spared.

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.

In this event, the firstborn are struck down. Pharaoh had been warned many times of the consequences. 

The text says that this was also a judgment on all the gods of Egypt….that is, all the non-existent gods of Egypt. 

That’s a point that we’ve made throughout our study of the plagues. 

In the preceding nine plagues, we see a battle between the Lord God and the anti-god, Pharaoh. We also see a battle between the Lord and the non-existent deitied of the Egyptian pantheon. And what we’ve seen in the plague is that those Egyptian deities are helpless to protect Egypt. 

And we will see that when the Lord strikes dead the firstborn in Egypt, that their gods once again cannot save them. 

In striking dead the firstborn, God surely could have taken any life he wanted to. He is in control.  

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.

The blood was taken as a sign that a person trusted in the Lord. It’s a matter of trusting what the Lord has promised. To not put the blood on the door frame, would show that someone didn’t take the Lord seriously, didn’t take his word seriously.  

Something that’s important to understand. It’s not that the blood in itself is what saved a person. But it was an outward sign of an inward faith. 

In verses 14-16, it’s going back to establishing the annual Passover tradition:

¹⁴ “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. ¹⁵ Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. 

So it would be an ongoing part of the tradition to eat unleavened bread. Even today, for observant Jewish people, they go to to great lengths to remove any leaven from their home. 

Eating unleavened bread once again points to the haste of things done at Passover. 

The advantage of unleavened bread is that you can make it faster because you don’t have to wait for it to rise. 

¹⁷ And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever.

Verse 17 does officially name the feast as “the Feast of Unleavened Bread.”

The Feast of Unleavened bread is the entire, weeklong feast. Passover is the first day of the feast. 

And what’s significant and why this entire chapter is significant in the Bible is that it was meant to continue being observed. And that’ll be reiterated in verse 24. Verse 26 and 27 will tell the Israelites to teach their children about this event. 

That in remembering what God did for the Israelites, this feast was meant to point future generations back to God’s deliverance. 

Preparation for Passover

Verse 21 represents a shift in the story

Everything we’ve covered so far has been told to Moses and Aaron. But now Moses will start instructing the elders of Israel in preparations for observing the first Passover. 

 ²¹ Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb.

In verse 23, they’re told about the specific judgment which the Egyptians will face. 

²³ For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.

So we’ve said a lot so far about Passover in this passage. 

Verse 29 is where the passage tells about the tenth plague: the death of the firstborn and the actual deliverance that the Lord brings for Israel through that plague. 

The tenth plague

Verses 29-30: 

²⁹ 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. ³⁰ And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.

As we’ve discussed with other plagues, they represent an undoing of creation. 

The crowning achievement of the Lord’s creation in Genesis was creating man in his own image on the sixth day. In Exodus, God takes life away. 

It is the final judgment upon Pharaoh who had been warned nine previous times. It is the final judgement against Pharaoh for his enslavement of God’s people. 

God brings his death, but for his followers, there is life. 

Pharaoh will tell Moses and Aaron to take the Israelites and leave. 

³¹ Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. ³² Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!”

Pharaoh will actually try to change his mind and stop them but God was with the Israelites and they were delivered from Egypt.

Verse 38 mentions a mixed multitude who accompanied the Israelites. That’s something we’ve mentioned before but it is again worth pointing out that at least some non-Israelites had come to believe on the Lord through all of this. 

The Egyptians had seen God’s power at work too and also had had the opportunity to trust in him when the Israelites were delivered from Egypt. 

And that’s the same situation everyone faces, whether or not to trust in the Lord. We don’t have to put blood on our doorposts to save us. But ultimately that was an act of faith. And that hasn’t changed. We too are called to trust and believe in the Lord. The mighty God who delivered his people from slavery. The God who delivers you from your sins.

Passover present

That’s the original Passover and what happened. 

Our second and third points will be quicker.

As is clear from the passage, it was meant to be celebrated annually. And the Jews did. And observant Jews still do today. 

I previously referenced the seder dinner. Seder omes from a word that means “order.” 

In 3,500 years, rabbinical tradition and teaching helped to form the ceremony of the Seder. 

Some of these pieces were traced back to the original Passover. Others came in Jewish history from rabbinical traditions.

Once the Israelites were in the Promised Land, and after the temple was built, this impacted Passover traditions. When you had the temple, the lambs were sacrificed at the temple. But what didn’t change was that people could only sacrifice lambs that were perfect. 

I think it’s worth spending so much time in talking about Passover because I think it can help give us a greater context and understanding for the events surrounding the death of Jesus. 

In the gospels, the time of the death of Christ revolves around the Passover. That’s not a coincidence. Jesus would be sacrificed at the time that was associated with sacrifice. Jesus had gone to Jerusalem for Passover. In Jerusalem, the city within the Roman Empire that was the epicenter of Jewish culture, thousands of lambs would have been slaughtered annually. Jewish people would have been coming in from all over the empire. If you can think of the story in Luke, when Jesus is a kid, and his parents lose track of him. 

Luke 2:41:

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.

That’s what good Jews did. 

We see many traditions of the Seder at the last Supper.

Some of them are small things. In the gospel accounts, it talks about Jesus reclining at the table in Luke 22.  

Jesus wasn’t sitting in a la-z-boy. He was on a couch that he was lying on, that was a Seder tradition. They had been enslaved in Egypt but being able to lie down showed the freedom and security.

We see another Passover tradition in the last supper when Jesus alludes to Judas, his betrayer. 

John 13:26: 

 “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.

It’s really easy to have the mental image that Jesus is dipping the bread into something like a bowl of olive oil. 

It’s the Passover. 

They’re not eating at in Italian restaurant. 

He’s probably actually referring to dipping the bread in haroset which was a concoction made from apples, nuts, and cinnamon. 

Just as in the Passover seder, at the last supper, they ate unleavened bread. 

The bread we use for communion is unleavened. 

It looks more like a cracker. 

Bread with a leavening agent is more doughy. You pull it apart. 

But with unleavened bread, it’s more brittle and breaks apart. 

We see Jesus breaking bread in Luke 22:19:

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.” 

For over a thousand years of Seder dinners, bread had been broken. Unleavened bread, just like the Israelite forefathers had eaten before fleeing from Egypt.

The body of Jesus, given for you, given for your sins. Given for your forgiveness. And he says “do this in remembrance of me.”  

What more fitting words could you say at a Seder? A meal revolving around remembrance, about retelling the story of God saving his people by the blood of the lamb. 

Remembering what God has done. Remembering what Jesus has done. Remembering the sins that he’s redeemed you from. Remembering his body that he gave for you. Remembering his death that he died for you. Remembering the grace that he offers to you. Remembering his gospel. 

Jesus takes the cup. 

Luke 22:20: 

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.  

The Seder dinner involves four glasses of wine. This seems to have been the second or third glass of wine in the meal, although there’s scholarly debate.

But how profound it is. Wine drank in remembrance of the Passover. Jesus takes the wine, he blesses it, he says it is the new covenant in his blood, at the Seder dinner.

It clearly points backwards to the blood of the Passover lamb, the blood that was put on the door posts. And it also points forward to the blood of Christ, shed for the forgiveness of sins. The blood of the true lamb.

At the beginning of the gospel of John, when John the Baptist sees Jesus he says “Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus is the true lamb of God. The lamb who took the penalty for sins. The one who was sacrificed for the salvation of God’s people.

And by trusting in him and having faith in him, that puts the blood on the doorpost of your heart. On the first Passover, there would not have been a pardon for a person who didn’t put blood on the doorpost. It wasn’t that the blood saved them, God saved them. But to not put the blood on the door was to show that a person didn’t have faith in the Lord, didn’t trust in the Lord.

Jesus is the sacrificial lamb. Pointed to in Isaiah 53.

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.

Jesus is the one who took the penalty of sins. A lamb couldn’t do that. It was meant to point ahead. To the true Passover lamb, the true lamb of God who bore the wrath of God for our sins.

 Isaiah 53:7 

⁷ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

Isaiah 53:12 says: 

¹² Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.

So it’s talking about the suffering servant in Isaiah. It calls him the perfect lamb. And Isaiah says he poured out his soul to death.

This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood

When we take the Lord’s Supper, it’s not arbitrary. It’s not just using the random items that were around. It’s all symbolic. It takes symbols important to the first Passover, the first time God had delivered Israel, and it reminds of the new Passover, from the perfect sacrifice for sins.

The Passover passage in Exodus 12:5 says that the lamb that was used had to be without blemish. Jesus is the ultimate lamb without blemish, a life lived in perfection.

1 Corinthians 5:7 says “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover Lamb.”

The blood of both is on wooden beams: the door posts and the cross. Both the Passover lamb and Jesus were killed publicly.

On the day that Jesus was crucified for our sins, the day ends at sunset on the Jewish calendar and the next day was the day of rest. Jesus and the two robbers had to die before sunset.

John 19 records: 

³² So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. ³³ But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. ³⁴ But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. ³⁵ He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. ³⁶ For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.”

No bones were broken on Jesus’ body when he died. In the Passover passage, Exodus 12:46 gives the Israelites instructions for consuming the Passover lamb:

 It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones.

Jesus wasn’t putting his own twist on the Passover. It was the Lord revealing the true meaning of the Passover. It was him showing something that had been part of the plan all along.

The Lord saves by the blood of the lamb.

But you have to believe it. You have to accept his blood. You can’t make him some abstract force, but the personal God who came to save you from your sins. The person God who gave his body and shed his blood for you. To accept what he has done by faith.

A final point. And this will be brief. 

We’ve covered Passover as it was instituted in Exodus. We’ve looked at it how it’s fulfilled in Christ. 

Past and present. 

We close by talking about the final future fulfillment of these elements. 

Passover future 

In the opening chapters of the Book of Revelation, Jesus has been active with His churches. In Revelation 4, The Apostle John is given a vision of the throne room of heaven. This wondrous site to behold, but Jesus is absent until we get to chapter 5. And John sees a lamb standing, as though it had been slain. 

The lamb had been slain, but he has risen.

And because the lamb of God that was slain for sins of man was slain and rose, that is our hope that we can stand before God in that throne room. In Revelation 19, there is a vision of the great wedding feast, and who is the groom? Again it is the lamb.

Revelation 19:9

Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

God is an inviting God. Jews and Egyptians alike were able to turn to him in trust on the first Passover. 

At Passover, Jesus told of his body broken for us, his blood shed for us, and he invited us at the meal to accept it. And the next day, he was sacrificed as the Passover Lamb. And at the final feast at the end of time, we are invited to join the lamb at that feast as well. It is he who invites us, and he who pays the price for our admission. And all we have to do is accept it and believe in him. 

As the Israelites trusted in the deliverance of the Lord, and put the blood on their doors, we too can know that we have sinned, and are freely forgiven when we accept the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, slain the forgiveness of our sins.

The Lord saves by the blood of the lamb.

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