Instructions for the Passover

Exodus 12 

Now a small break from the showdown between God and Pharaoh to cover some important dining instructions.  

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: “This month is to be the beginning of months for you; it is the first month of your year. 

This is major.  The coming deliverance is so important that the Jewish calendar is being modified to reflect it. Their new calendar will commemorate freedom at its beginning.

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers’ households, one animal per household. If the household is too small for a whole animal, that person and the neighbor nearest his house are to select one based on the combined number of people; you should apportion the animal according to what each household will eat. 

Instead of one animal for the entire nation, each household must select a sacrificial lamb or goat (or combine with another smaller household) and that lamb must be kept and cared for by the family for four days.  It's not simply to be an animal selected from the herd; this makes is personal. 

You must have an unblemished animal, a year-old male; you may take it from either the sheep or the goats. You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight.

The twilight sacrifice has echoes in the stories of Jesus's death, when darkness covered Jerusalem when Jesus gave up his life.

They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them. 

If we consider the doorway a representation as the door to our hearts, then the blood of Jesus must be applied for us to become members of God's family.  It also represents the portion of the sacrifice given to God: Nothing but the blood.

Notice also how God makes the blood personal: it is to be applied where people live and share their meals. This is not a corporate Passover; this is in your home.

They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.  Do not eat any of it raw or cooked in boiling water, but only roasted over fire—its head as well as its legs and inner organs. 

With regards to Jesus, Christians can regard this as instructions to not add anything to Jesus, nor take anything away.  The fire represents the anger and judgement of God - directed at the sacrifice. 

Do not let any of it remain until morning; you must burn up any part of it that does remain before morning. 

This sacrifice is important and it is timely - don't let it wait.  And any part of the sacrifice that remains after the meal must go back into the fire.  Don't nibble on Jesus - consume every part and make him part of yourself (you are what you eat).

Here is how you must eat it: you must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry; it is the Lord’s Passover.

For the Christian, this picture shows we are not dining at our leisure, we need to be ready to roll. 

“I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. I am Yahweh; I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. 

The Pharaoh is one of the gods of Egypt, in addition to all the others the people worship.  God continues to draw the line of difference between His people and Egypt (the world).

The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will be among you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

Judgement was coming to the world, and without the blood - the Israelites would be treated just like those in the world.  There is nothing special about a Jewish person (or a Christian) that keeps them from judgement -- only the blood.  

“This day is to be a memorial for you, and you must celebrate it as a festival to Yahweh. You are to celebrate it throughout your generations as a permanent statute. 

This instruction from God marks a place in time for celebration.  It's like a seat in a vast chronological cathedral.  That means the Jewish people can celebrate their freedom whether they have a holy temple or not.

It's like, for the Christian, setting aside one day a week to spend time with God.

You must eat unleavened bread for seven days. On the first day you must remove yeast from your houses. Whoever eats what is leavened from the first day through the seventh day must be cut off from Israel. 

On the 10th day, the sacrifice was selected; and on the 14th day is was killed, the blood applied, and the animal was eaten. Now, for the next seven days, only unleavened bread may be eaten.  This is another commemoration: the people in the exodus didn't have time to make regular bread dough and let it rise before baking.  There was no time.

You are to hold a sacred assembly on the first day and another sacred assembly on the seventh day. No work may be done on those days except for preparing what people need to eat—you may do only that.

“You are to observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread because on this very day I brought your divisions out of the land of Egypt. You must observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent statute.

God is casting a new frame for his people: these are not escapees from Egypt, they are divisions (armies) that He is calling to himself.

You are to eat unleavened bread in the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day of the month until the evening of the twenty-first day.  Yeast must not be found in your houses for seven days. If anyone eats something leavened, that person, whether a foreign resident or native of the land, must be cut off from the community of Israel. Do not eat anything leavened; eat unleavened bread in all your homes.”

Leaven (yeast) is used as an analogy for sin - but here is also represents physical yeast.  And whoever chooses to eat yeast bread is choosing to be separate from Israel.

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go, select an animal from the flock according to your families, and slaughter the Passover animal.  Take a cluster of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and brush the lintel and the two doorposts with some of the blood in the basin. None of you may go out the door of his house until morning.  When the Lord passes through to strike Egypt and sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, He will pass over the door and not let the destroyer [slaughterer] enter your houses to strike you.

The hyssop represents purification through sacrifice.(Psalm 51:7)

And again, nothing but the blood will suffice when God moves to prevent the destroyer from entering the house.

“Keep this command permanently as a statute for you and your descendants.  When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as He promised, you are to observe this ritual.  

When your children ask you, ‘What does this ritual mean to you?’  you are to reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and spared our homes.’” 

Today, when observant Jewish families take the Passover meal, the youngest is supposed to ask "why is this night different from all other nights?"

So the people bowed down and worshiped.  Then the Israelites went and did this; they did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

And now the blood has been shed and applied to the doorways, and the Destroyer is on the move - killing the firstborn in each household.

Now at midnight the Lord struck every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and every firstborn of the livestock.  During the night Pharaoh got up, he along with all his officials and all the Egyptians, and there was a loud wailing throughout Egypt because there wasn't a house without someone dead. 

Mass death, and this time it's up-close and personal.  This is not animals or weather gone crazy - this is death within the Egyptian households of loved ones.

I wonder if Pharaoh is surprised he is still alive.  Usually the first-born son is presented the title of Pharaoh when he assumes the throne.  Is this a reminder, inside the mind of Pharaoh, that Moses is the leader of the family and that Pharaoh is second in line.

It is also a quandary for the nation of Egypt.  With the firstborn son of Pharaoh dead, there will need to be special circumstances and rules for another in his place.

An inscription in a shrine connected with the great Sphinx records a solemn promise from the Egyptian gods vowing that Thutmose IV would succeed his father Amenhotep II (the pharaoh of the Exodus). Because Thutmose IV was not his father’s firstborn son (the firstborn was struck dead during the first Passover); therefore, they believed that the second born son needed special protection from the gods and the inscription seeks to provide that.

He summoned Moses and Aaron during the night and said, “Get up, leave my people, both you and the Israelites, and go, worship Yahweh as you have asked.  Take even your flocks and your herds as you asked and leave, and also bless me.”

Pharaoh has been beaten, and now he is finally broken.  He softens his heart and he asks for Yahweh's blessing.

Now the Egyptians pressured the people in order to send them quickly out of the country, for they said, “We’re all going to die!”  So the people took their dough before it was leavened, with their kneading bowls wrapped up in their clothes on their shoulders.

The Israelites acted on Moses’ word and asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing.  And the Lord gave the people such favor in the Egyptians’ sight that they gave them what they requested. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.

Plunder, pay-offs, bribes...  It's money to-go.

The Israelites traveled from the city of Rameses to Succoth, about 600,000 soldiers on foot, besides their families. An ethnically diverse crowd also went up with them, along with a huge number of livestock, both flocks and herds. 

 The people baked the dough they had brought out of Egypt into unleavened loaves, since it had no yeast; for when they had been driven out of Egypt they could not delay and had not prepared any provisions for themselves.

The time that the Israelites lived in Egypt was 430 years.  At the end of 430 years, on that same day, all the Lord’s divisions went out from the land of Egypt.  It was a night of vigil in honor of the Lord, because He would bring them out of the land of Egypt. This same night is in honor of the Lord, a night vigil for all the Israelites throughout their generations.

And now, similar to the instructions given with the Christian communion meal, God gives commandments for eating the Passover meal.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the statute of the Passover: no foreigner may eat it. 

But any slave a man has purchased may eat it, after you have circumcised him. 

A temporary resident or hired hand may not eat the Passover.  It is to be eaten in one house. You may not take any of the meat outside the house, and you may not break any of its bones. 

This reminder is why many of the elders, during the communion service, say "This is the Body of Christ, given for you." Instead of, "This is the Body of Christ, broken for you."

The whole community of Israel must celebrate it. 

This is not something to be delegated to official worshipers, this is for everyone, every year.

If a foreigner resides with you and wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover, every male in his household must be circumcised, and then he may participate; he will become like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat it. 

Paul reminds us that this circumcision is, for us, one of the heart - not of the body.  Jesus completely fulfilled the sacrifices required by God, and when we join with him (become native) we receive this better sacrifice. It's not contingent upon anything we do.

The same law will apply to both the native and the foreigner who resides among you.”

Then all the Israelites did this; they did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.  On that same day the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt according to their divisions.

And again the reminder that God is now looking at his people as his army on the earth.  The New Testament evokes this same mind-set - Christians as God's force upon the earth, "and the gates of Hell will not withstand it."

And that reminds me of the prediction of when Jesus is returning for his church (Ephesians 5:25-27)

... Christ did love the church, and did give himself for it, that he might sanctify it, having cleansed [it] with the bathing of the water in the saying, that he might present to himself the church in glory, not having spot or wrinkle, or any of such things, but that it may be holy and unblemished...

Christ will come for his bride the church, and it will be covered in glory - without spot or wrinkle - holy and unblemished.