The Lamb of God

GETTING STARTED

Remember the Alamo! 9/11 . . . Never forget! Why did someone coin these phrases? It is because they knew that people have a tendency to forget things. Not just the small things, but also the major events of life. It is the same reason we put special dates on our calendars so we don’t miss them. Well, at least some of us do that. As children of God, we can also be remiss about who he is and what he has done. We have a heavenly Father who has done great things for us, and we need to remember and give him thanks.

READ THE WORD: EXODUS 12:14-28 (ESV)

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. 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. ¹⁸ In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. ¹⁹For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. ²⁰You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”

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. ²² Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 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. ²⁴ You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. ²⁵And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. ²⁶ And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ ²⁷ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.

²⁸ Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

DIGGING DEEPER

RESPOND TO GOD

God wanted to make sure that the people of Israel did not forget all that he had done on their behalf. He wanted them to realize that they were saved through the shed blood of the lamb, and to pass that knowledge on to future generations. When John the Baptist declared that Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the Jewish nation should have remembered the Passover and realized Jesus was the Messiah; however, they forgot. They didn’t learn the lesson of the Passover and missed the Messiah, the Lamb of God, whose blood would be shed on a cross so they could be forgiven.