Scriptures: Micah 5:1-4, Exodus 12, John 6:51-58
King David was a shepherd boy from Bethlehem, and so the Son of David would come from Bethlehem, not only as a shepherd but as a lamb. Micah prophesied, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. 3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son” (Micah 5:2-3). Not only would Messiah come from Bethlehem, but his origins would be from ancient times because he is One with the Ancient of Days. Israel felt abandoned because there were no prophets for 400 years between the Old Testament and John the Baptist, who came to prepare the way for Jesus.
The very last words in the Old Testament prophesy the coming of one who would be like Elijah. “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction” (Malachi 4:5-6). Then, 400 years later, an angel came to Zechariah the priest to tell him that he and his wife would be given the very child prophesied in Malachi, John the Baptist. “He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:16-17). Zechariah’s wife was old and barren, a symbol of Israel’s barrenness as they had waited centuries for a word from God. Luke 1 picks up where the Old Testament left off just as the book of Exodus picks up 400 years later where the book of Genesis left off. Why? Because Jesus came as the Passover Lamb for the world.
Luke 2 tells us the virgin Mary gave birth to a son in Bethlehem, as was prophesied by Micah, in a stable where animals were kept. This was intentional because God wanted us to identify Jesus as the Lamb of God. Bethlehem is only 5 miles from Jerusalem where the sacrifices were offered in the Temple, so the flocks raised in Bethlehem were likely sacrificial lambs. When John the Baptist saw Jesus he declared, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Isaiah 53:7 describes the suffering servant as a sacrificial lamb. “He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” But Jesus is not just any lamb, he is the Passover Lamb.
Jesus fulfills both the Old Testament prophecies and the festivals God ordained because everything in the old covenant points to Jesus. The Passover festival recalls the story of God’s deliverance of the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt. This festival is so central to Jewish identity that God declared the beginning of the Jewish year would coincide with the timing of the exodus from Egypt. When God delivers us, it is a new beginning! Just as God sent Moses to deliver Abraham’s descendants from slavery in Egypt and bring them into the land he’d promised Abraham over 400 years earlier, God sent Jesus to deliver us from slavery to sin and bring us into God’s household forever.
On the fourteenth day of the first month, God commanded his people to celebrate the Passover. On the tenth day of the month, each family had to bring a Passover lamb into their home. The Passover lamb was unique from all of the sacrifices because it was personal. Each man had to offer a lamb for his household. Bringing a lamb into your home is essentially making it your family pet for four days. Pets become part of our family and we grieve when they die. This is the purpose of this part of the festival. The Father was training the people to see that the Passover Lamb he would provide for his household, Jesus, would be part of their family. Jesus was not going to be an impersonal sacrifice, but one people cared about, with whom they had formed a bond. On the tenth day of the month, as people were bringing lambs into their homes, Jesus entered Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday. The people joyfully received the Lamb, Jesus, who spent the next four days teaching parables and speaking of his second coming – the second exodus when Jesus returns to bring us into the promised land of his earthly kingdom.
On the fourteenth day, the lambs were slaughtered and eaten as part of a special Passover meal, called the seder, in which each part of the meal symbolizes a part of the Exodus story. The bitter herbs eaten during the meal represent the bitterness of slavery. The unleavened bread represents the speed with which they had to leave Egypt because they could not wait for the bread to rise. When God delivers us from slavery to sin, we don’t linger in the old life, but immediately leave it behind. The lamb is eaten in remembrance of the lamb that was slaughtered so they could be saved from the last of the 10 plagues God sent against Egypt, death of the firstborn males. By slaughtering a lamb and putting its blood on the top and sides of the doorposts, the Israelites were safe from the angel of death. Being under the blood of the Lamb saves us from death.
When Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples, the evening before the day of Passover (because according to God’s calendar in Genesis 1, a day begins in the evening), Jesus identified himself as the Passover Lamb. He took the bread and declared it was his flesh which he would sacrifice for us when he was crucified on Passover the next day. He took the cup of wine symbolizing God’s redemption of the Jews which came by the blood of the lamb and declared it was the cup of his blood shed for us, securing our redemption and forgiveness of sin. This cup would now be the cup of the new covenant between God and man which Jesus mediates as our High Priest. By eating the bread and drinking the cup during the sacrament of communion, which came from the Passover meal, we are accepting Jesus’ sacrifice as our Passover Lamb.
Just as a father was responsible to provide the Passover lamb for his children, God the Father provided our Passover Lamb. It is our acceptance of Jesus as our Passover Lamb that brings us into the Father’s house, under his protection from the final judgment, the second death. All will face a final judgment one day, but those who receive Jesus as their Savior and remain under his blood have already passed from death to life and will remain with God in his house forever. Hallelujah! After the Passover meal, Jesus assured his disciples that while he is away from us he is preparing a place for us in his Father’s house. “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1). Jesus offered the sacrifice that brings us into God’s household forever, which was God’s plan from the beginning, before creation (Revelation 13:8).
In Exodus 6:6-8 God told the Israelites, “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.” As our Passover Lamb, Jesus redeemed us “with an outstretched arm” on the cross, saving us from the penalty of sin which is eternal separation from God, eternal death. We are now God’s people, and he is our God. Colossians 1:13 tells us that God has, “rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Receiving Jesus as our Passover Lamb marks the new beginning of our journey with God during which we learn what it means to be his child in his house.
However, we must remain under the blood. If the Israelites left the house on the night the angel of death passed over Egypt, they would be subject to judgment, which is why Paul says we must remain in God’s house. “He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel” (Colossians 1:22-23). We are free from accusation because by the blood of Jesus we are forgiven of our sins. The lamb’s blood was not applied to the floor because we are never to walk on the blood shed for us. Hebrews 10:29 warns that deliberately sinning after you’ve been saved tramples on the blood of Jesus. Let us rejoice that we have been brought into God’s household as his child and remain under the blood of Jesus which was shed for our salvation.
Response:
Jesus, I thank you for redeeming me from slavery to sin with your outstretched arms of love. Thank you, Father, for providing the sacrifice so I can be with you in your house forever as your beloved child.
(The picture above is of a shepherd’s cave in Bethlehem. It had clearly been lived in since a winepress had been carved into the rock above.)
