What is the Passover?
By Hannah Lewandowski
“Like Passover, that old-covenant memorial meal for the nation to ceremonially remember its great rescue from Egypt, so we in the new covenant have the Table — a ceremonial reminder of our own great exodus in Christ from sin and death.” - David Mathis
From birthdays to funerals, weddings, baby showers, and Christmas, the things and people we care about celebrating and remembering are reinforced with some degree of tradition. As a people who are the home of a wandering heart, we must remind ourselves to remember what God has done, who He is, and who we are in light of that. The Passover is a proclamation of redemption through the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, just as the Lord’s Supper, or communion, is a proclamation of Christ’s victory over our sins; remembering our need for Him and thanking Him for what He’s done for the world He loved so much. Our God is an almighty overcomer; how do you remember that, celebrate that?
In the book of Exodus, the Israelites were living in Egypt, and it wasn’t all that bad compared to what they would later experience throughout the rest of the Old Testament. As sojourners in Canaan and then living in Egypt, the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied. But as they grew, the tyrant Pharaoh of Egypt began to view them as a threat, enslaving them and ordering all Israelite boys to be drowned in the Nile River. God raised a deliverer, Moses, who confronted Pharaoh, attempting to convince Pharaoh to let Israel go. Pharaoh wouldn’t budge, so God struck Egypt with several plagues, from the Nile river turning to blood, to disease killing livestock, frogs, flies, and much more; these plagues were insufferable. The tenth plague was an attack on every firstborn son, demanding that they be killed, which personally affected Pharaoh and his family. God used the plagues to ensure that Egypt and the nations would know that He is God.
However, this plague does not affect God’s chosen people – God provides a way out, as He always does. They are to kill a blameless lamb and smear its blood on the doorpost of their home. This blood purifies the house from any association with the murderous evil of the Pharaoh; the blood covers and protects households who choose to associate themselves with the Lord. Sound a little familiar? This significant deliverance from the plague of death brought freedom to God’s chosen people and is something the Israelites would be commanded to remember annually through the Passover celebrations. We are commanded to remember who God is, too. The Passover is an eight-day holiday commemorating the deliverance from Pharaoh and the plague of death. All of which foreshadowed the protective love of a delivering God who would, in the New Testament, send His Son, the spotless lamb, to pardon us from the death we deserve. During this time, those participating in Passover eat a special meal called “seder”, don’t consume leavened food, and revisit the story of the first passover in Exodus 12. Specifically remembering God's instructions for the first Passover, where the Israelites are to sacrifice a lamb and mark their doorposts with its blood so the Lord would pass over their homes during the plague that kills all Egyptian firstborns. That same night, after 430 years in Egypt, the Israelites were freed by Pharaoh and began their exodus from Egypt, seeing their God as the deliverer from evil they so desperately needed. How is one to remember the lengths our God would go to deliver His chosen people from darkness if not with intention?
“This significant deliverance from the plague of death brought freedom to God’s chosen people and is something the Israelites would be commanded to remember annually through the Passover celebrations. We are commanded to remember who God is, too. ”
The blood of the lamb smeared on the doorposts of the homes pardoned those who participated from the tenth and final plague, but not from the repayment of their sin, the death we deserve. This is why, for the sake of the sinner, you and I should be praising God that the story doesn’t end there, but continues for hundreds of more pages and into our present age. As sin began to grip our world, crushing our realities, God made a way for us to be in right standing with Him, to access Him once more uninhibitedly. The only way to do that was to pay for our debt completely, for our sin separates us from our holy and righteous Heavenly Father. So, in His loving kindness and rich grace and mercy, He sent His only son, Jesus, to live a sinless life, die the death we deserved, and be resurrected on the third day. Our sin held Him to the cross, yet He holds us near to a God our sin rejects. That is something worth remembering, worth celebrating, often. Not just when you feel like you’ve messed up, or as an annual holiday tradition, but we should be overwhelmed by this reality and remember it with deep gratitude daily.
During the Last Supper, the last meal Jesus shared with His disciples before His crucifixion, He took bread, broke it, saying “This is my body given for you; do this in remmenrance of me”, followed by taking the cup of wine, saying “this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:7-23). In remembrance of the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf, we partake in the Lord’s Supper, where we break bread and drink wine, as a symbol of the body of Christ broken on our behalf and the blood that made us clean. Just as the blameless lamb’s blood pardoned a home from evil, the sinless blood of Christ evicts death from our eternities.
We are commanded to remember. Remembering who God is and what He has done for us reminds us of who we are and the deep love our powerful God has for us. Remembrance causes us to acknowledge our need for Jesus, knowing that He alone can turn hearts of stone to hearts of flesh (add scripture). Rememberance highlights the job of the new covenant people, to make disciples of all nations, to not keep the good news of our resurrected King to ourselves. We no longer need to put blood on our doorposts each year to atone for our sins, for our God sent Jesus on our behalf, choosing us eternally. That is worthy of remembering, and not just once a year, but every day! That is worthy of living differently for, to give up worldly comfort for, to leverage one’s life in response to the King who went to the grave so we didn’t have to.
So, each spring, when Easter rolls around, intentionally remind yourself of the body that was broken and the blood that was poured out by Jesus, and let it be personal. My hope for you is that this reality would deeply affect your heart and your life, so much so that you can’t help but remember and celebrate all the days of your life. The same God who delivered the Israelites from the plague of death, sending His Son Jesus to be beaten, mocked, and crucified, so that you may know the depth of His love for you and be delivered from the entanglement of sin in your life that would separate you from Him for all of eternity. Don’t just remember on Good Friday, Easter, and Christmas, but every day, and let your life change because of it.
