Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Exodus 12 | Date: April 11, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Thank you. It’s good to be back with all of you again. It’s always good to be back. I’m only disappointed that Pastor Lloyd can’t be here. I was looking forward to seeing him tomorrow. It doesn’t look like that will work out now, but we’ve prayed a lot for you guys during the time of his illness—both for him and his family, and for all of you, that God will provide well.

I’d like to thank also the many of you who look in on my mother. It’s just a greater blessing than I can tell you. It’s more appreciated than I can possibly express. But those of you who look in on her and help her in various ways, you are just a great blessing and I thank you for it. In that regard, I should mention a visitor that we have with us here. Josiah Parker is here with us. He is a friend of mine that I have not met until today. Some of you may remember a year or so ago, whenever it was, I was trying to get some meal delivered to my mother from Chick-fil-A, and the DoorDash or whatever it was wasn’t working out and I was complaining on Facebook. Well, it never worked. Well, anyway, I called Chick-fil-A and got the manager. He drove it to mom’s house and gave it to her. Just the best guy. And we’ve stayed in touch, but we finally got to meet. I appreciated his help. Josiah, great, thanks for coming.

Exodus chapter 12. Exodus chapter 12. I’ll preach this morning on the subject of the first Passover, Exodus chapter 12. I’d like to take the time to read verses 1 through 36. A familiar passage for you, I think. Exodus chapter 12, beginning with verse one:

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 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. 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. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, and when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

“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. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 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. 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. 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.

“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. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from 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. 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. 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. 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. For 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 in the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”

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. 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 morning. 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. You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ 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. Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. 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. 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. 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. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!”

The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, “We shall all be dead.” So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, what a marvelous passage this is. What a stupendous event and what a sobering thing to think of the power of our God in delivering his people. We ask that you would give us a right understanding of the passage. We pray that you will give us an appreciation of it as it points us to the Lord Jesus and what he has done for us. We pray in his name, amen.

The Event That Shaped Israel as a Nation

Well, the Passover, as we have read and no doubt as you know, is the event that shaped Israel as a nation. It was also a holiday that was appointed by God to commemorate his saving power in Israel, and God had given them careful instructions as to how this holiday is to be carried out and to be observed each year. It was a holiday that marked Israel’s new year, and it was a holiday that defined Israel’s very identity.

God had promised Abraham, their forefather, that he would make of him a great nation, that he would make a great nation of people from him. And now his descendants had grown in number, but they had fallen under the iron fist of Pharaoh of Egypt. They had become slaves now for some time. The year, the best we can tell, is 1446 BC. The Pharaoh is Amenhotep II. He was a particularly cruel Pharaoh over Israel. But God had heard the cry of the Israelites, and he had sent his servant Moses to come and deliver them from the oppression in Egypt.

And God sent Moses, and Moses came to the Pharaoh and he spoke to Pharaoh on behalf of the Lord and warned him in Exodus 4, verses 22 and 23: “Israel is my firstborn son… let my son go that he may serve me.” Well, of course, Pharaoh was much too important to be threatened by his slaves’ God, and so he hardened his heart. He refused. He became only more cruel. You remember the story—how the work task became all the more difficult for the Israelites. The production rate had to remain the same, and they were worked all the more cruelly.

Well, if it’s true that Pharaoh is too important to be threatened by Israel’s God, it’s also true that the God of heaven is never going to be threatened by any Pharaoh of any kind. And in fact, one very interesting aspect of this entire story is something that’s set up for us back in chapter nine. If you’d like to look at it in Exodus chapter nine, it was God himself who raised up Pharaoh, intentionally prolonging the confrontation just so that he could show his power over Pharaoh. Now it’s an interesting and it’s an important part of the story. Exodus chapter 9, look at verses 14 and following:

“I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that [notice the purpose clause] so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”

That is, it would have been just as easy for this God who reigns over all, it would have been just as easy for him to say the word and his people would have walked out of there without any interference whatever. He could have paralyzed the Egyptians. He could have struck them dead. It all would have been just as easy for him. But God was determined to make this a public demonstration of his uniqueness and his greatness just so that all the Egyptians and all the world would see his power and his greatness.

Judgment on All the Gods of Egypt

And in fact, another part of this: his intent was to show his power not just over Pharaoh, but his power over the gods of Egypt. Now, as you know, the Egyptians and that world universally, there were just a multiplicity of gods of all kind. Each nation had their own gods to watch over them. And in fact, each nation had a god for this and a god for that and a god for the other. And they had all this multiplicity of gods, and they had rankings of the deities and so on.

And God says here that he is intending now to show his greatness and his power, not just over Pharaoh, but over all the gods of Egypt. You might have noticed that as we read it in chapter 12, in verse 12 with regard to the tenth plague: “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, for I am the Lord.”

Now, Moses doesn’t enumerate for us here the various Egyptian gods that would have been in view in all of this. I suspect all of them were in view; that’s what he says: “I will execute judgment on all the gods of Egypt.” But I think in each of the plagues, some of the gods were isolated and in view. I’ll give you just a taste of that for your curiosity.

In the first plague, we have the turning of the waters to blood. That would have been a direct attack against Osiris, the god of the Nile. Actually, there are several gods of the Nile. There’s Hapi, who’s also called Apis. He’s the bull god. You might have seen him in some of the history books represented there, or even in some of the movies. The bull god, Apis, represented. He’s another god of the Nile. Isis is another goddess of the Nile. We have Khnum (K-N-U-M). Khnum—that’s good Egyptian spelling. He’s the ram god. He’s the guardian of the Nile, and there are more gods and goddesses of the Nile to go.

The second plague was the plague, you remember, of the frogs. That would have been an attack on the frog goddess. Yes, there was a frog goddess, Hekat. The third plague, the plague of the gnats, would have been an attack on Set, the god of the desert storms, and so on. This goes through all of the plagues that God sends on Egypt, isolating several of the gods and showing his power over them all.

And then finally we come—well, first, the ninth plague, we have then the darkness. That would have been an attack on the great sun god, Re (R-E), Re, the sun god, which is the great god of Egypt. And then finally we come to the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, and that would have been an attack on virtually all of the gods all at once. Perhaps especially the god Min, who’s the god of reproduction. We have Heket, the goddess who attended women at childbirth. There’s also Isis, the goddess who protected the children. Then there’s Pharaoh’s firstborn son, who himself was considered a god. And so this death of the firstborn is itself an attack on virtually all of the gods of Egypt.

Now back in Exodus chapter seven, if you’d like to look, chapter seven verses three and following, God had said to Moses right up front, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart [keep that in mind], I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.”

During the seventh and eighth plagues, the hail and the locusts, Pharaoh, you’ll remember, confesses his sins to Moses—his sin of rebellion—but it was just words, and it was very temporary. During the eighth plague, chapter 10, we find in verse seven, his servants come to him and plead for him to let the Israelites go. “We can’t take any more of this.” But he finally digs in his heels and refuses to repent. God had raised him up for this prolonged confrontation.

Until finally now, we come to the tenth plague that we’ve read about in chapter 12: the death of all of the firstborn throughout Egypt, both man and beast. Back in chapter four, God had said to Pharaoh through Moses, “Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.” God had warned him upfront. And we come to chapter 12, we read the event, and we can just, I think, scarcely imagine the horror of what we read in chapter 12 and verse 30. I paused as I read it. You might have noticed: “There was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.”

We read over that too quickly. The horror of it—you can scarcely imagine what was going on throughout the nation of Egypt that night. Every house, someone dead. Even Pharaoh’s house, his firstborn son dies. And at this point, finally now, Pharaoh relents temporarily. Pharaoh and all of the gods of Egypt had been thoroughly devastated. And finally, they are at the end of it. “Moses, Aaron, take your people and get out of here. We can’t take any more.” And in fact, we read here in chapter 12 that the Egyptians themselves were glad to give them what they needed on their way out. Do you notice that little remark? God had given the Israelites favor in the hearts of the Egyptians—a marvelously important statement with regard to the sovereignty of God and human freedom. God gave the Israelites favor in the hearts of the Egyptians so that willingly now they are saying, “Go. Here, take this, take this, take our gold, take our jewelry, take it, just get out of here, leave.”

Through this succession of events there, God had escalated the confrontation, deliberately prolonging it and escalating it to demonstrate vividly that he is in fact God over all. Not mighty Pharaoh, not the gods of Egypt—no one will frustrate the purpose of this God or interfere with his purpose to save his people. He’ll do what he has purposed to do, and he’ll judge the wicked in doing so.

Now I think it’s worth pointing out here too, before we go on, that this is the kind of passage that tends to embarrass Christians today: God killing so many people. And in our—especially in our pluralistic age that we live in—that’s just not right. And I’ll just say this about it: you should notice when you find these kinds of passages in the Bible about God taking the lives of so many, that the biblical writers are never embarrassed by it. They never shy away from it. And in fact, the biblical writers are very interested to press the fact that this God does not owe life to anyone. All he owes to anyone is judgment.

And the only reason that you are still alive today is because of divine mercy withholding from you what you deserve. The only reason we are not perishing in hell is because of divine mercy withholding what we deserve and divine grace providing a way out. God does not owe life to anyone. What men and women everywhere owe to God is due honor and reverence and humble obedience. And when that is not given, it constitutes an immense offense against the holy God of heaven, and it incurs his righteous judgment against them. What God is doing here is just. It is also sovereign. He doesn’t do it everywhere all at the same time. He determines when and where for each, but God in justice is bringing judgment now against the Egyptians. And so the passage highlights for us that, among other things, that sinners deserve only divine judgment. That’s just on the surface of the passage.

The Way of Escape

But in fact, that divine judgment does not fall on the people of Israel. God has made provision for their escape. We’ve read the passage here. You’re familiar with it from the days you were a child in Sunday school. Each Israelite home was assigned to take a lamb and to set it aside—a year old or less, a lamb of the first year. It was to be killed, it was to be roasted, it was to be eaten with herbs and unleavened bread at the feast of this Passover, the people of Israel to be dressed and ready to go in haste, ready for a journey at any moment. And the lamb as specified was not to be with any kind of defect. If the lamb was to have a defect in any way, it would not be acceptable to God; it would not be an acceptable sacrifice that is offered.

And then when they killed the lamb, the blood was to be collected in a basin. And then they were to take this hyssop branch—it’s a plant that grows there in that part of the world, and a sprig of which works really well for this kind of thing, if you’re going to do this kind of thing—dip it into the basin of blood, and then you paint the two doorposts and the lintel over top, and there you are. You’re in your home, and you’ve got blood painted on the doorway before you.

You can just imagine what’s going on here. “Do you hear what God said to Moses?” “Yeah. He’s going to come through tonight. And he’s going to kill all of the firstborn, man and beast, throughout the entire nation.” “Did you hear that he’s made a way of escape for us?” “Yeah. I don’t understand it. Take a lamb, kill it, and eat it. I get that. But you take the blood in the basin, a hyssop branch, and you paint the doorposts and the lintel. And what’s that all about?” “I don’t know.”

But God said in chapter 12, here in verse 13, “The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I’ll pass over you and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” And true to his word, as these instructions were followed, each Israelite home was spared.

And again, I think it’s interesting to try to imagine what was going on while they ate that dinner. It must have seemed strange. They’re feasting together. First of all, all around them is the cry of death. And then even while they’re sitting there eating, they look and there’s blood painted on the doorposts and on the lintel above. Now, I don’t know if people in that age were as sensitive to the sight of blood as we are, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t regular decor. It had to seem strange.

And I think at least to the thinking Israelite, it had to occur to him at some point that that lamb that they had slaughtered and were now eating—that that lamb, in some sense, had died in their place. It’s difficult to miss the idea of substitution. Death all around them, throughout the nation, people dying in every home, but not in this home. Why? Because we killed that lamb and put his blood on the doorposts. It’s hard to miss the idea of substitution. The judgment ordered by God against every household fell on every household except the households where they offered this lamb and the blood was on the doorposts. And so instead, the judgment of God didn’t fall on the people; it fell on just that lamb. And because that lamb had died, they did not. And in fact, because that lamb had died, then now they are free and they will go out as the redeemed people of God to live for him. At least to the thinking Israelite, it’s all pretty obvious, isn’t it?

Christ Our Passover

Well, how much they recognized or how many of them recognized it at the moment, I don’t know. But for all the succeeding generations of Israel now, that meal stood as a reminder of God’s mighty deliverance of the people of Israel out of the slavery in Egypt. And year after year after year, they observed this feast. And year after year after year, the children would ask, “What’s this all about?” “Oh, God delivered us by a mighty act from our oppression in Egypt.” And year after year and decades and decades and centuries went by, and every year this meal is being observed in remembrance of what God did for Israel in bringing them out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

One day, finally, the Lord Jesus sat in an upper room with his disciples to observe this very meal. And in a very real sense, we should call it the last Passover. And he observes this Passover meal and he transforms it into another meal. And he takes the bread and he says, “This bread is my body, which is for you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Still a meal, still full of symbolism, still full of symbolism of deliverance, but a much greater kind of deliverance.

And here we find then when we come to the New Testament and Jesus instituting the first Lord’s Supper after observing the last Passover—here we find that God had intended all along from the beginning, from back in 1446 BC in Egypt, God had intended for this ceremony to point ahead and have a significance that was beyond itself. And all of those lambs that were slain for all of those centuries, commemorating the rescue of the people of Israel out of Egypt, pointed ahead to the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what he said. All of those centuries of reenactment—it’s all a commemoration of the cross.

John the Baptist introduces Jesus that way: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The gospel writers, particularly John, are careful to let us know that Jesus died on the cross at the very time of the slaughtering of the Passover lamb in the temple. Jesus, the night before the cross, ties it immediately to his death: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”

There’s a more subtle hint to that as well. It’s a fascinating thing Jesus says in Luke chapter 9. You remember the Mount of Transfiguration? They’re up on a mountain and Jesus is transfigured and Moses and Elijah appear. And you remember Moses and Elijah are talking to Jesus about his—you remember? About his departure, which he is about to accomplish. That’s the way it’s rendered in most versions. About his departure—well, that’s his death. About his departure, which he’s about to accomplish. Funny language. About his—the Greek word there for departure is exodus. Eh, funny, who would talk like that? They’re talking to Jesus about his exodus, which he is about to fulfill. That’s the Greek word, fulfill, not accomplish, fulfill. Actually, the NIV gets it that way. So they’re talking to Jesus about his exodus that he’s about to fulfill—that all of that that happened back there was pointing forward to what Jesus would accomplish and fulfill in his death the next day.

If that’s not enough, Paul makes the connection explicit: 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 7, “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us.” Frequently in the New Testament, the New Testament writers pick up this idea of Jesus as the spotless lamb and emphasizing the sinlessness of Jesus. 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 18 and 19: “We were redeemed… with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” All of this is intended all along to point us ahead to Christ as the sinless Savior, standing in the place of sinners, taking the judgment of God, bearing the curse of our sin, and freeing his people from their slavery to sin through his death. All of this all along was intended to point to the real deliverance that will come.

I like to tell our folks at our church that this is one way where God does things the exact opposite of what we do. We have a big event in history, and what we do is we make a movie about it to commemorate it, look back. Well, there’s a sense, I guess, in which we have that. We have one memorial, the Lord’s Table. We look back to what was accomplished. But God does something a little bit differently. What he does is he runs the movie ahead of time. For centuries, he runs it and runs it and runs it, pointing ahead to the real one that’s coming. And we have all these institutions and events and figures in the Old Testament, and all of them pointing ahead, intended by God with symbolic import, pointing ahead to Jesus, who in his work fulfills what they only picture. And so all through the centuries here with the Passover, you observe this meal, you observe this meal, you observe it again next year, next year, next year, next year, again and again—all along God’s pointing us ahead to see the real exodus that’s going to come through the death of Christ.

In fact, the Old Testament itself provides a little bit more symbolism to fill this in for us as well, and that’s with this use of the hyssop branch in applying the blood. Here in Exodus chapter 12, it pictures, as we’ve already said, substitution: the lamb put to death instead of the Israelite. Hyssop was the instrument used for applying the blood. We find hyssop coming up again in the Old Testament in the book of Leviticus. And here in Leviticus now we find it associated with the application of blood, and it was for the purpose of ceremonial cleansing. So if a leper who has been cleansed—he’s still ceremonially unclean—there must be the application of blood and it’s to be applied with the hyssop branch. Or if a man has touched a dead body, a corpse, he’s ceremonially unclean. He needs to be rendered clean ceremonially. And so you use this hyssop branch and sprinkle blood to render him clean.

Next time we see it in the Old Testament is Psalm 51. You might remember David’s great confession of sin. David had sinned with Bathsheba. He’s guilty of adultery; he’s guilty of murder. And you remember that great expression of his repentance before God in Psalm 51? He says, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.” Now it’s interesting because in the sacrificial laws of the Old Testament, there was no corresponding provision for David’s sins of adultery and murder. But with his use of the symbolism of hyssop here, he’s looking ahead and he’s thinking, just as somehow God provided blood for those Israelites back in Egypt so that they could avoid judgment, just perhaps there could be blood for me to be applied, to purge me from my sin.

And the very next time we find hyssop in the Bible, it’s in John chapter 19 at the cross. John chapter 19 verses 29 and 30: a jar full of sour wine stood there. Jesus says, “I’m thirsty.” And so a jar full of sour wine stood there and they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit. The use of hyssop again, pointing to Jesus’ death as the death of a substitute, bearing divine judgment in place of sinners.

And that is the whole meaning of Jesus’ death. This is the heart of the heart of the gospel: that Christ stood in the sinner’s place and took our sin to himself and bore the curse of God in place of sinners so that sinners would go free. It’s got to be some of the most awful words in all of the Bible. 2 Corinthians chapter 5: “He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.” Christ made sin for us. Some of the most awful, some of the most wonderful words in all of the Bible. Christ, the sinless Son of God from heaven, made sin in the sinner’s place, bearing the judgment that we deserve. He has redeemed us, Paul says in Galatians chapter 3. He’s redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us. As we like to sing in one of the contemporary songs, “He took the blame and bore the wrath.”

Harry Ironside, a popular Bible teacher of the last century—I think my mother and my father heard him speak on several occasions—he was a popular dispensational Bible teacher, pastor at Moody Church. He used to tell the story about a train wreck. A train had stopped on the tracks and they sent the flagman back to flag down the next train so they wouldn’t slam into it. Flagman went back, train came, he flagged him, but the train kept going, slammed into the train, and many lives were lost. Went to court, of course, and brought the conductor of the second train up on the stand and said, “Why didn’t you stop?” He said, “Well,” he said, “the flagman flagged a yellow flag, and so I kept going.” So they got the flagman up and said, “What’d you do?” He said, “I flagged him with a red flag. He should have stopped.” So nothing to do but produce the flag. And in court, they produced the flag. And it was, in fact, a red flag. But with the aging of years and the sun, it had been yellowed. And Harry Ironside would draw the application. He would say, “Oh, the souls, eternally wrecked by the yellow gospels of the day—bloodless theories of unregenerate men in which the cross of Christ is not made prominent.”

The whole message of the Passover is exactly this: there is no place to hide from divine judgment but under the blood of Jesus Christ. He is God’s provision to save sinners from their sin. I’ve often thought it must seem awfully strange, particularly to the secular world around us, that we Christians make so much of the blood of Jesus. That’s got to seem strange—that in our modern day, we still talk about blood, we sing about blood, we observe a rite in our congregations together commemorating the blood of Christ. It’s got to seem strange. And yet, it’s the whole essence of the gospel, isn’t it?

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my cleansing, this I see, nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my pardon, this my plea, nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace, nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Our whole hope is just this: that the sinless Lord of glory came and took our place and bore the curse of our sin to redeem us to God, taking our place in judgment. Every one of us, we’ve got different details of the testimony that we might give, but every last one of us is going to give the same testimony when it comes to this: I had nothing to offer. I came to God just as I am, without one plea, but this: that Jesus Christ has died in place of sinners, and God has promised that he’ll have me if I come by way of him. That’s our testimony, isn’t it? That’s the message of the Passover. It points us to Christ, who died in the sinner’s place, bearing the judgment of sin.

I’m going to mention something here. I’m not recommending this—this would be unconventional, to say the least—but I’ve often thought it would be good sometime when we observe the Lord’s Table, which is, of course, the extension of the Passover meal—it would be good sometime at the Lord’s Table if we would divide up into families, divide up around the congregation in families, and then instruct the children: “Ask your dad what this is all about.” So we gather together in our little families around the auditorium. Little boy, little girl says, “Daddy, what’s this all about? Why do we observe this?” “Well, honey, we were slaves. We were slaves. We were bound in our sin, and we were sure for divine judgment. And if God hadn’t sent a deliverer, we’d have perished in hell forever. God sent us his Son, a lamb without spot. And he offered himself in sacrifice to God on our behalf. He took our judgment. He bore our curse. And now we’re free. We’re no longer afraid of divine judgment. We are the redeemed people of God. And this meal that we observed together—the bread you see, that represents Jesus’ body, what was broken for us. And this drink, you notice it’s red? It pictures his blood. That is the cost of our redemption, and it’s good for us to remember it.”

My children grew up in a little town in Pennsylvania by the name of Orwigsburg. You’ll never hear of it again. A little more than 100 years before us, another preacher’s kid had grown up there in Orwigsburg. His name was Elisha Hoffman. You’re probably not familiar with the name, but you have sung a number of his songs. He and another man by the name of John Foote—another name you’ll not otherwise hear about—joined together and wrote a song commemorating this Passover event:

Christ our Redeemer died on the cross,
Died for the sinner, paid all his due;
Sprinkle your souls with the blood of the Lamb,
And I will pass, I’ll pass over you.

Judgment is coming, all will be there,
Each one receiving justly his due;
Hide, hide in the saving, sin-cleansing blood,
And I will pass over you.

That’s the message of the Passover: Christ in our place, taking the judgment of our sin. Amen. Let’s pray.

Our Father, we marvel at your greatness in working such great redemption for the people of Israel from Egypt, in demonstrating your power. We marvel at your greatness in orchestrating so much so that we can visualize what you have done for us. We marvel at your goodness and your grace to give us your own Son to bear the judgment of our sin. What a blessed people we are. Lord, we pray that it would be the case that every soul here today—we will go from here with our hearts and our minds fixed firmly on the Lord Jesus with a faith that is anchored solely in him, our only hope. We ask in his name, amen.