Passover is still huge in the Hebrew household after all these centuries. God said it was a night His people were to recall generation after generation (12: 26 – 27). Passover is special because it looks backward to that memorable evening when God liberated His ancient people but even more special because it looks forward to what Christ did on Calvary to liberate the world (1 Cor. 5: 7).
At the center of the observance was the Passover Lamb – a picturesque type of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ died at Passover. He was unblemished (12: 5; 1 Pet. 1: 19). He requires all leaven (evil) to be removed from our lives (12: 19; 1 Cor. 5: 7 – 8). The day of His death is a memorial for us (12: 14) remembered often in the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11: 24) which He instituted as He celebrated His last Passover meal with His disciples (Lk. 22: 14 – 23).
The Israelites were just as sinful as the Egyptians on that storied night so long ago but they were spared the intrusion of the Death Angel for the blood of the lamb in the crude form of a cross marked their doors (12: 7). God, faithful to His Word, seeing the blood, passed over them (12: 13). We are as guilty as anyone in our neighborhoods. Why do we get to go to heaven and most of them do not? It’s the blood. When God looks down from His heaven He sees not our scarlet colored sins but His scarlet colored sacrifice and we are spared the eternal torture of the Second Death.
Israel was to eat the meal hurriedly with their sandals on (12: 11). We should remember our Lord’s sacrifice for us with our feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace (Eph. 6: 15) eager to tell our generation that there is still a way to escape the sweeping sword of the Death Angel. It is the blood of Calvary’s perfect Lamb – the Lord Jesus Christ.