One day I was watching TV with my kids, and the next show was the Rugrats Passover
Special. I wanted to watch, since I knew that the Passover was a very important Jewish celebration related to the book of Exodus. While it was interested to see the grandpa tell the story of Moses incredible feats, I was disappointed that God was not even mentioned.
Chapter 12 is the climax of the plagues. God is about to execute His final judgement on the Egyptians, taking the lives of the firstborn child of every home. It will be a tragic evening that will leave the Egyptians helpless and lead to the release of the Jews by Pharoah. In preparation for the coming of the Death Angel and their departure, God gave them an incredible celebration. God told them to find a perfect lamb, and prepare it for dinner by roasting. When they killed the lamb for the dinner, they were to take some of the blood and sprinkle it on the doorpost of their homes. The blood was important, because it was a sign that the home was covered by the blood of the lamb and would be passed over by the Death Angel (hence the name of the feast, Passover). They were to roast the lamb and eat it with unleavened bread. When they sat down to dinner, they were to have their bags packed and their shoes on, ready to go at any time Pharoah announced the word.
This amazing feast was not to be a one time meal, but an annual festival. Old Testament law requires the Jewish people to celebrate the Passover annually. It’s purpose is to remind the Hebrew people of the wonderful and miraculous delivery from slavery that God has brought His people. The celebration is not about Moses, or Pharoah, or even the Jewish people, it is a testimony of the greatness of God and his deliverance. The Passover is a memorial meal to highlight the greatness of God to His people. But it is also a celebration that looks forward. Everything in the Passover meal foreshadows another time when God would deliver His people from slavery. Everything in the Passover pictures our Lord Jesus.
This time, God would take a perfect Lamb, the Lamb of God, and would sacrifice Him for our sins. He was without sin (leaven in the Old Testament is a picture of sin). God would then take the hyssop branch of His love for us and sprinkle the blood of Christ on the door of our heart. And when the Death Angel comes to bring judgment for sin, he passes over the heart of those whom Christ has saved and forgiven.
Imagine if you can for a minute a Hebrew father, holding a cup of the blood of the lamb in a bowl with a hyssop branch. Hyssop had scrawny, bush-like branches. He would dip the branch in the bowl and put some blood on the left doorpost, then on the right doorpost. Then he would dip it again and put blood on the top of the door. As he is putting it on the top, blood drips down at his feet. He then steps away. Can you see the image left on the door. It is the image of the cross, the place where the Lamb of God would die. The blood from His hands, His feet, His head. Without knowing it, the Hebrew people were making the sign of the cross with the blood of the Passover lamb. We too need to remember the greatness of God, and the incredible nature of his deliverance from that which enslaved us. To God be the glory.