“The next day John [the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.’”
— John 1:29
In the obdurate hardness of his heart, Pharaoh had defied the Almighty God. So God had sent onto the land of Egypt plague after plague with ever-increasing severity. The tenth was the most severe. It is this one that gave rise to the Feast of Passover.
At God’s instruction, the Hebrews were to take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood from an unblemished lamb, and strike the lintel and the door posts of their houses. They were not to go out the door of the house until the morning, because at midnight the LORD would send His angel to destroy the firstborn throughout all Egypt. But when He saw the blood upon the door post, and the lintels, He would pass over those homes.
As they waited, eventually they heard a shriek and then another…moaning and crying went up all over Egypt, as the angel of death passed over. They waited until they would hear some sound close to their own houses, but seeing the blood upon the door post and lintel, the Angel of God passed by.
The Passover celebration continued down through the centuries until Christ our Savior came. All of the lambs of God slain before, all the lambs of the Israelites were but types of that reality which should come. When John the Baptist saw Jesus, He said He was the Lamb of God. Our Passover Lamb has been slain for us. When God sees our sin, He passes over it, if we are in Christ.
Dear Lord, thank You for Your brilliant yet simple plan to show the world that only by being covered by the blood of the unblemished lamb are we to be spared from death. Thank You, Jesus, Lamb of God, for dying on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins…
BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE SEE THAT CHRIST
OUR PASSOVER LAMB HAS BEEN SLAIN.