Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Exodus 12
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  February 17, 2021

In Exodus 5:2, Pharaoh asks Moses, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?” He’s saying, every nation has its own gods, its own faith. Who is your God, what is so unique about the Lord that I should listen to him? It’s really a question that we often hear today as well. Many people wonder, “What is so unique about Christianity? What’s so special about our God, that we should worship him only? What makes Jesus Christ worthy of your life, instead of Muhammed, Buddha, or some human ideology?” “Who is the Lord that I should obey him?” Perhaps Pharaoh’s question is one you’ve even asked yourself. I will submit to you that there probably is no better answer to that question than the portion of Scripture before us tonight: the Passover. If you understand the Passover, you will understand why the God of the Bible is unique. If you see what happens during the Passover, you will understand what Jesus wanted you to know about his identity. So what’s the Passover about? It’s about freedom, it’s about judgment, it’s about redemption, all that, and more. But ultimately, Passover is about the death of a lamb. Pharaoh asks Moses, “Who is the Lord that I should obey him?” And the answer which prevails, the answer sets the people free, the answer at the center of biblical theology and hope is the bloody death of an innocent lamb. There’s no other god like that. 

Now to understand “Why?” and “How?”, we need to grasp the story of the Passover, and then trace that visceral vision of the lamb which spans the entire Bible. We begin our journey on the road to redemption this Lenten season by traveling from lamb to Lamb.

The story of the Passover takes place in a time of great oppression and pain in the history of God’s people. The Pharaoh of Egypt had enslaved the Israelite people, not because they had rebelled, but because he was afraid they were too numerous. And, in time, the unmitigated evil of his heart gave birth to a horrific command. He decreed that all male children born of a Hebrew mother should be thrown into the Nile and drowned. And here’s where we meet a baby boy whose mother put him into the Nile but sent him floating in a reed basket with a desperate prayer. This is the baby who would grow up to be God’s prophet, Moses, who would come and demand before Pharaoh that he set God’s people free. Of course, Pharaoh would refuse.  In response, God sent 9 different plagues, one after another, like turning water into blood, all sorts of pests and diseases. These plagues are really severe, acts of divine justice against oppression, which, in and of themselves, proved the Lord’s superiority to the supposed gods of Egypt. But Pharoah still would not let God’s people go. And that brings us to the tenth and final plague. Look at verse 12: “On that night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.” But God this night was not just about death. God provided a way to both enact his judgment and show mercy. The Lord told Moses that a male lamb could be sacrificed in the place of a firstborn boy. God says that on this night he will send this ultimate force of destruction, this angel of death, and the only way to survive will be the bloody death of a lamb as a part of the ritual meal it provided. 

This is what the bulk of chapters 12 and 13 are about. There are specific directions for unleavened bread and bitter herbs, but most of it is focused on the preparation of a lamb. A lamb is to be selected, a firstborn male, the best of the herd, and it is supposed to be eaten, but distinct among the directions, include collecting the blood of the lamb in a bowl and, using a hyssop plant—known for it ability to become saturated, to paint that blood over the door frame of the house. And it is this blood of the lamb that would cause the destroying angel to pass over the dwelling and spare the firstborn within. 

You might be wondering at this point, what’s the deal with the firstborn? And that’s a key question to understanding what is going on here.  You see, throughout the Old Testament, the Lord maintained a specific command for the firstborn males. He said that all firstborn males belong to him. And therefore families had to give an offering to symbolically “redeem”  their firstborn sons. To buy them back from the Lord’s service. 

By demanding the life of the firstborn, God reminded them that all life belongs to him. The firstborn male of the family received the inheritance and upon his shoulders rested the hopes and dreams of the family. So through this offering, God was reminding them that their hopes and dreams, their families, their future, their lives were all his. This was true of many ancient civilizations and especially the structure of this ancient Egyptian society.

The Egyptian civilization was a society ruled by the principle of primogeniture. The first-born had absolute power within the family unit. The eldest ruled the younger siblings. This is why having slaves was so important to the Egyptians. This gave the lower classes someone else to control and dominate. The song that was sung after the splitting of the Red Sea exemplifies this. The refrain includes the words, “The horse and his rider has he thrown into the sea.” (Ex 15) This encapsulates the oppression of the Egyptian society, a series of horses and riders, where the Jewish slaves became the bottom of the “totem pole”–the lowest horse supporting the entire structure. This is why they were so desperately trying to keep the slaves since their society would crumble without them. 

Therefore, this plague, the death of the firstborn males in Egypt, was not just divine retribution for the multitude of baby boys who littered the riverbed of the Nile. This was also a clear sign to Pharaoh that the slaves he thought he owned belonged to God. Indeed, all people, including the Egyptians, including himself (remember the Pharaoh thought of himself as a god), all those lives belong to the Lord. And sadly, the Pharaoh would bury his own son and perish in the Red Sea before he understood this principle. 

The Passover teaches us that God is the one who gives life and the only one who has the right to take life.  Everyone would recognize that all life belonged to the Lord that night, willingly or unwillingly. I hardly need to illustrate the devastation that this plague brought upon Egypt. Can you imagine the Israelites huddled in their homes, desperately praying to the Lord for deliverance as the chilling chorus began? As cries of despair filled the air of Egypt. And yet, true to his Word, no harm came to any house whose door was covered with the blood of a lamb. 

Or just imagine for a moment that you are a firstborn male in an Israelite household. Imagine eating that lamb. This lamb was selected fourteen days before its slaughter has lived with the family for two weeks now. Your hands which have petted this lamb, which grew to value this life, now watch as its blood changes colors on the doorframe. And given the command that the lamb was to be roasted over the fire, not broken up and boiled, it would have been fully recognizable when set upon the table. You know that this lamb died so that you could live. The seasoned lamb’s warmth, simultaneously bitter and sweet, is in your belly as substance for the journey ahead, the freedom which God is providing through this night of judgment.

Each year after this God’s people celebrated the Passover and remembered their costly redemption from slavery in Egypt. Thousands upon thousands of lambs were sacrificed, and thousands and thousands of buckets of blood were painted over the door frames of houses. And I almost get goosebumps thinking about this, but roughly 1400 years after the first Passover an unassuming boy would have celebrated the Passover in Nazareth with his family. That firstborn son, that little lamb of Mary and Joseph was Jesus. What was he thinking about when he saw the lamb on the table?

The fact is, that when Jesus chose to lay down his life, he made sure that it would correspond with the Passover. He timed it out perfectly so that he could celebrate the Passover just before his crucifixion. Jesus chose the Passover to explain the purpose of his life and his death. Can you see his face as he celebrated that Passover? The look in his eyes when he said: “Take and eat, this is my body. Take and drink, this is my blood.” With these words, Jesus, the second and final Lamb, revealed the true meaning of the Passover, the fullness of the portrait it paints.

John 19:33 points out that Jesus’ bones were not broken. Why? Because the Passover lamb was not to have any bones broken in preparation. Matthew 27 points out that Jesus died just at twilight, why? Because the lamb was to be slain at twilight. Pontius Pilate said that he could find no fault in Jesus. Why? Because the lamb chosen was to be spotless and pure. As John the baptist said, knee-deep in the Jordan, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. When Jesus’ cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The Father paid the price in his silence. The firstborn Son of God died so that we could live. The Lamb of God was sacrificed for us on the cross. And this sacrifice was much greater than the first lambs. This lamb was spiritually perfect and his blood, painted over the doorframe of our hearts through faith, doesn’t save us from physical death, but from spiritual death. He dies to set us free, not from physical bondage, but from the chains of sin and fear. Just like on the first Passover, God was both enacting judgment and mercy. 

As we celebrate communion today, we commemorate this great Passover. We celebrate the death of a bloody lamb. We celebrate the God who loves us more than his own life. We joyfully give our lives to the One who claims us as his own. We take and eat of his real body and blood, both bitter and sweet, to sustain us in the wilderness of this world as we journey to the promised land of heaven. That place of eternal life, where Lamb who was slain now reigns over all things. God bless us on that road to redemption.

Amen.