Why It Matters //
“This will be a day for you to always remember. I want you and all generations after you to commemorate this day with a festival to Me. Celebrate this feast as a perpetual ordinance, a permanent part of your life together” (Exodus 12:14). Passover is a traditional Jewish holiday that lasts for 7 days, remembering how God delivered the Israelites from Egypt and in particular, delivered them from the angel of death—the last of the ten plagues He brings upon the Egyptians. On the First Passover, God tells the Israelites to paint the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their homes as a sign to the angel to “pass over” them and spare their firstborn child from death.
In observing Passover, we remember God’s faithfulness towards His people, and recognize the significance of Passover in preparation for Good Friday, where Jesus became the ultimate sacrificial Lamb for our sins so that God would spare us from His judgment.
What It's Talking About //
In the Book of Exodus, Moses recounts the story of God leading the Israelites out of Egypt and towards the promised land. Throughout these chapters, we see God’s incredible faithfulness to His people and to His Word, to bring deliverance and salvation to a people very much held captive by the Egyptians and by their own fear/idols. Despite the Israelites’ continual doubt and rebellion against God, God remembers His promise and continues to lead them towards a land flowing with milk and honey. In this particular passage, God gives the Israelites instructions on how to prepare themselves + their homes for Passover, and explains the meaning of the Passover sacrifice. The blood of the lamb is a sign to the Lord to pass over the Israelites, so they would not get destroyed along with the Egyptians.
Exodus 12:21-28 NIV
21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb.
22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning.
23 When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
24 “Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants.
25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony.
26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’
27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped.
28 The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.