David Bahn – Reflections

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These devotions are part of the Follow the Word Bible reading program at St. John Lutheran Church in Cypress, Texas. This year we are reading through the Scriptures together, listening for how God speaks through his Word day by day. I hope you will join me on this journey.

Today’s readings are Exodus 11-13; Psalm 47.

Exodus 12:1-20

[This is a condensed version of Exodus 12:1-20. The full reading is available in the link above.]

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months.” On the tenth day every man was to take “a lamb for a household,” a lamb “without blemish, a male a year old,” and keep it until the fourteenth day, when “the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.” They were to put some of the blood “on the two doorposts and the lintel,” eat the flesh “roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs,” and eat it “with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand… It is the Lord’s Passover.”

“For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt… and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.” “The blood shall be a sign for you… And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you.”

“This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever.” For seven days they were to eat unleavened bread, remove leaven from their houses, hold a holy assembly on the first and seventh days, and observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, “for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt.” “In all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”

The Passover is the great salvation event of the Old Testament. It marks the beginning of God’s deliverance of his people to the Promised Land. It is the event Israel would recount again and again through the centuries. They would remember David and Solomon’s temple. They would recall the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah. They would tell stories of Elijah and Elisha. But year after year they would celebrate this event. They would slaughter a lamb, eat the unleavened bread, and retell the story of the Exodus. It was no small thing.

The road to that night was strewn with the ten plagues. Time after time, Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. Again and again Moses declared, “The Lord says, ‘Let my people go,’” and again and again Pharaoh refused.

Why the hardening? Why ten plagues? Why not begin and end with the Passover itself?

Part of the answer is that God was dismantling the arrogance of Egypt and its king. By the tenth plague, there was no doubt that the Lord alone was God. The plagues also taught Israel. They learned that the Lord was delivering them and that they were to follow where he led. They were taught to obey — to take the lamb, apply the blood, eat the bread without leaven, and be ready to depart. Deliverance came through faith expressed in obedience.

Today we celebrate the Lord’s Supper as an echo of that Old Testament salvation, a celebration of Jesus’ grace and recognition that his body and blood – received under the bread and wine was the great sacrifice that freed us from slavery to sin, Satan and death. It is also a foretaste of the feast to come. There are no ten plagues preceding Christ’s return, but there is a parallel: God does not act on our timetable. Just as he did not immediately bring Israel out of Egypt, so he does not immediately bring final judgment and the full consummation of redemption.

We need not speculate about what might have happened had Pharaoh repented. But scripture is clear about why God delays: he is patient, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Egypt learned of God’s rule through judgment. We are invited to know his reign through grace — the gracious rule of Christ in the hearts of believers. The next time you receive the Lord’s Supper, listen for the echo of Passover, rejoice that the blood of the Lamb has marked you as his own, and lift your eyes of faith toward the great Feast of Victory in the life of the world to come.