CELEBRATING CHRIST AS OUR PASSOVER

“Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall CELEBRATE it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you are to CELEBRATE it as a permanent ordinance” – Exodus 12:14 (NASB)

Christians need deeper revelation of CELEBRATING CHRIST as our PASSOVER: “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1Cor.5:7). Our meditation text documents how the amazing celebration of the Passover was instituted: “Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance” (Exo.12:14). This text contains the climax of the plagues that Jehovah unleashed on Egypt. God was about to execute His final judgement on the Egyptians – the death of firstborn child of every home – an event that would leave the Egyptians helpless and lead to the release of the Israelites by Pharaoh.

In preparing for this incredible occurrence, God gave His people an amazing celebration – the Passover. In conducting this celebration, God’s people were to find a flawless lamb, and prepare it for dinner by roasting. When they killed the lamb, 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 Pharaoh announced the word.

This amazing feast was not to be a onetime meal, but an annual festival.  Old Testament law required the Jews to celebrate the Passover annually. Its purpose was to remind the Israelites of the wonderful and miraculous deliverance from bondage that God had brought them. The celebration was never about Moses, Pharaoh or even the Jewish people themselves; it was a testimony of the greatness of God and His deliverance. The Passover was to be a memorial meal to highlight the greatness of God to His people. But it was also a forward-looking celebration. Everything in the Passover meal foreshadowed a future time when God would deliver His people from satanic slavery. 

Everything in the Passover pictured our Lord Jesus. Unlike in the Old Covenant, this time, God would take a perfect Lamb, the Lamb of God, and would sacrifice Him for our sins. He was without sin, as indicated by the instruction concerning unleavened bread – leaven in the Old Testament being symbolic 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. The image of the blood left on the door – the right and left doorposts and the top of the door – was the image of the cross, the place where the Lamb of God would die.

The picture painted at the doorpost of each of the Israelites was that of the Blood from the hands, the feet, and the head of the Crucified Christ. 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: “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Col.1:13). This is the ultimate lesson to learn: God’s ordained celebrations are divinely purposed and meaningful in every sense. The call to celebrate Christ in His diverse colours is a purposeful call to fulfil every aspect of God’s eternal agenda of the redemption package. Our celebrations in God transcend carnal carousing, fleshly feasting, and lascivious revelry.