The Passover Blood of the Cross

The Church I belong to (Life Changer’s – Century City) has been studying the Exodus story in their series ‘Move Again’, and I’ve come to see how the final plague of the Passover night was a foreshadow of Jesus on the Cross at the time we celebrate as Easter.

The Passover is a beautiful illustration of the gospel. It’s a story of redemption and deliverance from bondage. It’s a story of faith in the grace of God and it’s a story of victory. The tenth plague was God’s wrath on sin, idolatry, pride, false religion, cruelty, and so much more. The Angel of death would sweep through the land of Egypt and lay waste in one of the most heart-wrenching ways of killing every first-born. But, as always, God made a way.

God instructed Moses for the people to put the blood of a sacrificed, innocent lamb upon their doorposts, which would rescue and save them from death. When the angel of death saw the blood covering the doorposts, he passed over them, sparing them from death. However, it was not the blood itself that protected them, but what the blood represented, as a sign of a covenant.

When you think of the action of those people who painted their doorposts with the blood from a basin, using the leaves from a branch of a hyssop tree, they were performing the sign of a cross. The blood from the top crossbeam would have dripped down the center, and painting the blood from the left -side post to the right-side post, would have completed the sign of the cross.

In the Old Testament, blood was used to seal covenants and to create an inseparable bond of relationship, a blood link between two parties. The sacrificing of an animal without blemish and the sprinkling of its blood was also used to consecrate, to purify and to atone for the sins of the people.

The night of the Passover gives us a picture of what Jesus did when He shed His innocent blood to save us from our sin and give us eternal life. It is Jesus’s blood that covers our sins, like it did on those doorposts, so that when God looks at those who believe and have placed their faith in Jesus, He sees His child because of our precious blood covering and passes over us, sparing us from the penalty of our sin and giving us eternal life.

Jesus hung on crossbeams and bled for all of us. His blood covers anyone who surrenders to put their faith in Him. We don’t have to be innocent or perfect, because Jesus was on our behalf. Those rescued from Egypt were imperfect people, and so are we and just like those who God rescued from Egypt, we have to follow Him out of slavery. God didn’t deliver Israel so they could stay put in bondage.

Jesus came to sacrifice His life to rescue and save ours. He was perfect, without sin, and through His sacrifice, He offers deliverance from the power of sin in our lives. Jesus was our Passover Lamb.

When we plead the blood of Jesus over our lives or over our situations, we are not doing a ‘Harry Potter’ like incantation of breaking a curse, but we are acknowledging and standing on the promises of the power of what His blood signifies, and celebrating our inheritance of what His blood has given us.

So as you partake of Communion this Easter, consider this verse:-

1 Corinthians 10: 16-18 “The cup of blessing that we bless—isn’t it a sharing of Christ’s blood? The bread which we break—isn’t it a sharing of Christ’s body? 17 Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body—for we all partake of the one bread. 18 Consider physical Israel. Those who eat the sacrifices—aren’t they partners in the altar?

 Wishing you and your family a blessed, holy and meaningful Easter!

An Easter Passover Reflection

Every year, as I’ve tried to prepare my heart for Easter, God has always blessed me with a new revelation of His truth and this year He has focused me on the Jewish celebration of the Passover. This was celebrated the week before Easter and will finish on Easter Sunday.

Passover celebrates the deliverance of the Jewish people from their slavery in Egypt.  In Exodus 12:14,18 and 24 we are instructed to observe and commemorate this festival, which although is predominately a Jewish holiday, many Churches and Christians are now choosing to celebrate it, in addition to Easter.  

The Exodus story of the delivery from bondage to slavery, can be seen as a foreshadow of Jesus who broke the bondage of our slavery to sin, as referred to in Romans 6:17. Both Passover and Easter are therefore the perfect occasion to reflect and consider what enslaves us, and to celebrate the freedom that God offers us.

During the Passover week, also referred to as the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, which means bread with no yeast in, Jewish people will eat Matzoh, that dried square cracker.  When you consider that bread is a symbol of Jesus’s body, and leaven or yeast is often referred to as sin in the Bible, it is symbolic that this ‘bread’ is broken at the Passover meal, also known as the Seder.  In actual fact, what Christians refer to as the Last Supper, was actually the celebration of the Passover meal, and where taking the communion elements of bread (body) and wine (blood) first began. 

Just like the story of Moses and the last plague of killing the first-born son, God’s first and only Son also had to be killed, but it was His blood that saves us. It was the blood of an unblemished lamb that was required to cover the doorposts to spare the first-born sons from the Angel of death in the last plague.  It is symbolic that Jesus is called the door or gate to the Kingdom of God, as referred to in John 10:9, and it was His blood that covers us and spares us from eternal death.

Although we celebrate Palm Sunday as the triumphant entry of Jesus on a donkey into Jerusalem, I was interested to learn that this celebration was done every year prior to Jesus’s arrival, to celebrate the procession of carrying the unblemished lamb that had been chosen for the Passover meal.  How fitting that Jesus became our sacrificial Lamb on the altar of the Cross, who although was externally blemished by bloody cuts and piercings, internally He was unblemished, pure and innocent! In John 1:29 we read how Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God.

It’s also fascinating to remember that Jesus’s first entry into Jerusalem was also ridden on a donkey inside Mary’s womb, and again, a donkey was chosen to enter Jerusalem for the last time.  If you look at the back of a donkey, its hairs across its shoulders and along its back actually make the shape of a cross. 

Whilst the Jewish people undergo a thorough spring-cleaning, purification process in order to remove all leaven from their homes and offices and prepare their hearts for Passover, Christians are also called to purify themselves from within during the last week of Lent, called Holy Week, in order to prepare their hearts to receive the Easter message afresh.

Another insightful comparison is the fact that no work is to be done at the start and end of Passover because it is considered a Holy time, which highlights the contrast that Christians don’t need to work in order to receive Christ’s Holiness, which is a gift of grace, based on our faith and in who and what we believe.

And here’s a thought, if Jesus was born at Christmas time, in December, then He would have been immaculately conceived and placed in Mary’s womb around the Passover or Easter period.

There are numerous comparisons in the Old Testament which mirrors Jesus in the New Testament, which I believe reveals God’s sovereign message and prophesy of Jesus. So, as we celebrate Easter this year, let us also reflect on the Passover festival and how it connects to our deliverance, and what its symbolism can teach us. 

Wishing you all a Blessed Easter! As you celebrate your redemption from sin and death and show your gratitude for what Christ did for you, may God bless you with a refreshed spirit of a renewed hope, a sustaining joy, a calming peace, a firmer faith and an overflowing of His abundant, unconditional love…