So now we come to – arguably – the most important event in the old testament: the only one Israel were told to remember with a week’s celebrations each year. Massively serious, massively joyous: Passover!
And here’s where we learn just how God sets people free. Israel were in bondage. Just like many of us, in different ways. How did God set them free?
It’s remarkable. In Exodus 12 the long-foretold, long-postponed and uncompromising judgment of God came on the sin in Egypt. It overshadowed Israel too: God’s holiness can’t overlook sin, whoever it’s committed by. But, we read, everyone could be saved from it (v13), if – if – they chose to shelter (v22) in a house that had the blood of a slain lamb on (as!) the entrance (vv7,23). And those who so sheltered were not only safe from God’s judgment; they also found themselves set free from their bondage and slavery. And inside that house (v4) there was a feast!
What an astounding thing. Ever since, Passover has been the central celebration of Jewish worship. And the book this is recorded in was their sacred Book long before it was ours. But God’s new testament people saw immediately the incredible prophetic picture of just how salvation comes: to those sheltering (and feasting!) in a house that has, as its way in, the blood of the `Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29). `Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed`, says Paul (1 Cor 5:7); and it’s if (and only if) we choose to take shelter under the blood of the Lamb, that we’re safe from God’s judgment, and will find His power setting us free from our slaveries. But, we’re either inside or outside that shelter – and that’s the difference between death and life…
The new testament picks this up time and again. Jesus was crucified at Passover (John 13:1), and in His last meal with His disciples He took the Passover meal and turned it into communion as we have it today. In Luke 9:30 we find Luke calling the cross Jesus’ `exodus`. John points out carefully how the detail of Christ’s crucifixion fulfilled the Passover instructions (John 19:36, Ex 12:46). And so much else in Passover points towards Jesus. In Ex 12:5 they had to seek out a lamb without any defect to sacrifice, and then (12:6) the whole community of Israel would kill it; which they did. `You were redeemed`, says the apostle Peter, `from [your] empty way of life… with the precious blood of Christ, [and then he quotes Ex 12:5] a lamb without blemish` (1 Peter 1:18-19). This central Jewish feast is an astonishing picture, and it tells us that now there’s a spiritual house where the blood of Jesus God’s Lamb is the way in, and inside there’s safety from the judgment on sin; inside there’s freedom; inside there’s a feast going on. Amazing, isn’t it?
It becomes the central celebration of old testament faith. It’s striking how greatly concerned we see God is that His people remember, and help others remember, just how His redemptive goodness set them free. It’s how each new year begins (12:2), and it’s not just kill the lamb and have a feast, on just one day, but a whole week annually to reflect on this (vv14-16). Just like communion: God is going to great lengths to ensure they remember, almost as if He felt they might forget, exactly how His goodness and freedom came. (And of course He was right; they did, and the results were catastrophic (32:4).)
So likewise: what is the absolute centre, the absolute heart, of our Christian faith? There are so many vital things in our faith: Jesus’ life, and actions; Jesus’ teaching – the sermon on the mount is hugely important; and the Spirit’s coming at Pentecost, that is hugely important. But none of these are quite the absolute heart; that – look at 1 Corinthians 1:23, and 2:2, and 15:1-8 – is and must always be `Christ crucified`; the Lamb dying to take the penalty for our sins, instead of us, our substitute. (This is what is called “penal substitution”, and some people don’t like it, particularly when they don’t believe in God’s judgment on sin. But we see here how basic this substitution is to God’s central, self-revelatory feast in the old testament…) Christ crucified, and this alone, stands at the heart of history, and we grow as it becomes rooted ever more deeply in our hearts and imaginations; therefore for us, as for Israel, God’s designed a regular `refreshing’ in these realities, to bring us back, time and again, to just how salvation comes, how His goodness comes, how freedom comes. As we celebrate communion, like the Jews celebrating Passover, we can grow to understand the cross, the blood of the slain Lamb that is our way in to salvation, more and more deeply; in all its wonder, and in all its implications…
And just as we can say the whole of Christian faith is working through the implications of that central reality, so this central old testament reality of Passover generates all-important implications too. We’ll dig a bit more deeply next time…
