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Day Two

Passover Foreshadowed a Greater Sacrifice

by Kailey Black

Read Exodus 12:1-34.

God called the Israelites to celebrate Passover annually as a reminder of the night that “He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, and he spared our homes” (Ex. 12:27). The blood of the lamb marked the Israelites as God’s people and spared them from the death of the firstborn. The herbs symbolized the bitterness of slavery, while the unleavened bread signified the haste with which they left Egypt. Year after year, this meal served as a reminder of how God had delivered His people. 

In the New Testament, Luke reveals that Jesus’ family traveled to Jerusalem annually for Passover. One of the few stories in Scripture from Jesus’ childhood happens during this event (Luke 2:41-50). Perhaps the most significant Passover observance occurred when Jesus celebrated it with His disciples the night before His death. Over a thousand years after the first Passover, Jesus ate the same meal hours before He died on the cross, but He gave it a new meaning—the Lord’s Supper.

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Scripture can never mean what it never meant.”2 Long before the Israelite nation grew and became enslaved in Egypt, God had a plan to rescue them. The shed blood of the lamb at the first Passover served a specific purpose for the Israelites. But Passover foreshadowed something far greater. Just as God had a plan to free the Israelites from death and slavery, God also had a plan to free us. 

While the lamb’s blood saved the Israelites from physical death and led to their freedom from Egyptian oppression, Jesus’ blood sacrificed on the cross saved us from spiritual death and the oppression of sin. He died in our place, taking on Himself the punishment that we deserve and giving us freedom from sin and death. As 1 Peter 1:18-19 says,“For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb.” 

From the moment sin entered the world, God had a plan to redeem us. We were not overlooked or forgotten. God did not leave us helpless and in bondage to sin. Instead, He sent us His Son. Jesus Christ is our Passover Lamb.