DATE: – SUNDAY 27TH SEPTEMBER, 2020
TOPIC: – THE PASSOVER
BIBLE PASSAGE: – EXODUS 12: 1 – 28
MEMORY VERSE: – “And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD’s Passover” (Exodus 12:11)
INTRODUCTION: – Since the time when Israel left Egypt, about 1445BC, the Hebrew people or Jewish people have celebrated the Passover each year in the spring from the tenth day to the fourteenth day of the first month of the Jewish calendar (Between March and April). This is a feast to commemorate the exodus form the land of Egypt where they served as slave for over four hundred years.
LESSONOUTLINES
1) The Historical Background In Israel
After serving the Egyptians for over four hundred years, God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and heard groaning of the Israelites. God prepared a man called Moses through whom He delivered the Israelites. God gave Moses supernatural power by which He brought judgment upon Egypt by sending diverse plagues on the Egyptians. The tenth and the final plague brought the Egyptians to their kneels begging Israelites to go. God sent an Angel that passed throughout the land of Egypt to destroy “all the first born of both man and beasts” (Exd.12:12).
Since the Israelites were also living in Egypt, God gave them specific instructions on how to avoid the destruction. Each family was to take a year-old male lamb without defect or flaw on the tenth day of the first month (Abib) and keep it up till the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month. Smaller households could share a single lamb (Exd.12:4). God told each household to put the blood of the lamb on the two sides and the top of the main doorframe to their home. So that when the LORD passed throughout the land executing His judgment upon the Egyptians, He would pass over those homes that had the blood on them. That is where the term “Passover” comes from (Heb. Pesah. – “to jump past”, “to Passover” or “to Spare”). In this way, the Israelites escaped the judgment of death brought upon all Egyptian first born animals and sons. God by this began to reveal how His mercy and our forgiveness would come at the expense of a blood sacrifice. Ultimately, this was a sign of how centuries later His Son Jesus Christ – “the Lamb of God” (Jhn.1:29), would suffer and pay the price for the world’s sins though His own sacrificial death.
God commanded the Israelites to be dressed, ready to have in a hurry. They were to roast, not boil the lamb and to prepare bitter herbs and bread made without yeasts.
The Israelites celebrated the Passover every spring because God told them that it was ti be “an ordinance forever” (Exd.12:14).
The sacrifice involved was mainly symbolic and served as a memorial to the historic event. Only these sacrifices offered in Egypt served the purpose of providing freedom. Before the Jewish temple was built, the Israelites observed the Passover by gathering with their families at home, sacrificing a lamb, removing all yeasts from their homes and eating bitter herbs.
More importantly, they use the occasion to retell the story of their ancestors’ miraculous release from slavery in Egypt, from generation to generation, the Hebrew people remembered how God saved them and set them free (Heb.12:26). But once the temple was built, God commanded that the Passover celebration and sacrifice take place in Jerusalem (Dt.16:1-6, 2Kgs.23;21-23; 2Ch.30:1-2; 35:1-19; Ezr.6:19-22).
The Jews in the New Testament times also celebrated the Passover. An example was when Jesus was twelve years old (Lk.2:41-50).
Later in life, Jesus regularly went to Jerusalem for the Passover (Jh.2:13). The last supper that Jesus ate with His disciples shortly before He died on the cross, was a Passover meal (Mt.26:1-2, 17-19). As God planned it, Jesus was crucified on the Passover because He was the Passover Lamb(1Corint.5:7) who rescues all who trust Him from sin and death.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The Passover celebration yearly was to remind the Israelites in their generations how they were redeemed from slavery and sin and made them His special people. In a similar way, the Lord’s supper, which is the New Testament believers’ Passover, is celebrated to remind us of how Christ Jesus saves us and provides us freedom from slavery to sin.
QUESTIONS
- What is the significance of the Passover to the Jews?
- In what ways does the Passover affect the Christians?