Proverbs: Week 4 (Passover: Study of the Lamb)
Sunday School, March 28, 2010
As we approach EASTER, we celebrate one of the more famous Jewish holidays. It is called Passover.
Exodus 12:1-30 Every Jewish boy and girl knew this story because God commanded the Jewish people to celebrate the Passover feast every year. They were told to eat unleavened bread, lamb, and put the blood over the doorpost.
That day God would send the final plague to Egypt. He will kill the first born sons of whichever house did not have the blood of the lamb. V.13 the blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destruction will touch you when you pass over Egypt.
This image of the lamb is not unique to this story. Although the people of Israel saw this and remembered how God delivered the people of Israel, it also had a deeper and more profound meaning.
In Genesis 22, Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son. Isaac asked where is the lamb? Abraham replied God will provide the lamb.
As we go through the Old Testament, the sacrificial system, the lamb was used as a way to take the sins of people. But this was an imperfect sacrifice. God needed a perfect sacrifice.
John 1:29-30 John the Baptist cried out Jesus is Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Matthew 26:17-30 Jesus takes the bread and the wine… the traditional Passover feast. But there is no lamb. Jesus is the lamb.
Whenever we do communion, we are in a sense celebrating the Passover feast. But we are not just doing that, we have a fuller understanding of what God intended by his revealing the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
Revelation 5:6-10 The Lamb looking as if it had been slain
God was moving us throughout the bible towards this final event where the Lamb of God is not only sacrificed but also glorified. The communion we take is a remembrance and a reminder that we Christ is the lamb that was slain and that we now share in his victory.