Passover

I love Passover. I love its sights, sounds, and smells. I love to think about our people, the chosen seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, leaving Egypt for the land God had promised He would give to their decedents, filled with unspeakable joy at knowing their bondage was over. God had a calling for the people of Israel to fulfill, a calling they have today and throughout all their generations.
Of course God had made a plan long before that, when Adam and Eve rebelled in the Garden against Him, deciding to do things their own way. We all remember the series of events: they ate the forbidden fruit, saw that they were naked, and in shame tried to cover themselves with leaves to hide from God. How very sad indeed. And of course they remembered what God had told them: eat the fruit of the Tree of Life and you will die. I wonder if they really thought leaves could hide them.
We know that the leaves would in no way cover their nakedness. Oh, perhaps they would have lasted for a few hours, maybe even a day. But when it got down to it, no covering they could produce was of any value. It was God who in His mercy made them clothing of animal skins. Imagine their horror at seeing a few animals (for which they had been responsible) now dead heaps of bloody meat. God had provided a covering for their sin and shame, but it required the shedding of innocent blood. Was this what awaited them?
Many years later, after establishing His chosen people from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He heard their cries as they were bitterly enslaved, and God would answer with the sending of a deliverer, Moshe. Moshe heard from God: have the people slaughter a perfect, spotless lamb, just as God himself had slaughtered animals for Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness and shame.
The lamb was an instrument of redemption for Israel. A spotless, pure lamb would be sacrificed, and its blood smeared over the doorpost. It was this blood on the doorpost what would be seen by the Angel of Death, the blood that would serve as a sign that inside were people who had been redeemed and the blood that would guarantee: anyone behind the door that night would live to leave Egypt. The blood would be smeared over the entirety of the doorpost, not just a three spot splotching of blood, as many believe. It covered the entire doorpost.
It’s interesting to note here that the doorpost is shaped like the Hebrew letter “chet”, which is on either side of the title of the article. It’s particularly interesting that this letter is the first in the word “chayim” which means life. Even that letter itself stands for the word life in Hebrew. So you see, when they saw the blood on the post, they not only knew it was the blood of redemption: they knew that blood means life, as said in Leviticus 17:11. I would encourage you to read the passage, especially in light of Yeshua’s blood atonement, which doesn’t just cover us, our nakedness and shame, but washes away the guilt and removes the shame, because we have life in Him, the spotless Lamb. God had once again made the sacrifice for us because we were unable to make a covering for ourselves. Covering? Not anymore. This perfect sacrifice doesn’t just cover our shame, but it washes clean the stain of sin for all who believe.