Dear Family,
Today is Sunday, May 12, 2024. It is Day 15 and it is Day 1 of Week 3 in our Count to Pentecost.
Have you ever imagined what it must have been like for the Israelite families to take their best little lamb, pen him up from the 10th day to the 14th day and then to kill him, roast him, and eat him? Only the hardest or most calloused of hearts could have accomplished this bloody task without some level of emotional pain.
Remember, the little lamb had to have no visible flaws (be perfect). This little lamb would have still been very energetic and playful. Penning up the lamb would have helped to ensure that he would not be subject to an accident and therefore not be a suitable sacrifice.
But, penning up the lamb would also mean that he would have to be handfed and watered. That took eye-to-eye contact. The whole congregation was to take part in the killing! Did all of the Israelites have dry eyes? Then, after the lamb was dead and the blood drained, he was roasted with his head, legs, and purternance (in essence, it was the entire lamb, including his wool and entrails). The smell would have been quite powerful.
Sometimes we simply read through the passages in Exodus regarding the Passover lamb and fail to experience it as something real. What is God saying to us as we rethink the original Passover? There are many lessons. And, how much more important is it for us to grasp the meanings in the reality of the gruesome sacrificial death of our Savior, the Perfect Lamb of God? What was Mary, His mother, feeling? What was John the beloved Apostle feeling? What do we feel as we remember the details?
It is also important to remember that the original Passover lamb was not beaten, but our Savior was. His sacrificial death was FAR more gruesome. And, the original lamb was not betrayed, taunted or mocked, but Jesus was.
Take a few moments and allow the realities of the painful price Jesus paid for us as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Appreciate God‛s GIFT of overwhelming love and commitment.
References follow.
Matthew 27:41-43 (41) Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, (42) He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. (43) He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.
Exodus 12:3-10 (3) Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: (4) And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. (5) Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: (6) And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. (7) And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. (8) And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. (9) Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. (10) And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.
Ben Faulkner, Pastor
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