Saturday, April 11, 2009

49-09

Exodus 12: 1-14 NIV
The Passover 1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb [a] for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire—head, legs and inner parts. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD's Passover.
12 "On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 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 destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
14 "This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD -a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat—that is all you may do.

Since Pesach (Passover) begins today, I thought I would use some Scripture from Exodus. Today I urge you to read the story in the Book of Exodus Chapters 12 through 15. This is when Moses led the Jewish people from bondage in Egypt to their freedom in the Promised Land. God showed his favor to His people. This is a story of deliverance. If you get a chance, do some research on the Seder meal that Jewish people observe. The Passover story reminds us all that God is still with us even through our trials and tribulations.

In this story, the Bible tells us that God inflicted ten plagues upon the Egyptians before Pharaoh decided to release the Israelites. The tenth plague was the killing of firstborn sons. God instructed the Hebrews to mark the doorposts of their homes with the blood of a lamb. When the Spirit of the Lord would see the blood over the doorposts, these homes would be passed over - therefore the term was called "passover." You can read a lot more about it in the Bible. So dust off that Bible and read your Word! Actually your Bible shouldn't be dusty but I won't get into that right now.

Tomorrow is Good Friday for believers. It is when Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Let us observe Good Friday with thankfulness that God was willing to sacrifice His only Son for us. But never forget that Jesus rose again in 3 days and He is alive and well! Hope you all have a wonderful Resurrection Sunday and reflect on what Jesus paid for us but also that He lives in us!