A SUBSTITUTIONARY SACRIFICE

 As the promise of certain death hung in the air, Moses announced God’s grace… great grace, amazing grace.

“Select an animal of the flock according to their fathers' families, one animal per family” (Exodus 12:3). God was specific. No ordinary lamb would suffice. “You must have an unblemished animal, a year-old male” (Exodus 12:5).

This lamb, Moses explained, would become a substitutionary sacrifice. This “year-old male” would be sacrificed so that the deadly effects of the tenth plague wouldn’t visit their home and family. The lamb would die so that the “firstborn male” (Exodus 11:5) would live.

Moses reported God’s clear directions. Every family among the Hebrew people was to acquire an unblemished lamb on the tenth day of the month. The were to keep the lamb in their homes until the fourteenth.

Have you ever seen a baby lamb? They’re adorable. In four days, everyone in the house had taken turns holding it, playing with it, falling in love with it. The kids named the little fella. Fluffy. Wooly. Marshmallow. Prince Wooliam.  

On the fourteenth day, at nightfall, every Israelite family was required to “slaughter the animals” (Exodus 12:6), catching some of its blood in a basin. Then, the blood was to be applied to their home, “on the two doorposts and above the door of each house” (Exodus 12:7, CEV). Later that night, when Death came to visit, he would see the blood of the substitutionary sacrifice, and “pass-over.”

When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he announced… “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). The unblemished Jesus came to earth to become our substitutionary sacrifice. He died so that we could live. When His sinless blood is applied to our lives, death will “pass-over.”

“Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7, NLT)

Thank you, Lord!

“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).