Thursday, February 15, 2018
Exodus 12:13 And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
The Israelites were to slaughter the lamb on the fourteenth day, catch the blood and spread it on the doorposts of the house where they were eating. In this way the entire house was made a kind of altar, and those inside were safe, for the Lord would pass over that house when He visited the land in judgment. The blood of the Lamb made all the difference.
So also on Calvary judgment came upon the sin of all mankind, but it was the blood of the Lamb that was spilled so that we might be safe.
Here is the true Passover Lamb, Whom God so freely gave us;
He's offered on the accursed tree-- So strong His love-- to save us.
See, His blood doth mark our door. Faith points to it, Death passes o'er.
Destruction cannot touch us.
That stanza is from an early Easter hymn by Martin Luther. In fact, all but one of the hymns in The Lutheran Hymnal that name the Passover or the Paschal Lamb are not Lenten but Easter hymns.
What a message is here! When the Children of Israel were preparing for the first Passover, it was a time of joy and deliverance. They knew about bitterness and death, but the lamb would suffer that death in their place.
During Lent we mourn our sins, as we should every day, but we want our hearts to be fixed on the deliverance from those sins, which was accomplished at another Passover, the one which all the other Passover festivals prefigured, when the God's Lamb was sacrificed to deliver us all!
