The season of Passover and Resurrection is always such a special time.
I want to identify some key ideas and share some reflections with you about the significance of resurrection. (You will find additional in-depth, systematic teaching on the subjects by Dwight in our MP3 audio store: Misconceptions About Jesus and the Passover and Atonement, the Lord’s Supper, and Baptism.)
According to the apostolic witness of the New Testament, the resurrection is foundational to our faith. In my experience, it is, however, something that Christians seldom mention or think deeply about. We tend to put it exclusively in the category of “going to heaven.” I want to look at what it means to be “in Jesus.” To live like living stones, being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Pet 2:5).
What are the implications of Jesus’ resurrection in our lives?
To set the stage, let’s begin with Exodus chapter 12, which tells the story of Passover. The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you (1-2).
Interestingly, this is the seventh month (Nisan) in the Hebrew calendar. What’s going on? First, recognize that from God’s point of view, this is a biblical way of telling time and, therefore, warrants our attention. Second, it emphasizes that eternal life begins with rebirth. Israel was to consider the season of their salvation as the start of their new life. The seventh month would now inaugurate their new year.
Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old, […] and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight (3, 5-6). Their new life begins with the shedding of innocent blood.
Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it (7). Visually, the blood on the doorposts (side to side) and the lintel (up above) form the Hebrew letter chet, which is also the word for sin. You apply the blood to sin.
They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it (8). To this day, the three biblical essentials for a Passover remembrance meal are a representation of the lamb, unleavened bread (matzah), and bitter herbs (maror).
You shall let none of it remain until the morning […]. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand (10-11). Why? Because you have to be ready to go. Judgment will pass over you. Then you will rise and pass over from slavery to freedom, from death to life. So be prepared.
It is the LORD’s [YHWH’s] Passover (11). Make a note of that. Too often in the history of our faith, we tend to talk about the Jewish feasts. These are God the Father’s appointed times (moa’dim). They played a crucial role in His Son’s faith and practice, and as such, they are part of our heritage.
I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD (12). Let’s be clear: even the Egyptians were under the tyranny of Pharaoh’s lies. God’s actions to free His people struck at the underlying cause of their captivity: the gods of Egypt.
The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. 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 (13). The Hebrew word for sign here is significant. I will come back to that in a moment.
This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread […] for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever (14-15, 17).
These historical, redemptive events are also prefigurative.
In other words, these salvific events in the past point to something that will happen again in the future. Namely, they tell of a coming redemption from enslavement to sin and death. When the Redeemer, Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, comes, he will offer himself as the Lamb of God—the perfect sacrifice—who takes away the sin of the world!
The salvation of Israel from Egypt was real; it occurred in space and time and was, by faith, to be remembered and relived from that moment on. Yet, at the same time, they prefigure and point to something even greater yet to come. I want you to see this with fresh eyes from the texts we have been reading.
The blood shall be a sign for you.
We saw this idea in Exodus 12:13, but let’s go deeper. Do you think God needed a visual marker to know who was covered by the blood? Of course not. He is all-knowing. He knew who was in the covenant and who was not. God did not need a sign. It was for them; it is for you.
The Hebrew word for sign is ōt, and it is quite interesting. The two letters are the aleph and the tav, the first and the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The blood of the lamb is going to be the sign for you—the aleph and tav, or in Greek, the alpha and omega.
In these Exodus events, there is a prefiguring of the One who will come in the Name of the LORD. His blood will be the blood of the beginning and the end (Rev 22:13). The blood of Jesus is a sign for his people, for you.
The text in Exodus 12 tells us there were two congruent celebrations, Passover on the 14th and Unleavened Bread, which started on the 15th and lasted one week. Initially, these were distinguished. Later in Jewish history, as we see in the Gospels, they will cohere together as one. But at this point, we can make a clear distinction. Passover occurs on the 14th day of the seventh month.
Not long before Jesus set his course towards that last, fateful Passover in Jerusalem, he asked his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” (Matt 16:15-18).
On the rock of the revelation of my identity and teaching, said Jesus, I will build my people, my church. His shed blood is a sign of his identity and the new covenant. We are, in response, to be his faithful witnessing community. By our conduct and worship, love for one another, and good works, our lives are to bear witness to the truth of the Lamb of God.
And the gates of hell shall not prevail against us.
