Leviticus 23:5 … “In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’S passover. “

“Passover” translates the Hebrew “pesah,” a noun with a verbal root meaning exactly what one would expect, “to pass over” or once in the Bible (King James Version), “to leap.” (As when the death angel passed over every home where the blood had been applied as God instructed!)

The Feast of Passover is intricately linked with the Feast of Unleavened Bread (as we shall see tomorrow morning). But for today, verse 5 is our Text.

“In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’S passover. “

God has placed Passover at the first of the Jewish year. Their year begins in “April,” so to speak. Ours, in January! (You could just as well say their year begins around Easter! The Resurrection!)

Why?

The Passover is a dramatic Picture of Jesus and His Death of Calvary! It is to us Christians a symbol of our very salvation, the day we were confronted with the Blood of the Lamb of God! The Day we applied that Blood, when we were “washed” in that Blood!

And for any of us … THAT DAY was the beginning of life, eternal life! The first month of our years of living for Jesus!

Exodus 12 supplies us a lot of information (details) Leviticus 23 merely intimates. The Lamb that was slain that fateful night long ago (as the Jews left Egypt) was to be “without blemish!” (Exodus 12:5) Jesus too was sinless, spotless!

Then too, that lamb was chosen on the tenth day of the month and closely watched until the day he was to be slain, the fourteenth day of the month. (To prove it was perfect, qualified, spotless.) Just as Jesus was watched from His thirtieth year until His thirty-third year … proving to all that He too was “without blemish!” (1 Peter 1:19 speaks of … “The precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Amen!)

Pilate could find “no fault” in Jesus! God the Father was (still is) constantly “well pleased” with His Son! Judas come to declare that he had betrayed “innocent Blood.” Even the heathen Centurion who crucified Jesus said that the Lord was indeed “the Son of God!”

In 2 Corinthians 5:21 Jesus “knew no sin.” In 1 Peter 2:22 He “did no sin.” And in 1 John 3:5 we learn “In Him is no sin.”

Wow!

Here’s another “progression” in the Passover Accounts of Scripture.

In Exodus 12:3 every man is to get “a lamb.” By verse 4 it is “the lamb.” (More specific, a single lamb!) Then by verse 5 it is called “your lamb!” (Possessing and personalizing the little innocent lamb!)

Listen … is Jesus to you just “a lamb?” Or is He “the Lamb?” Better yet (if you want to go to Heaven) is Jesus “YOUR LAMB?”

Passover … God has invited “whosoever will” to come and eat!

Notice too (way back to Leviticus 23:5 now) … the lamb was to be eaten in the “evening.” When things for Israel were very dark (both literally and spiritually) … that’s when the Lamb was to be slain and eaten! And its blood applied!

I someone reading here this morning who is in the “dark?” Experiencing a particularly foreboding time of life? Come to the Lamb of God! Meet Jesus as Saviour … experience and personalize (and trust) His saving Death for you!

Then your darkness will turn to light!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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