PRAY

Show me Your glory, I pray.
Exodus 33:18

READ

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbour in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it…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.
Exodus 12:1-4, 7

Do you remember a day that you felt was like a new beginning? Perhaps it was the day you graduated, turned 21, got married, had a baby, retired, went for counseling, started a new business. It was for you a red-letter day, a day you will always remember. Or, perhaps you are still waiting for a new beginning.

Today’s scripture marks that new day for Israel, a day she is always to remember. It is a day so great, so momentous that it calls for a new calendar, a new reckoning of time. The Lord commands the Israelites that the day “mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you.” It is a day every family sacrifices a lamb, paints its blood on the doorposts of their houses, and eats the Passover meal. It is for them a new beginning, a whole new start, as the Lord judges Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt in order to liberate His people.

As Christians, we celebrate the new beginning as the day Christ was sacrificed as our Passover Lamb. The apostle Paul triumphantly declares: “For our Passover Lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7b). We saw earlier in this devotional [February 26] that the Israelites in the Exodus story are “types” (Greek: tupos) of you and me living the Christian life. The things that happened to the Israelites in the Exodus “happened to them to serve as an example (tupos), and they were written down to instruct us” (1 Corinthians 10:11). The freeing of Israelites from the bondage of Egypt is a type, or foreshadowing, of God freeing us from the bondage of sin and death. It is through Christ that we are liberated to new life.

When we celebrate Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, we are celebrating Christ as our Passover Lamb who sacrificed His life so that we might live in the freedom of His love. We eat the bread and drink the cup, joyfully proclaiming: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). That marks for us our red-letter day, the beginning of our new life through Christ our Passover Lamb.

REFLECT

• Do you feel that God, through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, has given you a new beginning, a new life? Talk to God about your answer.

• Take a few moments to reflect on God’s wondrous truth: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).