The Exodus (Part 2): The Passover

THE PASSOVER – p. 2

Exodus 12:14-20; 43-51

The Exodus

We began last week with the seminal event of the Book of Exodus which is the Exodus!

-The Passover

-The 10th and Final Plague

-The Leaving of Egypt

-The Crossing of the Red Sea

Last week we began to look at the Passover –

-12:1-13 – The Instructions for the Passover

-12:14-27; 43-51; 13:1-16 – The Instructions for the Commemoration of the

Passover

-There’s only one Passover – the others are memorials to that one and only

Passover.

-The importance of the Passover is seen just in the amount of Scripture that is

given to instruct them on how to remember it –

-12:28-32 – The Passover Account and 10th Plague

So much Scripture is given for the commemoration of the Passover that we have to take

one message to deal with it!

Read

Pray

The Passover Commemoration

Verse 14 outlines the 3 big ideas of the Passover Commemoration –

-v. 14 – “The 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.”

1 – It is to be an annual memorial day

-This is the first time in the Bible that God’s people are instructed to observe an

annual celebration.

-This is so very important because of what we saw last week, that the

Passover (and the Exodus) was the beginning of a nation of people.

-New calendar, new identity, new life – New Beginning!

-In that beginning we see the importance of remembering culture shaping

events – like the Passover.

-As Christians, we see the wisdom of this reflected in our annual calendar –

-Every year we celebrate Christmas –

-Because the Incarnation is a massive and huge shaping, forming and

creative event for Christians.

-Every year we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus –

-We remember the crucifixion of Jesus on Good Friday.

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-Your family sees the wisdom of this –

-You celebrate birthdays; anniversaries; maybe other significant and life

shaping or life altering events.

-We see the wisdom of this on a national level –

-We celebrate Thanksgiving, Independence Day, Memorial Day, etc.

-And, in the seeing of the importance of such commemorations, we see the

foolishness of destroying or defacing of statues, memorials, and historical

landmarks.

-Ill.

-Ill.

2 – It is to be a celebratory feast –

-Two times it is referred to as a “feast” in verse 14 –

-A feast gives us the idea of a celebration –

-Celebrate the families being spared the wrath of God in plague 10 –

-Celebrate God delivering them from the Egyptians –

-This celebration we will see was to be a week in length –

3 – It is to be remembered throughout all generations, forever –

-That tells us that the celebration involved the whole family –

-The observance was to be passed down from generation to generation.

-And remembered forever!

-The Passover can be remembered forever because Jesus is the fulfillment of it!

-He is celebrated every second or every minute of every hour of every day of

every week of every month of every year of year decade…!

Commemoration Instructions

1 – The commemoration observance was to be seven days (one week) in length –

-Think about this in contrast to the original Passover…

-The original Passover was to be eaten in haste!

-Everything about the meal was to communicate the eager desire to

leave Egypt…

-But the observance of it was to be one week in length –

-Keep in mind that the observance was done in response to God’s redemptive work

in the first and only Passover.

-God’s redemptive work in the Passover brought about a change in His

people’s way of life –

-Your way of life is better represented in a week than a day or evening.

2 – No leavened (yeasted) bread could be prepared or eaten –

-This is the main feature of the commemoration –

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-The sacrifice was the feature of the Passover, but the absence of leaven and

the eating of only unleavened bread is the feature of the celebration –

-I say this because of the attention unleavened bread receives in the narrative

and because of penalty for disobedience.

-Consider the texts that talk about the Passover observance –

-12:15-20 –

-The Passover observance is called “The Feast of Unleavened Bread”!

-13:3-16 –

-v. 6 – “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread…”

-Exodus 34:18-21 –

-v.18 – “You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread…”

-Leviticus 23:4-8 –

-v. 6 – “And on the fifteenth day of the month is the Feast of

Unleavened Bread to the LORD; for seven days you shall eat unleavened

bread.”

-Numbers 9:1-14 –

-v. 11 – “…they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs…”

-Deuteronomy 16:1-8 –

-v. 3 – “You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall

eat it with unleavened bread…”

-Joshua 5:10-12 –

-This is the first observance of Passover in the land of Canaan and it

says in the observance they “ate cakes of unleavened bread.”

-Consider the penalty for eating leavened bread during the commemoration –

-v. 19 – “For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone

eats what is leavened that person will be cut off from the congregation of

Israel…”

-It is debated what "cut off from the congregation” means –

-Thrown out of country

-Capital punishment – the death penalty

-Whatever it means it is clearly severe!

-Not only should they not eat leaven but their houses had to be clean from it –

-Dr. Douglas Stuart – “Yeast in Bible times referred to the spores of yeast

themselves, and, as well, what is called ‘starter dough’, that is, fermented

dough. It was made in various ways. One was by airing out dough in the sun

(to pick up the airborne yeast spores) after dipping it in wine or vinegar and

storing it in a closed vessel until it went sour (fermented). Another method

was to knead flour and water, add salt, boil the mix into porridge, and then

leave it until it went sour. Because yeast spores can migrate easily, dough can

easily become yeasted naturally, thus the need to cleanse the house of yeast

so that what was intended to be unleavened bread doesn’t turn out accidently

to be leavened.”

-Two reasons they were to be rid of leaven during the commemoration –

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-One – That was the kind of bread they prepared and ate at the original

Passover.

-They ate in haste – no time for bread to leaven – so the unleavened or

flat bread was what they ate.

-Two – Leaven came to represent sin –

-Or to be more specific, it came to represent the life and ways of Egypt.

-God delivered them from the land of Egypt and from the ways of

Egypt!

-Delivered from their gods

-Delivered from their worship

-Delivered from their values

-This is so important!

-God redeemed them from the land of Egypt and from the ways

of Egypt!

-This is why the feast was without yeast and one week in length.

-Let me say it again so we don’t miss this –

-Deliverance from Egypt was more than a change in geography – it was a

change of life!

3 – The first and last days of the week were assemblies –

-v. 16 – “On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a

holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to

eat, that alone may be prepared by you.”

-Here’s how it was observed –

-Twilight on the 14th day would be the Feast of Unleavened Bread –

-The day ended at sundown.

-The 15th day of the month was the first assembly day feast.

-The 21st day of the month was the last assembly day feast.

-Those two days were not observed like Sabbath days –

-The work at was done on those days related to the feasts.

-The week, with it’s two assemblies were mingling of both solemn observance and

joyful celebration.

-A solemn observance –

-Deut. 16:8 – “For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the

seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD your God.”

-A joyful celebration –

-2 Chron. 30:21 – “And the people of Israel who were present at

Jerusalem kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with great

gladness, and the Levites and the priests praise the LORD day by day,

singing with all their might to the LORD.”

-Ezra 6:22 – “And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days

with joy, for the LORD mad them joyful…”

-Ezekiel 45:21 – “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the

month, you shall celebrate the Feast of the Passover…”

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-Maybe you think that it sounds a bit of a contradiction –

-How can you have a solemn observance and a joyful celebration?

-We do the same thing –

-We have a solemn observance of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.

-We think deeply about the price paid by Jesus for our

redemption.

-We sit in silence as we think of the horrors of crucifixion, the

pain and suffering of our Passover Lamb – Jesus Christ.

-Then we celebrate the reality of an empty tomb!

-He is risen! He has overcome death and He brings to us eternal

life!

4 – The Redemption of the Firstborn –

-Exodus 12:43-13:16

-13:1,2 – “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is

the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is

mine.’”

-read 13:11-16

-Passover had to do with the redemption of firstborn males –

-It was the firstborn of the Egyptians that God kills in the last plague.

-It was the firstborn son and firstborn male animals were concentrated to the

LORD or redeemed.

-The animals sacrificed.

-The sons were to become priests, however, at the Golden Calf incident

as recorded in Exodus 32, the Levites are selected to be the priests.

-Numbers 18:16 instructs the father to pay 5 shekels of silver to redeem the

firstborn son.

The Passover Observance and Us

1 – There was one true Passover, then many observances –

-The Passover focused on the sacrifice of the lamb –

-The selection of the lamb

-The slaying of the lamb

-The supper of the lamb

-The Passover observances focused on the life the Passover purchased –

-It was a life out of Egypt!

-It was a life out of sin – that’s why it was “The Feast of Unleavened Bread”

-In the same way, we receive the sacrifice of Jesus one time –

-Then the rest of our lives are to be lived in light of that sacrifice.

2 – The purpose of the annual remembrance of Passover was two-fold –

-One – To remember what God did in the Passover!

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-12:24-27

-13:14-15

-Two – To celebrate the new life God gave them in the Exodus – to celebrate

redemption!

3 – The entire Passover remembrance can only be celebrated without sin –

-That’s why to key feature of the Passover observance was no leaven –

-Its name became “The Feast of Unleavened Bread”