I cannot separate the Passover from its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Exodus 12:21-32
Our focal passage skips ahead to the tenth and final plague, a plague that God gave specific instructions to His people how to avoid it. Those instructions, the Passover meal and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, would identify His people forever as a reminder how He rescued them from slavery. Today, we realize that Jesus is the True Passover Lamb.
Keep this command permanently as a statute for you and your descendants. (12:24)
When We Studied This in 2017
Lifeway chose the first part of the chapter when we went through Exodus the last time; you may want to read my post on it for context. Here are the other things I cover:
Local festivals
When you're not prepared
Where the Lord's Supper fits in the Seder
Bible Project video on "sacrifice"
Jewish calendar
blood sacrifice
good eating habits
the Passover Lamb
If you think I've missed something below, it might be because I covered it in this other post!
Getting Started: Things to Think About
Your Favorite Christmas Traditions
[Note: the Lifeway material has a version of this idea.] What's your favorite family Christmas tradition? And the follow-up is something like What does it mean? Why is it important to you? Where did it come from?
Growing up in Houston, our bizarre tradition was to invite family friends over for dinner, Trivial Pursuit, and a full singing of The Twelve Days of Christmas with props. (And Ginger Ale mixed with orange sherbet.) Never missed a year.
[The Lifeway version of this idea includes comparing traditions, which sounds like fun. It also asks how hard it is to change a holiday tradition, which is a great question. I might push that even further: what causes you to change a holiday tradition?]
And then you can back it out to your favorite church Christmas tradition. Our church has a number of Christmas traditions -- the hanging of the green service, the advent wreath, our Drive-Through Nativity (more on this below), the Christmas Eve service with the Lord's Supper, and several more. Several of our Sunday School classes have longstanding Christmas traditions. What's your favorite, and why?
Awed by the Power of God
The obvious first thought is still hurricane Helene; I'm still grappling with the power of that storm. (Asheville just got safe tap water back a few weeks ago.) Maybe we can set that one aside for the sake of variety.
Fresh on my mind is just basic weather. The rain came in on Monday, and it's still raining as I type this on Wednesday. Editor's addition: a few minutes after I typed this, someone came in with a frantic "the wind's really picking up out there". And they weren't kidding. The first picture is simply of a soaked set in the rain on Wednesday morning. That's what I thought I was using as my illustration for this topic. The second picture was taken less than two hours later when the rain and clouds had been completely blown out of the region, along with one of our sets! Those were some pretty nasty gusts of wind! (Incidentally, that's why you're not getting this until Thursday; my Wednesday was shot.)
My original idea for this topic was something like, "A regular run-of-the-mill rain can wreak havoc on our plans. If God chose to flex even the tiniest weather muscle, we would all be doomed." I promise I wasn't testing God.
Those were certainly stronger-than-normal wind gusts for this time of year, but they were nothing compared with what God could do. In fact, in a couple of weeks we will read about a powerful wind that could push the waters of the Red Sea back into a wall. (!!)
What's a time you were awed by God's power?
(Note: I use a "go bag" later in this post; it's connected to this idea.)
Humans Determined to Ignore the Power of God
I can't help but mention this story that got a lot of circulation last week -- the most expensive home in America ($295M) is guaranteed to flood, having been built at sea level on a tiny peninsula. They don't seem to have found a buyer yet.
In this week's passage, we see the most terrifying display of God's power in the final plague on Egypt. Humans could not stand against this power -- salvation could be found only in observing God's instructions.
Your Favorite Meal Traditions
Here's a topic that has nothing to do with Christmas (if you study this passage at a different time of the year) and is a little more upbeat: what's your favorite "meal tradition"? My family is developing more and more traditions -- taco Tuesday, pizza Thursday, hamburger Saturday, crab leg Valentine's Day, not-turkey Thanksgiving Day. We take great joy in our traditions.
To be fair, I grew up in a family with more traditional meal traditions -- black eyed peas on New Year's, 18 different kinds of casseroles on Thanksgiving and Christmas, birthday cake on a birthday. What are your meal traditions, and which ones do you actually like?
This week's passage is about the most important meal tradition in human history (and no, I'm not exaggerating) -- Passover. It's the annual meal that pointed us to Jesus and gave us the Lord's Supper. If you take "meal traditions" seriously, this week is a chance to make sure that you take the Lord's Supper more seriously than your own traditions.
Your Bad Eating Habits
I used this in 2017, but it's such a fun topic. What are your bad eating habits? I have terrible habits of eating quickly, eating while standing up, and not eating. If you use this topic, you have to go into some detail about the Passover meal -- a meal in which God instructs some "bad eating habits" mainly because this isn't a meal to be "enjoyed" as much as it is to symbolize the urgency of His people's situation.
This Week's Big Idea: Passover / Seder / Lord's Supper
This week's focal passage doesn't cover all of these things, but I think this is very important. Here's the start of Exodus 12:
12:1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month is to be the beginning of months for you; it is the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers’ families, one animal per family. 4 If the household is too small for a whole animal, that person and the neighbor nearest his house are to select one based on the combined number of people; you should apportion the animal according to what each will eat. 5 You must have an unblemished animal, a year-old male; you may take it from either the sheep or the goats. 6 You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight. 7 They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them. 8 They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or cooked in boiling water, but only roasted over fire—its head as well as its legs and inner organs. 10 You must not leave any of it until morning; any part of it left until morning you must burn. 11 Here is how you must eat it: You must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry; it is the Lord’s Passover.
12 “I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, both people and animals. I am the Lord; I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. 13 The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will be among you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
14 “This day is to be a memorial for you, and you must celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. You are to celebrate it throughout your generations as a permanent statute. 15 You must eat unleavened bread for seven days. On the first day you must remove yeast from your houses. Whoever eats what is leavened from the first day through the seventh day must be cut off from Israel. 16 You are to hold a sacred assembly on the first day and another sacred assembly on the seventh day. No work may be done on those days except for preparing what people need to eat—you may do only that.
A few things to know:
Passover -- refers to God's provision so that the angel of death would "pass over" their houses and not strike their firstborn males in this tenth plague.
The Passover Lamb -- is what the Israelites were to sacrifice so as to spare their children from death, a substitute for their own family.
The Passover Meal -- is the meal in which the family ate the roasted Passover Lamb while they were prepared to flee from Egypt.
The Seder -- "seder" is Hebrew for "procedure", so the "seder meal" is just the name for the first meal of the Passover with all of its instructions.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread -- is the seven-day festival that begins with the Passover meal and symbolizes that the people had no time to wait for yeast to rise.
I've mentioned that every few years, Pastor David hosts a Seder meal on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week to show us all of the ways that the Passover meal points to Jesus.
I'm not going to give you David's resource for that meal (because I want you to come and be a part of it the next time we host it!), but if you do have questions, here's a reasoned webpage that goes into all kinds of details (and even gives recipes!):
(If you want to be amazed by symbolism, look up the "afikomen".)
In particular, note what the "cups" represent and which one Jesus used during the Lord's Supper.
No matter how much or little detail you go into, the main point is that the Passover points to Jesus. And in fact, Jesus is our Passover. Here's an article from The Gospel Coalition:
And if you want to listen to a podcast on the subject, here is one from The Bible Project:
So, this defining moment in Israel's history actually pointed them forward to a day when God would send the perfect Passover Lamb, His Son (Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world), to be our substitute to be saved not from slavery to Egypt, but slavery to sin -- and sin leads to death.
If You Don't Have a Substitute....
Outsiders rightly complain about the severity of this plague -- the terrible price paid by the firstborn male child. But realize this: if the Egyptian family had followed God's instructions for the Passover, they too would have been spared. And if any Israelite family didn't follow the instructions, they would not have been spared.
The "point" being made is that sin (rebellion and disobedience) has a price, and that price is death. The parents and siblings would face judgment for their own sin, but the symbolism of the firstborn son is what God is focused on at the moment:
4:22 And you will say to Pharaoh: This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son. 23 I told you: Let my son go so that he may worship me, but you refused to let him go. Look, I am about to kill your firstborn son!
Even then, Pharaoh could have called off his rebellion. God warned him it would cost him his own son. But Pharaoh refused. Pharaoh did not accept a substitute for his own sin, and thus he paid his own price.
And that's really what all of this is pointing toward: Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God.
The Jewish sacrificial system is based on the idea of "substitution" -- the sacrifice absorbs the punishment due the person making the sacrifice. All of that begins here with the Passover. But the author of Hebrews realized that the sacrifice of an animal by a sinful person could never perfectly atone for sin. Only a perfect sacrifice by a sinless person could do that. And on this side of the cross, we realize that the Passover pointed us to the only truth that made sense: God's own perfect Son would sacrifice Himself to save us from the angel of death (more on this below):
Heb 9:24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with hands (only a model of the true one) but into heaven itself, so that he might now appear in the presence of God for us. 25 He did not do this to offer himself many times, as the high priest enters the sanctuary yearly with the blood of another. 26 Otherwise, he would have had to suffer many times since the foundation of the world. But now he has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment— 28 so also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
We, too, have "instructions" to follow if we are to avoid this punishment:
Rom 10:9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
But the sacrifice has already been made. The blood has already been spilled. All we do today is claim that sacrifice for ourselves.
Connection with the Lord's Supper
Jesus made sure His disciples understood how the Passover pointed to Him, and we've studied that multiple times. But more to the point, He gave them a "new Passover" to share, demonstrating that the original Passover had been fulfilled in Him. This is what we call the Lord's Supper. I've already taken too long with this section, so I'll just point you to some other times we have previously studied this connection:
All of this to say that the setting for this week's passage is incredibly important for understanding what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
Where We Are in Exodus
A lot has happened since last week's passage (when God first sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh). God reiterated to Moses that God would indeed rescue His people from Egypt, and Moses had to keep going back to Pharaoh. God also said that Pharaoh would continue to reject Moses' request -- a picture of humanity's stubborn rebellion against a holy God.
Thus, the ten plagues.
This one-page chart from Bible Charts explains the progression of the plagues -- the reaction of Pharaoh, the response of the magicians, the effect on the people, etc.
It draws more connections with the Egyptian pantheon than I gave last week, and that's fine.
We group the plagues in three groups of three, and that leaves the tenth plague as something unique (and devastating). Moses warned Pharaoh:
Ex 11:4 This is what the Lord says: About midnight I will go throughout Egypt, 5 and every firstborn male in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the servant girl who is at the grindstones, as well as every firstborn of the livestock. 6 Then there will be a great cry of anguish through all the land of Egypt such as never was before or ever will be again. 7 But against all the Israelites, whether people or animals, not even a dog will snarl, so that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.
The final plague is distinguished by the fact that God gave specific rules by which His people could avoid it, namely the Passover feast -- in which the families sacrifice a special lamb, "paint" the threshold with its blood, and roast the meat for a meal.
Importantly, God gives the people strict orders to remember this event every year. The Feast of Unleavened Bread would become the first annual festival on the Jewish calendar (the others being the Feast of Weeks/Pentecost, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles); all of their initial festivals were associated with the Exodus event.
The week's passage picks up with Moses telling the people what to do.
Part 1: The Passover Command (Exodus 12:21-23)
21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go, select an animal from the flock according to your families, and slaughter the Passover animal. 22 Take a cluster of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and brush the lintel and the two doorposts with some of the blood in the basin. None of you may go out the door of his house until morning. 23 When the Lord passes through to strike Egypt and sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, he will pass over the door and not let the destroyer enter your houses to strike you.
This is by far the most terrifying of the plagues. God is going to "come down to Egypt" and cause a group of individuals to cease to be alive. No description, no method -- they will simply stop living. God doesn't have to send a disease, an army, or a disaster; at His will, those people will die.
This is the proof that God is the true power of the universe; He gives life, and He takes life away, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop Him.
(And the question that the terrified people were to ask themselves is "what, then, can we do to be saved?")
The imagery is just vague enough to be even more frightening. God will be traveling through Egypt with "the destroyer", which is a Hebrew construction that's basically "personification of destruction". God has given this destroyer a "target", and He will point out specific houses the destroyer can and cannot enter. The houses that escape this destruction will be those in which the families have obeyed God's strict rules:
slaughter a sacrificial lamb,
paint the blood of that lamb over the doorway
when I see the blood, I will pass over you. (12:13)
This is the beginning of Israel's sacrificial system -- an innocent animal being killed as a substitute for the penalty of your sin (which is death). According to the author of Hebrews, the Jewish people should have seen immediately that such a system pointed to a once-for-all perfect sacrifice. A perfect sacrifice by a perfect priest could only mean one thing.
Heb 10:3 But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Therefore, as he was coming into the world, he said: You did not desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me. 6 You did not delight in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings. 7 Then I said, “See— it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, God.” 8 After he says above, You did not desire or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole burnt offerings and sin offerings (which are offered according to the law), 9 he then says, See, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. 10 By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. 11 Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins. 12 But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.
Back to the Israelites. I am certain that this commend of a sacrifice would have been traumatic for a family, especially the children. That's the point. Sacrifice has to mean something -- just as God's sacrifice of His own Son meant everything.
(Much later in Israel's history when the sacrificial system became an industry, God would send prophets to warn them how far their hearts had drifted from the purpose of the sacrifice.)
Explain/Describe the Passover Meal
I don't how much or little you will need to talk about this, which is why I gave a section about it above. Say as much as necessary so that everyone in your group understands what happened during this Passover meal. If you have attended a "Christian Seder", by all means share some of the thing you learned about how that meal pointed to Jesus. If you want to be the cool teacher, bring in some charoset!
Part 2: The Passover Observance (Exodus 12:24-28)
24 “Keep this command permanently as a statute for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, you are to observe this ceremony. 26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 you are to reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, and he spared our homes.’” So the people knelt low and worshiped. 28 Then the Israelites went and did this; they did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.
Lifeway called this section "Celebration" -- I'm pretty hesitant about that. All of the modern dictionaries agree that "celebration" is to be used for festive (joyful) occasions. If the occasion is solemn or introspective, use "observance". The Passover is about as solemn as it gets. Yes, it points to a future salvation, but at such a great cost.
God commanded the Israelites to observe Passover annually. That leads me to take serious issue with something the Lifeway material suggests -- that Passover is fulfilled in Easter. That's not true. Passover is fulfilled in the Lord's Supper.
Let's walk through this.
The original Passover was a one-time event in which God spared the firstborn sons of Israel as part of bringing them out of slavery in Egypt. Yes, that happened once, and it was to be celebrated every year. (A great question for discussion: Why would God command the Israelites to re-enact this every year?)
The easy thing is to then say, "Well, Jesus died once, and we remember that every Easter. Isn't that the perfect parallel?" Not remotely. Is there anywhere in the Bible where we are commanded to celebrate Easter on, er, Easter? Nope. When are we to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus? Every Sunday. (That's why the early Christians moved their worship service to the first day of the week, not the Jewish Sabbath.) And in the early days of the church, they celebrated the Lord's Supper every Sunday.
Early Protestants rejected the Catholic sacramentalizing of their worship services tied to the Mass (their version of the Lord's Supper), so they created some distance between their observances of the Lord's Supper. Their point was that you don't have to partake in the Lord's Supper to remember the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, and they were right! That's why we don't take the Lord's Supper every Sunday; we don't want people to give the Lord's Supper magical properties it doesn't have. But that doesn't change the fact that Jesus tells us that the Passover meal is fulfilled in the Lord's Supper.
Hoping that your group is familiar with this topic, I think you should quickly go through these questions. Put them as a chart on the board:
What does the Lord's Supper symbolize?
What are the elements of the Lord's Supper and what do they symbolize?
Why did Jesus command us to repeat the Lord's Supper?
Now, do the same thing with the Passover:
What does the Passover meal symbolize?
What are the elements of the Passover meal and what do they symbolize?
Why did God command the Israelites to repeat the Passover meal?
Those of you with children, what have you told them about the Lord's Supper?
For the Israelites, Passover was a very solemn and special time of worship, and so should the Lord's Supper be for Christians.
An Important Difference between Passover and the Lord's Supper
Passover was (is) to be shared by the entire family. There are even special roles for young children. The Lord's Supper is very different in this respect -- it is reserved for Christians. This is a contentious issue in churches that baptize infants, and thus it is a confusing issue for parents who have been connected with such a church. A person becomes a Christian when he/she trusts in the sacrifice Jesus made for his/her sin and believes that Jesus is the Son of God. Infants can't do that, and "godparents" can't do that on an infant's behalf. That's why in our church, the only children who partake in the Lord's Supper are those who have been baptized in confession of their personal faith in Jesus. Pastor David has talked with the children and their parents to confirm that the child understands what they have claimed. And then it's a very special thing when that child shares the Lord's Supper the first time!
I bring that up because the Christmas Eve service often involves visiting family members who attend another faith tradition who don't share our beliefs about the Lord's Supper and let their preschoolers join in. Sometimes this can irk the kids who have grown up here. I'll just say three things about that: (1) Christmas Eve is not the time to spark a theological conflict in someone else's family; (2) another person/family's actions do not validate or invalidate your own actions in worship; (3) the Christmas Eve Lord's Supper is our wonderful opportunity to share the gospel with everyone's families, and so we prioritize that.
This article offers a pretty good survey of the matter:
Aside: Your Go Bag
The New York Times just published this article this morning
The rules are very simple -- you need to have a bag packed with the essentials you need to survive for 72 hours including cash and copies of important documents. I'll admit that we weren't prepared for hurricane Helene; we won't make that mistake again.
Bonus Aside: The Israelite Go Bag
Some of you will astutely note that the Israelites also took all sorts of gold and precious metals from the Egyptians as they left. How could those be "essentials"?
I just have one thing to say: The Tabernacle. Ponder that.
Part 3: Victory at Great Cost (Exodus 12:29-32)
29 Now at midnight the Lord struck every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and every firstborn of the livestock. 30 During the night Pharaoh got up, he along with all his officials and all the Egyptians, and there was a loud wailing throughout Egypt because there wasn’t a house without someone dead. 31 He summoned Moses and Aaron during the night and said, “Get out immediately from among my people, both you and the Israelites, and go, worship the Lord as you have said. 32 Take even your flocks and your herds as you asked and leave, and also bless me.”
Victory belonged to God, and that was never in doubt. But what a terrible price -- every household in Egypt lost someone to sudden and inexplicable death.
Be very certain that God was not pleased with this outcome. Pharaoh's rebellion resulted in the deaths of thousands. This kind of apocalyptic backdrop makes powerful sense of Peter's word in 2 Peter:
3 Above all, be aware of this: Scoffers will come in the last days scoffing and following their own evil desires, 4 saying, “Where is his ‘coming’ that he promised? Ever since our ancestors fell asleep, all things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.” 5 They deliberately overlook this: By the word of God the heavens came into being long ago and the earth was brought about from water and through water. 6 Through these the world of that time perished when it was flooded. 7 By the same word, the present heavens and earth are stored up for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. 8 Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.
God pushes back judgment to give sinners more time to repent. Remember, God allowed His people to remain in slavery for 400 years so that the people living in the Promised Land might repent.
God did not want to bring judgment on the firstborn sons of Egypt, but the world needed (still needs!) to know that sin against God comes with a heavy cost. Everyone who dies without faith in Jesus Christ will be separate from his Creator for an eternity in hell. That's not why God created us.
But victory/salvation also comes with a heavy cost. In the Passover, that cost was the Passover lamb, which might not seem like a big deal in the scheme of things. But remember that the Passover lamb pointed us to The Passover Lamb. Our salvation comes with the highest cost that has ever been paid for anything -- the sacrificial death of the Son of God.
Of course, even now Pharaoh couldn't just let the people go. In a couple of weeks, we will read how he threw away his entire army in personal vendetta against God.
Next week, though, it's a Christmas lesson!