A PASSOVER PATH TO DELIVERANCE
Exodus 12:3-6 (NIV 1984) 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family … The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect … Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.
After 400 years of bitter slavery, God was about to intervene. He heard His people’s cry and sent them a man of God to bring them out of a hostile land. Nine plagues later the day was at hand, and the one plague remaining would be a doozy. God would kill every firstborn male in every house of Egypt, passing over the house of any Hebrew who had the blood of a lamb placed on their doorframe. This would so dishearten Pharaoh that he would literally thrust the Hebrews out of his land, allowing them to leave unabated, for the moment, with plunder to boot. This was a deliverance for the ages, and to this day, thousands of years later, it is still celebrated as one of the Jews’ major holidays.
The deliverance was not automatic, as the Hebrew people would be given specific instructions they would have to follow; for instance, the lamb to be sacrificed was to be a pure and spotless lamb; they were to sacrifice it, spread its blood over the top and sides of their doorframes, eat its meat, and leave no leftovers; they were to get rid of all leaven in their homes; and they were to have their sandals on, cloaks tucked (for running speed), and staffs in hand. In other words, they were to be poised to leave at a moment’s notice. Having already had a few false starts, where Pharaoh psyched them out by promising deliverance and then taking it back, the people of God were required to exercise the obedience of faith. Sacrifices, among other things, were acts of worship, and while every Passover since would be a worship event pointing back to a deliverance that happened earlier, this first Passover required a worship event first that would point to a deliverance to come later.
So often we get disheartened in our obedience to the Lord because we do not think it has produced the results we think it should. Our faith fails and we secretly wonder, “why bother?” Yet, our deliverance could literally be around the corner, one act of faith-based obedience away. And what of worship? Isn’t worship an act of thanking God for what He has already done for us? Something that comes later? For sure! But it is more than that. Worship is also giving thanks to God for what He WILL do, but hasn’t done yet. This is monumental! Worship first, deliverance later, and every fiber in our body resists this. When we are in slavery to some besetting sin, and are filled with shame, guilt, and unworthiness as a result, our natural tendency is to shy away from God, go cold, avoid His disappointment, and keep ourselves at a safe distance from the mountain of his presence. But the Passover event shows us another way; in fact, worship is the very thing God needs from us, and it is the very thing our souls need. Worship releases our faith and connects us with our Savior, a connection that will be the very thing that releases us from the haunting feelings of guilt and shame, opening wide the path to our deliverance. To get past that besetting sin, maybe its time to obediently walk the path of deliverance laid out for us, and maybe its time to worship first, looking with hope and anticipation for a deliverance to come, hopefully sooner rather than later.
