Passover week is forever linked to Easter week ... for an important reason.
God delivered Israel with a mighty hand of judgment and an outstretched arm, but he didn’t do it overnight. Not that he couldn’t have. As God said to Pharoah through Moses, “By now I could have wiped you off the face of the earth.” But God had his purposes.
God’s deliverance of Israel came in stages, so that his people would prepare themselves and come to know the character of this God who had chosen them, planted them, nurtured and protected them from the time of Abraham to the time of Joseph. And then let them wallow in slavery for 400 years … only to enact a greater deliverance.
God’s judgment on the Egyptians came in stages, so that Egypt would come to know and fear him as Almighty God. At first they mocked Moses. Then they came to respect the actions of the God he served and tried to pacify him. Finally they were in abject terror because after ten warnings followed by successively destructive natural disasters, they were convinced these were not “natural.” Egypt drove them out of their country, freeing them forever in a great coup.
God was doing SO much more than freeing slaves and lifting oppression, as great as that was. He was creating:
· a witness to his people of his character
· a witness to the proud Egyptians
· a witness to their pantheon of gods (Nile, frogs, etc.)
· a witness to surrounding nations
· a celebration of their freedom (the Passover)
· a testimony to their future generations (Passover Seder yearly)
· a new nation (Israel)
· a challenge to Pharoah’s worldly power
· an archetype of the freedom journey (used on the Mayflower, used in the Civil War, etc.)
· a prefigure of Jesus Christ’s triumph through death (the lamb becomes the lion)
· a promise of God’s ultimate deliverance of the whole world (New Jerusalem)
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