A Hastily Eaten Meal - Exodus 12

Here a 6 ideas to reflect on from Exodus 12:

1. New beginnings are possible with God

· ‘This month shall be the beginning of months for you’ (12.2). Israel was beginning a totally new phase of living as a free nation – free in God to serve, worship and follow him. They had a lot of baggage to leave behind - 430 years’ worth (12.40). By faith in Christ, the ultimate Passover lamb, we can make a new beginning. We can shake off our slavery to habits held for a long time. There is hope for us; we are not trapped in a way of living that will channel us to the grave.

2. God’s people must die to the world and the world must die to them.

· As Pharaoh evicted Israel and the Egyptians begged them to go, so we must face the truth that as we live strongly in Christ our lives will often grate on the world. While to some we will be the aroma of life, to others we will be the smell of death to all their shallow dreams. Paul said: Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world (Gal 6.14). We do not aim to be objectionable or annoying, but if we sincerely intend to be like Jesus, we must expect that people will treat the servants as they treated the Master. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: “ A servant is not greater than his master.” John 15.18ff.

3. God’s people are a delivered people – essentially no better than others.

· That night, the Israelites who were safe in their houses, remained so because of the lamb, not because they were more worthy than the Egyptians. We must retain our humility as we bring the gospel into the places where we live. We must not appear as those who look down on others, but as those who have themselves been delivered from all the things in us that attract God’s wrath. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, or men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers (the abusive), nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. AND SUCH WERE SOME OF YOU. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. 1 Cor 6.9-11

4. God’s unites his people into clusters or households.

· Being saved from our sins must certainly be an individual experience; we are not saved by association with others who are enjoying God’s salvation. However, we are saved among others to live with them in God’s household. We need fellowship. As we cluster together, the moderate heat of the Spirit of God in each of us is increased to a roaring fire. We must learn to see ourselves as members of God’s family and expect to take up our responsibilities to the other members. So then, you are no longer strangers or aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Eph 2.19-22. Home groups are an excellent expression of this clustering of family members. When we eat together (both natural food and the Bread of Life, God’s Word) we are very close to what the Israelite families were doing in Egypt that night.

5. God provides a place of safety from his judging anger (wrath).

· Christ is that place. It wasn’t the family unit and it wasn’t the structural integrity of the house that kept them safe from the judging angel that night. It was the blood on the door posts and the meat in their stomachs. Not that these had magical powers. They were emblematic – that is they spoke to something more real than themselves. First, they pointed to a little carcass that represented a young animal life cut off for the sake of the family gathered around it. But the blood and food pointed further and deeper than the substitution of an animal for a family. It pointed to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John the Baptist extended his finger to point the last few metres of the long distance in space and time from the first Passover to Jesus on the Galilee beach. Jesus said that we need to eat his flesh and drink his blood – meaning that we need to take him in to our lives by faith. We need to take in his death for us – the death that satisfies God’s demand for righteousness. In Christ is the safe place, where the wrath of God is turned away from us. A genuine Passover.

6. The Meal teaches how Christ is our sustainer.

· Christ not only stood in for us under God’s wrath visited on him at the cross, but he also stands in for us in life. The lamb gave the Israelites strength for a breathless march to the edge of the Red Sea. We draw strength by feeding on Christ. We do this through the Bible. The Spirit takes the Word of Christ and makes it real and clear to us – feeding our minds and spirits. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. John 16.13-15.

· The flatbread (yeast-less) that they carried with them as they hurried away from Egypt, reminds us that we are to travel light in this world. Our lives are stripped down to the basics so we are not distracted from our journey. Let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12.1,2.