The NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments have begun, and sports writers have nicknamed this annual event "March Madness". It's not because the athletes are crazy, or even that their fans go to insane lengths to cheer their teams on to victory. It's not even because of the upsets that happen each year (e.g. the number 12 seed beating the number 4 seed in the tournament.) It is because there are so many games and scores to keep up with, a sports writer can go stark raving mad trying to keep up with it all.
For those sportscasters with a deadline, keeping up with it all without leaving anyone out is very difficult. Not life and death difficult, just a little maddening. Life and death difficult would be when a major earthquake hits the island you live on and the the tsunami warning sounds, giving you only 16 minutes to evacuate. That's life and death difficult.
The Israelites had a life and death difficult task when Moses led them out of Egypt. They had just witnessed nine of the ten plagues, most of which God had spared them from. Then Moses, their leader, assembles them all together and tells them that they are to kill a lamb tonight for roasting tomorrow; that they are to sprinkle blood on the door-posts and lentil of their homes; and that they will be leaving these homes for good; and finally that during the feast that they are roasting the lamb for, they will have to prepare it so fast that the bread dough won't have time to rise, so the bread they will eat with the lamb will be flat, without yeast. If you think the instructions are confusing, imagine what the people thought when the first Passover actually happened.
Exodus 12.21-23 says "Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, 'Go at once and select the animals for your families, and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin, and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the door frame. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the door frame and will pass over the doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down."
If I was one of the elders, I would have said, "What's a Passover lamb? What is the significance of the blood on the door frame? And what do you mean by the word destroyer?" Moses had already instructed them about the lamb--it was to be the firstborn, without blemish, and if your family was too small to consume a whole lamb, you were to share with another family. That means if I was sharing my lamb with you, I needed to make sure there was blood on your door frame, just like there was on mine.
Moses tried to explain the concept of Passover, but until they actually experienced it, it wouldn't fully make sense to them. Kind of like us depending on Christ's blood to cover our sins--we don't really know what all that means until after the Judgement. But the blood on the door frames represented the sacrificial lamb--it was proof that a lamb had been killed for them. And if you drew a line from one door post to the other, and from the top of the door frame to the floor where the blood would inevitably drip--if you connected the blood with the blood, you would see the image of a cross. It was a foreshadowing of the Cross of Christ, where the Lamb of God was sacrificed for our sins, and if we let Him write his name on our hearts, we can avoid hell. Satan, the destroyer, will not have authority to claim us. But how do you explain this prophecy to a nomadic people that had been enslaved for 400 years?
In verse 29, the events begin to unfold: "At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead."
This shows the awesome power of God. The Egyptians refused to sacrifice to the one true God, so God took the best and most important from each and every one of them. Those who owned animals found the firstborn of their flocks dead at the hand of God; those who had children wept, because the children had been taken from them. God will prove Himself always, and He will get what He wants; either you give it to Him willingly, or He will take it.
Verses 31 through 38 show a frantic scene, one that might have been maddening to go through. "During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, 'Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.' The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. 'For otherwise,' they said, 'we will all die!' So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs, wrapped in clothing.
Let's look at these events more closely. All the Egyptians were mourning the deaths of their firstborn sons, who had all died at midnight. During the night, Pharaoh tells Moses and Aaron to leave, and take everything they own with them. The people of Egypt, having seen that none of the Israelites lost any of their children, believed that the Israelites were blessed, and that the Egyptians were cursed because of them. So they start throwing jewelry and clothes at them, as they begged them to leave the country. Meanwhile, the people of Israel take the food they were preparing for the Feast that Moses had described to them--they took the meat from the lambs they had killed, and the dough that they had mixed up to bake the bread, and wrapped it all up in a "to go" bag. The dough didn't have any yeast in it, because they were told to leave in the middle of the food preparation. In other words, God said drop what you are doing and go; leave your home, take your stuff and the food you have prepared, and go. And they left richer than they were when they came.
God always wants to take us to a better place, and give us more blessing than we had when we left. When we give our lives to Him, He gives us the promise of Eternal Life. When we leave this world, we will enter a Heaven so wonderful that even the gold we treasured so much here on Earth is just street pavement there. If the streets are paved with gold, then how much more wonderful are the dwellings there!
Anyway, God told them to celebrate this hectic time every year. He set up a week-long holiday, culminating in The Feast of Unleavened Bread. They were to remember the time when they were so rushed they didn't have time to put yeast in the dough. In fact, the Lord's command is that there should be no yeast in the house for the whole week of the celebration. Seven days with no yeast anywhere in the house. As time went on, it became a big ritual at the beginning of the feast. People made a big show of cleaning out their houses, and of ridding their homes of any leaven.
When Jesus told parables, he often equated leaven with sin. He told his disciples to "beware the leaven of the Pharisees." This didn't mean that the Pharisees had yeast infections (sorry, bad pun); but rather that they had sin in their lives that they needed to sweep away, much like their forefathers would purge all the leaven from their homes before the Passover Feast. In the Christian tradition, we don't have such a holiday. There is no set time for us to take a personal inventory, and set aside sinful habits. But when Jesus celebrated the Passover feast with His disciples, He gave it a new purpose. Instead of telling His disciples to eat the unleavened bread to remember that hectic time in Egypt, He said "This do in remembrance of Me."
Christians now celebrate Communion; in less liturgical churches, it is called the Lord's Supper. This act of worship should take on a greater significance to us. We should rid our lives of the leaven of sin before we partake of it. When it is coming up, we should prepare for it. Sometimes there might be time for quiet introspection leading up to the eating of the bread and taking of the cup. Other times, it may come as a complete surprise, and we will have to honor it on the fly, like Moses, Aaron and their people did so long ago. But there should be a time, at least once a year, when you put away all sin and prepare a feast before the Lord and fellowship with Him for what He has done.
Remember the madness of a sinful world condemning an innocent man to death; remember the madness of that innocent man forgiving those in the act of killing Him; remember the madness of God giving His only Son so that we might live.
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