Passover begins after sunset tonight(15th Nisan), 8th April and lasts until sunset on Thursday 16 April.
Passover is the first of the three major Jewish feasts when everyone in Judah made pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship God at the Temple. Passover commemorates the Lord bringing His people out of Egypt, the land of slavery.
Exodus 12 Tell the whole community of Israel… each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. The animals must be year old males without defect. Slaughter them at twilight and put the blood on the sides and tops of the door-frames where they eat the lambs. The lambs are to be roasted and all of the meat eaten. Eat it in haste, it’s the Lord’s Passover. Eat no bread with yeast for seven days and do no work. On the first night of Passover the Jews eat the Seder, a meal which symbolises their deliverance from the land of their slavery.
God was about to bring the tenth plague on Egypt, the death of all the firstborn men and animals. Just like all the houses in Israel had to have the blood(without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness Heb 9:22) so all the Egyptian households were visited by death that night.
‘At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt’. Pharaoh immediately said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested”
“Because the Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honour the Lord for the generations to come”. Ex. 12:42
“Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast – as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth”. 1 Cor 5:7,8 NIV
God told the Israelites to remember their deliverance from Egypt, we too have something to celebrate in Christ, our Passover lamb.
God bless and keep you today.