Devo Week 19

The Passover Lamb -- Death is Defeated

Encounters with God at places like the Garden of Eden, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel have created boundary events for human history. The same is true with the Jewish Feast of Passover. Names mean something in Jewish culture. Oftentimes they are a descriptive reality of a God encounter. The Passover represented the breaking-in of God as our Judge and Savior.

"For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; it is he who will save us."
-- Isaiah 33:22

Key Concept: Names of Feasts

One of the clearest stories of God's judgment and mercy is the Passover event. The simplicity and beauty of God's wisdom is revealed in the word itself, pass over. This word referred to the angel of judgment. For every Jewish household who sacrificed a lamb and smeared its blood on their doorframe, the angel of death would pass over their house in mercy. But, if there was no blood upon the doorframe, their firstborn would die.

As far as I know, judgment is a concept familiar to all cultures and people. We found this to be true among both the Akha and Akeu. In Devotional 18, I shared about the Holy Spirit revealing to us how their village gate ceremony paralleled in meaning with the Jewish Passover. Even their ceremony's name, Law Kah, was revealing. Law means offering, and Kah means post. In other words, an "offering post" can be found within its very name. Not only are doors and gates similar symbols, but just as the Passover was fulfilled by Jesus' sacrifice, so too can the village gate ceremony be fulfilled by Jesus' death upon the Cross.

Whether the Jewish Passover, the Sawi peace child, or the Akha and Akeu village gate, feasts and rituals often reveal key understanding into the worldview of the people. Whomever you're trying to reach, studying their feasts and rituals is a good place to start in understanding why they do what they do and believe what they believe.

Key Word Definition: Passover

-- (verb) Breaking apart this word as pass-over, it really meant that for the Jews the angel of death passed over their house because of the blood of the lamb.

-- (noun) In Judaism, the holiday commemorating the Hebrews' liberation from slavery in Egypt and the “passing over” of the forces of destruction, or the sparing of the firstborn of the Israelites, when the Lord “smote the land of Egypt” on the eve of the Exodus.

Excerpt from Devotional 19 with highlighted word:

"As light dispels darkness, so life defeats death. That was the victory that began at the Jewish Passover. The angel of death passed over every household that had applied the blood of a lamb to their doorframe. This key event was a foreshadowing of the life of Jesus."

Scripture: Exodus 12:23

"When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down."