A night to be much observed unto the Lord.
The Passover
I. The Passover the appointed means of a great deliverance. The destruction of the firstborn secured Israel’s freedom; the rite itself saved Israel’s firstborn.
1. Wrath was averted.
2. Individual faith and action were required.
3. Perfect safety was thus obtained.
II. The Passover as ordained feast of remembrance.
1. Not a formal service, but gratefully rendered, and intelligently observed; the father instructing the child as to its meaning (Exodus 12:26-27).
2. To be kept by all the people (Exodus 12:4). The redemption to be celebrated by all the redeemed.
3. In each successive generation. A perpetual witness of Jehovah’s delivering mercy; an unfailing type; a constant test and measure of religious life. Kept by Moses (Numbers 9:1-23.); by Joshua (chap. 5.); revived by Josiah; in Nehemiah’s time (Ezra 6:1-22.); in our Lord’s time widely observed.
4. Every detail was divinely ordered.
5. The lamb was eaten with special accompaniments Bitter herbs denoted penitence; unleavened bread, sincerity. Godly sorrow chastens Christian joy. True consecration marks the believer’s praise.
6. In a pilgrim spirit. Loins girded, shoes on feet, staff in hand. Christ’s service here is not the Christian’s rest. His eye is fixed on heaven; and, while he works and praises, his true cry ever is, “Come, Lord Jesus.” (W. S. Bruce, M. A.)
Freedom and discipline
I. Scholars have said that the old Greeks were the fathers of freedom; and there have been other people in the world’s history who have made glorious and successful struggles to throw off their tyrants and be free. But liberty is of a far older and nobler house. It was born on the first Easter night, when God Himself stooped from heaven to set the oppressed free.
II. The history of the Jews is the history of the whole Church and of every nation in Christendom. The Jews had to wander forty years in the wilderness, and Christendom has had to wander too, in strange and bloodstained paths, for eighteen hundred years and more. For as the Israelites were not worthy to enter at once into rest, no more have the nation of Christ’s Church been worthy. As the new generation sprang up in the wilderness, trained under Moses’ stern law, to the fear of God, so for eighteen hundred years have the generations of Christendom, by the training of the Church and the light of the gospel, been growing in wisdom and knowledge, growing in morality and humanity, in that true discipline and loyalty which are the yokefellows of freedom and independence. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)
A holy celebration
It is the night of our regeneration; it is the night of our conversion (night or day, it matters not which); the time in which we actually received salvation, and were made partakers of this Passover, that we would just now admonish you to remember. At that particular time important events transpired for us. The most important events, to us, that ever occurred in our history, happened on that occasion. There was a point in our life up to which we were dead: then we were made alive. There was a point up to which we were condemned: then, in an instant, we were acquitted. Now, what events transpired on that occasion?
1. Well, the first was, it pleased God then to show us the blood of Jesus, and to apply it to our souls. That night, too, or that day, whichever it may have been, we do remember that we enjoyed a feast upon our Saviour. The blood was sprinkled, and so we were saved; and then we sat down at the table, and began at once to feast upon the precious things stored up in the person of Christ.
2. And then it was that for the first time in your life you felt that you were free. You were free; but finding yourself free, you also discovered, for the first time, that you were a pilgrim; for the Israelites, as they ate that paschal supper, had to do so with their loins girl and staves in their hands, like men that were to leave that country. You found that now you were a stranger. If you had an unconverted parent, you could not talk to him or her about your soul. If you had old companions, you felt you must bid them farewell, for they would not understand you; if you did not know you were a pilgrim before, you found it out the very next day, when you began to talk with them. O! it was a time to be remembered, and I want you to remember it now--those blessed days when we began to live!
3. Important results will flow to you from the preservation of this memorial. It will humble you and foster the grace of humility. Have you become an old experienced Christian, my brother? Go back to the hole of the pit whence you were digged. (C. H. Spurgeon.)