Sermon Tone Analysis

Pray

Introduction

Do our children ask us why we celebrate the Lord’s Supper?

Possibly not, because they aren’t around to see it.

But if they did, if if your grandchildren asked you, ‘why do you take communion?

What does it mean to you?’ What would your response be?

Have you thought through a response?

This event that we’re looking at tonight was SO significant in the lives of the Israelites, that God specifically commanded them to have a well-thought-through response for when their children ask what this means…in fact, he told them what to say.

Like I said, such was the significance of this event.

So let’s have a look at this final plague that God sent on Egypt...

The death of the firstborn.

Pause

If you remember from last week, the Egyptians gods were being knocked off their tiny pedestals one by one, culminating with the ‘death’ of Pharaoh’s father, the sun-god Ra - and the plague of darkness killed him off, rendering him useless.

And now that Pharaoh’s father has been taken out, it’s time to make it even more personal…because Pharaoh’s own son is going to be taken out...

And again, the Israelites are to be saved this wrath.

And God gives very specific instructions on what they need to do to escape this wrath.

This lamb was to be a perfect lamb - a lamb without blemish.

And the reason for this is simple - the lamb had to be a sacrifice…and a sacrifice is giving up something that you could really do without giving up.

So, for example, if you are a shepherd, and you have a load of lambs, and you’ve been asked to sacrifice a lamb to God - you might be tempted to take a lamb was sick or dying....I can do without that one - I’ll give that one to God.

But that’s not much of a sacrifice, is it?

It’s not really demonstrating how important God is to you....in fact it is - it’s saying, ‘God you’re not really THAT important and I don’t love you THAT much.’

Or let’s say you own a few cars.

And a couple of them are battered and don’t even work.

They are rust-buckets in your yard.

but you also have a number of high-performance cars, like a Ferrari…and it’s pristine.

It’s brand new, barely 1000 miles on the clock.

You drive it once a year - only on special occasions.

And your spouse comes and says, ‘you’ve TOO many cars...you need to get rid of one of your cars.’

Now, which one do you give up?

Well, you’d give up the battered rust-bucket.

You’re not going to give up the Ferrari, are you?

Why?

Because you can do without the rust-buckets.

Giving up the Ferrari would be a real loss and it would take a LOT to give that up.

But what if your spouse came to you and said, ‘if you really love me…you’d get rid of that Ferrari.’

Now, it would take a LOT of love to get rid of that Ferrari, wouldn’t it.

And I don’t know of anyone who would even do that....certainly if you’re a car-lover.

...but in this unrealistic scenario - not necessarily that you have a Ferrari, but that you’d give it up for your spouse if you had one…in THAT case, if you were to do that, it really is a sacrifice - and it’s also a sacrifice for love.

I mean, that’s a real act of love right there.

You can’t get a much better act of love than that.

But the Israelites are told to sacrifice a perfect lamb - because this was to be a sacrifice…this lamb represented the BEST thing they had...and by sacrificing THIS lamb and not an old mangey lamb that was about to die of parvo - sacrificing THIS lamb, the best lamb you had, meant that the Israelites believed that God was worth MORE than this lamb.

And it was a demonstration of their love for God.

...and they are to keep this lamb until the fourteenth day of the month when everyone is to kill their lamb at midnight.

And they are not to eat this dressed in a tracksuit and hoodie…they’re not to eat this dressed in their jammies - they are to eat this dressed for travel…i their travel-gear, with sandals on their feet and cloaks on, and belts on, and even with a staff in their hand, because they are to be ready to go at the drop of a hat.

Can you feel the tension here, and possibly the excitement, that AT LAST they will be free from slavery and beatings and torture - free to go BACK HOME, to the promised land…Free to worship and serve God.

Because God has come to deliver them and bring them back to himself - back so that they may worship and serve him…cos don’t forget, that was the reason for their exodus - to worship and serve God.

or as the ESV puts it...

Because the Hebrew word means both worship and serve - you worship AS you serve.

So God’s people weren’t just being freed for the sake of it - they were being freed for a purpose - to worship and serve God.

Pause

So the people did as God commanded them through Moses and Aaron and...

That must have been an awful sound - can you imagine a whole country wailing at the same time?

Pharaoh was defeated by Yahweh and he gave in.

God no longer needed to harden his heart - the time had come.

Enough was enough…and so Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron and says...

And there are different words for ‘go’ in Hebrew, and these different words are used here to emphasise the point.

Pharaoh is saying, ‘get up, get out…GO!! Get away from me.

Take your stuff and GO.’

And off they went, but not without plundering the Egyptians on the way.

Now, I think this is brilliant.

Isn’t that fantastic!

Pause

Then later on in chapter 12, we have a section instituting the passover.

This meal was important for the Israelites and they are to remember this meal every year, eating the unleavened bread and sacrificing a lamb, because it will remind them of how God saved them from slavery - saved them and freed them in order that they might worship and serve him.

And Jews have continued this tradition and continue this tradition even today - every year they celebrate the passover to remember how God saved them from slavery.

Now, the meal evolved slightly over the years.

As well as the unleavened bread, there was also wine drank along with the meal…four cups of wine, actually.

And each cup of wine represents four expressions of deliverance promised by God in Exodus 6...

I will bring you out

I will free you

I will redeem you

I will take you

And the third cup, called the cup of redemption, was drank AFTER the meal was finished.

And it was a reminder of the fact that God redeemed his people - he BOUGHT them back.

They were HIS again.

And the meaning of the unleavened bread was to do with the haste that they had to eat this meal - ready to go at the drop of a hat.

But also, unleavened bread has a certain look to it.

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If you look at unleavened bread, it has stripes on it and piercings (holes in the bread).

The stripes reminded the Jews of the beatings and whippings that they endured at the hands of the Egyptians and the piercings reminded them of their slavery - because slaves were pierced as a mark of slavery.

And so they ate this bread and drank these four cups of wine throughout the meal in remembrance of what God did for them - he freed them from slavery in order that they might worship and serve God.

Pause

This meal occurred again later in the bible, in a significant event.

Because Jesus celebrates this passover with his friends in an upper room just before he is crucified.

And here’s why it’s significant.

Because Jesus takes the passover to the next level - because the passover was pointing to HIM all along…and in this upper room, Jesus shows everyone how this is the case.

Jesus takes the unleavened bread, which has stripes and piercings on it.

He breaks it and says...

So all along, this unleavened bread was referring to Jesus’ body, broken for us.

And the stripes and piercings take on a new meaning...

Or, as the King James puts it...

This bread that was broken every year since Exodus 12 was about Jesus all along - pointing forward to the death of Jesus, where he would be broken for us, whipped and beaten, bruised and pierced for US.

Pause

And then...

Notice this cup was AFTER supper - the cup of redemption…the cup that represented that God had REDEEMED his people…all along, this cup was pointing to the blood of Jesus Christ, which would be shed for our sin…as Paul says in Ephesians 1...

So just as the blood of the perfect, unblemished lamb saved the Israelites from death, the blood of the perfect, unblemished lamb of God saves us from death - eternal death.

But not only that - remember the fact that it would take a tremendous amount of love to give up your Ferrari for your spouse…Giving that up would be the ULTIMATE sacrifice of love.

That would show your spouse just how much you loved them.

So imagine how much MORE tremendous a love that God has for us that he would give up, sacrifice his one and only Son for us.

That’s a sacrifice of love - that’s an act of love that is unimaginable.