Passover. I don’t have a lot to say about it. I’m not a historian or Jewish scholar, so I strongly encourage you to look up what this feast has meant to the Jewish people throughout history, what it means to them today, what it would have meant to them at the time of Christ.
What I am going to say is going to be brief. I just want you to take a moment and think about what that night must have been like:
You’ve spent the day packing, asking your neighbors to borrow their best jewelry. If your family isn’t large enough to eat a whole lamb, you’re sharing one with another family, because there won’t be any leftovers. You bread is flat because you weren’t allowed the time to let it rise. And… well, you’ve painted your door posts with lambs blood.
How hushed would that meal have been? How subdued? Yes, you’ve been told you’ll be leaving Egypt very soon. You’ll finally be free from this terrible slavery you’ve endured, but you’ve also been told that if you put yeast in your bread, you’ll be cut off from you people, that if you don’t paint your house with blood, your oldest child will die.
Do you sleep that night?
Then, the hour comes. Cries start going up all over the city, wails of despair. There is someone dead in every house without the blood.
That is the price of your freedom.
Just. Have you ever sat with that? Have you ever really imagined yourself there?