A Lesson to Remember
Learning the Cost of Sin to the Heart of God
Exodus 11:4-6; 12: 3, 6
Harsh Realities
Metal doors clanged shut behind us. We huddled together and fell quiet, unsure of what to expect as we followed our guide. Unpleasant body odors and distressing shouts assaulted our senses the deeper we walked into the dark halls. Decades later, these memories of my Girl Scout field trip to a local jail remain vivid to me. They also help me grasp why God engages our senses to teach us memorable lessons.
As the tour progressed, the guard ushered us inside the cell holding area. We reluctantly sat on the hard and dirty benches. The peeling paint revealed marks scratched into the surfaces. The open metal toilet in the corner repelled our gaze and noses. The stern officer with an intimidating bully stick, mace spray, and gun strapped to his side, lectured his wide-eyed audience on the penalty and path of those who break the law. The first-hand experience of sights, sounds, and smells created a powerful impression for pre-teen girls. For our benefit, we were meant to remember the potential consequences of our future choices.
An Intense Lesson
Similarly, God used an intense object lesson to instruct his chosen people about sin. Through senses and emotions, they would face the terrible cost of restoring their relationship with God. By personal experience, they would sample the type of heart pain God choose to bear to make reconciliation possible. Each family would make a symbolic exchange for their guilt—draining the lifeblood from a living creature with their own hands.
The Passover tradition began as God prepared to deliver the Israelites from oppressive slavery in Egypt. One by one God demonstrated his superiority over the Egyptian gods through a progression of conquering plagues. In culmination, God declared the tenth plague of death upon every firstborn male in the land of Egypt:
“So Moses said, "This is what the LORD says: About midnight I will go throughout Egypt, and every firstborn male in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the servant girl who is at the grindstones, as well as every firstborn of the livestock. Then there will be a great cry of anguish through all the land of Egypt such as never was before or ever will be again.” (Exodus 11:4-6)
“...gore will flow in every household as each obedient family extracts the blood price with their own hands.”
The Hebrews prepare to witness the widespread devastation. They will hear the wailing of those who mourn the dead. As the power of God moves against the gods of Egypt and those who follow them, they will receive a visceral demonstration to remember and pass down through the generations. The terrible consequence of sin—rejecting the life-giving God and his ways—results in death.
"Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers' families, one animal per family. You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight.” (Exodus 12: 3, 6)
The entire community will slaughter the animals at twilight. When I get to this verse, my imagination chills. “Slaughter” evokes a violent and bloody image. When multiplied among “the whole assembly,” gore will flow in every household as each obedient family extracts the blood price with their own hands.
A Lesson of Life and Death
“At my first view of God’s Passover instructions, they seem excessive or even cruel. A good God must have a momentously important lesson to impart.”
Other than farmers or hunters, our Western culture has little direct experience with shedding animal blood. I wept on and off for days when forced to euthanize my dying pets as an act of compassion. Years after, I still shudder and push the details from my mind, even when the deed came from the vet’s professional hand. In comparison, what if God asked me for the wriggling and sweet-smelling first-born of our family’s puppies? At my first view of God’s Passover instructions, they seem excessive or even cruel. A good God must have a momentously important lesson to impart.
When forced to face the true character of sinful actions, we naturally squirm and attempt to whitewash our motives, even to our own consciences. Our human egos expertly rationalize, justify, and deflect. To detour around our self-defense mechanism, God shifts the perspective and invites us to share his heart view. By providing a representative picture, as Jesus did with the parables, he gives us mental space to process the truth before we turn the application back to ourselves.
A Lesson of Love
God led the Israelites in an exercise to absorb the destruction and heartbreak of sin. They would feel the heaviness of death and loss as they sacrificed a creature who had shared affection within their family circle. They needed to hear the bleating plea, smell the iron scent of fresh blood, and feel its life-warmth cool on their hands. Horrible, yes. But necessary to demonstrate the vileness of sin against holiness, and to shock us out of deadly self-deception.
Such acts repel our senses and wrench our soul. We want to look away and forget. But the stakes are high and eternal. So, in mercy, God presses us toward clarity. In gracious revelation, God shares a glimpse into the pain he bears and the depth of his love for our welfare. For our benefit, we are meant to remember the grave consequences.
The Object of the Lesson
The innocent lambs and goats of hundreds of Passovers echoed a promise of the ultimate and sinless sacrifice to come. One that would rip apart the heart of the Father, for a second time. In the beginning, when Adam and Eve rejected the divine life given to them in fellowship with their Creator, death bled out into the good world spreading corruption and decay. God watched his beloved humanity struggle with the stalking darkness—and grieved.
Yet, God did not abandon his beloved people to slaughter within the Deceiver’s flock. As foreshadowed by the Passover tradition, God offered an exchange. The only sacrifice able to rescue humanity and fulfill the life debt for all—perfect and sinless, fully human and fully God. For us, he did not spare his own Son. He gave his most Precious, the Heart of his heart, to rescue those he created.
The bloody sacrificial system educated God’s people on the devastation of sin and the way of redemption. In the fullness of time, God put an end to the symbolic lesson with the reality of Jesus. The Passover flowed into the crucifixion, transforming the slaughter at twilight into the resurrection at dawn.
What image of Christ’s sacrifice echoes in your heart?
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