THE CROSS AND PASSOVER

Post date: Apr 11, 2020 6:44:34 PM

THE CROSS AND PASSOVER (NLT)

Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us.

1 Cor. 5:7

At the beginning of John's Gospel, John the Baptist introduced Jesus by calling him the "Lamb of God". John presented Jesus as the Passover lamb whose death marks the central event of the Passover season. In the first century, Jews came to Jerusalem each year to celebrate the Passover and to reread the the story of the Exodus. When Israel was being rescued from Egypt, the blood of a lamb was spread on the doorposts of each Jewish home in Egypt and saved those inside from death. Jews who came to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover needed to supply a perfect young lamb for the sacrifice. The animal could not be diseased or have broken bones.

Jesus used his final Passover meal to show that his sacrificial death would give new meaning to the festival. In John, the cross became an altar where Christ, the Passover lamb, was slain. Jesus' legs were not broken, fulfilling a Passover rule. Blood ran freely from his wound, showing that his life was being exchanged for others. Just as a lamb died to save the lives of Jewish families at the Passover in Egypt, so,too, the death of the Son of God on the cross serves to bring salvation to the world.

He carried our sins in his body on the cross....By his wounds you are healed. 1 Peter 2:24