May 2022
Communion - When I See the Blood
My text today is taken from Exodus 12: 13 “When I (the Lord God speaking by His special name -I AM) see the blood I will pass over you.” This is from the Passover narrative found in Exodus and where we want to end our study today -end it on the blood & the ‘passing over’ (PAY sal Hebrew). I AM gave instructions on what they were to do at the first ‘Passover’ but the Passover found completion, achievement, conclusion and fulfillment in Christ’s instructions at the Lord’s Last Supper which we call Communion, The Lord’s Table, Breaking Bread together, this Remembrance Service.
Here’s my conclusion that I will repeat at the end of this sermon.
I want you to see the continuity, the permanency and the stability of Scripture, it’s the same message -the blood- and the same means -the shedding of blood-from the day man sinned and God shed an animal’s blood to clothe (cover) Adam and Eve to approximately 1446 BCE, the first Passover when a lamb’s blood was painted onto the lintel and door post up to approximately 1500 years after the first Passover when Christ’s blood, the Lamb of God’s blood, was shed right up to May 1, 2022 when we partake in the Communion of the blood. The blood and the shedding of blood for the redemption of people, this message and means is eternal, it stands secure over time, all time, it is continuous, permanent and stable.
God instituted the first Passover and God instituted the Communion we participate in now.
As God looks down upon us, as he travels through the camp, through all the ages of time He says ‘when I see the blood I will pass over you.’
I want you to see the plan of God
Let’s start in Exodus 5 where we find Moses had been given instructions from I AM and had Aaron with him
Exodus 5:1 NIV
5 Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, …. so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’”
From God’s first command to Moses, through the story of Israel’s escape, the demand for a three-day festival in the wilderness plays a prominent role in the exodus narrative. Why does God want Moses and Aaron not to tell Pharoah the whole story, what they were going to do after worshipping God?
When God speaks to Moses in the wilderness for the first time, he tells Moses that he has seen the suffering of the Israelites and will bring them to Canaan, a land of milk and honey (Exod 3:7-8). He then repeats that he has seen the pressure Israel has been subjected to and is sending Moses to Pharaoh to free the people (3:9–10). After Moses objects (v. 11) that he doesn’t know what he should tell the Israelites about who is sending him, God reveals his special name to Moses EHYEH-ASHER-EHYEH (A YESH ASH ER A YESH) (vv. 12-15),
I AM THAT I AM, self-existent one, I will be what I will be, I will do what I will do and then the great I AM continues to describe Moses’ mission.
First, he must go to the elders (3:16) and tell them the plan:
-and the people never asked what was God’s name
This going to the wilderness to worship and to sacrifice was repeated over and over in the 10 plagues
Chapter 8 Frogs – ok go and worship but don’t go far
Chapter 9 God tells Moses to tell Pharoah ‘so they can worship me’
Chapter 10 Locusts - Pharoah is sensing a ruse, -you’re bent on evil
Chapter 11 Darkness -ok go and worship even your wives and children but not cattle
Chapter 12 1st born died -Go and worship everyone and take your cattle
& remember God told Moses the plan was complete deliverance from Egypt and God would bring them to the promised land…
So now the scene is set for the 1st Passover
Exodus 12 NIV
12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.
12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do. 17 “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.
1 Cor. 5: 6-8 Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Celebrate the Feast of unleavened bread
1st month 14th to the 21st day
Nisan month -new year of Kings and festivals
In the Old Testament, there was a time that was called “Passover”. Much of the symbols we have with our Communion come from that time of celebration.
In the Passover meal, the bread had a particular significance. When the Hebrew women made their household bread, they took a piece of fermented dough they saved from a previous day and mixed it into their fresh flour. With time, the yeast would overtake the dough and she could then make her family’s daily bread. (After saving a piece for future baking, of course.) When God delivered the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, there wasn’t time to bake bread or hassle with yeast. They ate their bread unleavened.
Eating unleavened bread became a reminder of the time when God delivered the children of Israel out of bondage.
In Exodus 13:8-9, God gives meaning to the unleavened bread, He said, "And you shall tell your son on that day, saying, ’It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ [9] "And it shall serve as a sign to you …that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth; for with a powerful hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt."
At the Lord’s Supper, the bread that celebrated the people’s deliverance from Egyptian bondage took on a new meaning. Now it commemorates Jesus’ broken body and celebrates the Christian’s deliverance from the bondage of sin. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the tomb, eternal life is available to all who receive of Jesus Christ.
Take and eat the bread.
When Jesus handed the cup to the disciples, at the first Communion, they naturally would have thought of the blood of the lamb smeared on the doorpost of their ancestors’ homes in Egypt. This was done in preparation for the tenth plague, God instructed the children of Israel to put the blood of the Passover lamb on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the house.
God had made a covenant with the people: when the death angel saw the blood on the doorposts, it would "pass over" that house. But if a house did not have the blood on the doorposts and lentel, the death angel would visit their home and kill their first born son.
The Lord said in Exodus 12:13
"And the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt."
As the disciples drank the wine, they remembered the blood covenant. But Jesus reinterpreted the wine to symbolize a new covenant.
In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus’ blood now symbolizes more then salvation from a single night of terror, instead, it celebrates eternal salvation.
In 1 Peter 1:18-19 "knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, [19] but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ."
Today, we celebrate the Lord’s Supper with Christ.
As we partake of the fruit of the vine, we celebrate eternal salvation.
Then, the scripture says in Matthew 26:26-28,
"And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins"
Take and drink.
