The Passover The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. (Exodus 12:1-7 ESV)

Talking Points: What do you think is the significance of killing a lamb? Remember when Adam and Eve sinned? They tried to cover themselves with fig leaves, which of course didn’t work. God killed an animal and used the animal’s skins to cover them. Sin always requires a sacrifice. The only way God will “pass over” the houses of the Israelites living in Egypt is if they have the blood on the doorposts.

The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. 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. (Exodus 12:13 ESV)

The people obeyed God. Note that God did not passover them because they were his people. He passed over them because the blood of the lamb was applied to their doorposts:

At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead. Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!” (Exodus 12:29-32 ESV)

How does this point forward to the cross? Where is the blood applied to us so that God, in his judgment, passes over us? Jesus’s blood shed on the cross cleanses us from all sin. When applied to our hearts we are clean and accepted.