Lent Devotion

Passover Lamb


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… The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Exodus 12:3; 5-6

When I was on the farm growing up, I once helped take care of a little lamb. Cute, warm and fuzzy, he captured and melted my heart. I loved to hug him and feel his soft, white fleece. This precious lamb was the picture of innocence. You can imagine my horror on the day he was taken to the slaughter house!

For Passover preparations, God wanted a family to choose a lamb, bring it into their house, and take care of it for four whole days before killing it. How awful! They were required to slaughter the little lamb they had grown to love. This heart-wrenching sacrifice demonstrated the exacting demands of God's justice, as well as how destructive and awful sin really is. It was the perfect background to “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). God wants our hearts to sincerely break over the sacrifice of his perfect Lamb. We were the ones who put Jesus Christ to death. Our sin led him to the slaughter. It leads us to grief and repentance.

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A Passover lamb was the picture of innocence, but the Lamb of God is the perfect picture of righteousness. Isaiah 53:7 says “… he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” Meditate on how a lamb is a biblical “type” of the life of Christ. Remember, Jesus went to his cross as your sacrificial lamb.

- Joni Tada