Friday, June 6, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Exodus 12-13
Key Verse
Exodus 12:37 — “And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children.”
Devotional Thought
It is the final night in Egypt, and the LORD speaks to Moses and Aaron with urgent precision. Every household of Israel must take a lamb—unblemished, a male of the first year—on the tenth day of this new first month, keep it until the fourteenth, and kill it in the evening. The blood is struck on the two side posts and the upper door post with a bunch of hyssop. The flesh is roasted with fire and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, loins girded, shoes on feet, staff in hand, in haste. It is the LORD’s passover. At midnight the LORD smites all the firstborn of Egypt, from Pharaoh’s heir to the captive in the dungeon, and a great cry rises where no house is without one dead. Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron by night and drives Israel out. Six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children, a mixed multitude, flocks and herds, leave Rameses for Succoth, carrying unleavened dough on their shoulders and spoiling the Egyptians with jewels of silver and gold. Four hundred and thirty years of sojourning end on that selfsame day, and God leads them not by the near Philistine road but about by the wilderness of the Red Sea, with Joseph’s bones carried up and a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night.
Notice how much of this chapter is about memory. Again and again the LORD says: this day shall be a memorial; when your children ask, What mean ye by this service? you shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s passover. The feast of unleavened bread, the sanctifying of the firstborn, the token on the hand and frontlets between the eyes—all of it is catechesis, truth handed down around a table from parent to child. The blood was never a magic charm; it was a token of covenant obedience, and the people bowed their head and worshipped before they ever took a step toward freedom.
We read this in June, in ordinary time, far from any exodus of our own. Yet every Lord’s Day we still gather and still ask, in effect, What mean ye by this service? The bread and the cup still rehearse a deliverance, and the Lamb still stands without blemish, and the blood still speaks better things than that of Abel. The God who saw the blood and passed over is the same God who goes before His people in cloud and fire, and He has not stopped leading.
Reflection
- The Israelites were commanded to stay inside under the blood until morning. Where in your life are you tempted to step out from under Christ’s finished work and add your own effort to it?
- God told Israel to answer their children’s question with a story of deliverance. What story of God’s faithfulness in your life are you passing on to the next generation?
Prayer
LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we bless You for the Lamb without blemish, slain for us, whose blood marks us as Yours and turns away judgment. Thank You for the strong hand that brought Israel out of Egypt, and for the greater deliverance wrought at Calvary. Teach us to keep the feast with sincerity and truth, to remember Your mercies, and to tell our children what You have done. Go before us as You went before Israel, in cloud and fire, and let no fear of the wilderness turn us back toward Egypt. In the name of Jesus, our Passover, Amen.