To Be...Passed Over
December 19
What Christmas tradition keeps you coming back to this time of year again and again with enthusiasm? Here at Shiloh there is a sugar cookie recipe that is a taste to savor. Last week we stacked the cookies up to make a tree. Others were adorned with festive sprinkles, but they were scarfed up before I got a picture.
I need to interview our grandchildren and ask what it is they each run through the door to when they arrive at Shiloh, because each of them takes off as they cross the threshold heading towards something their little mind has been anticipating.
For some it's heading to a favorite toy up in our loft play area. Others know where the snack drawer is, while some head to the craft table in our bedroom hoping to find supplies for a project they've been contemplating making. Some make a run around the kitchen island to see if they favorite cookie or muffin has been baked or if in the little drink refrig there is that beverage their parents would never leave in arms reach.
Joy fills my heart as I watch them. They are sweet to give me a hug and a kiss along the way, but there's a memory that pulls them into something pleasing here. God knows the importance of and power behind remembering. That's why the Israelites were instructed to celebrate the Passover each year and remember the deliverance God provided for them. We read this story as well and remember our Passover Lamb, Jesus.
As we pass around the cookies, the spiced cider, candy canes and other delicacies we savor this time of year, let's remember that the little baby in the manger had HUGE purpose. We've been protected, passed over from receiving the punishment we deserve for our sins.
It is a gift of God to be passed over from receiving the punishment we deserve.
If you have time to go a little deeper dig into these suggested scriptures and check out this excellent entry from She Reads Truth
Scripture Reading: Exodus 12:1-14, Exodus 12:21-28, John 1:29, 1 Peter 1:17-21, 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
"More than a thousand years before Jesus was born, God gave His people a recipe for their last meal in slavery. It was a quick meal—bread without leavening, fresh meat from a spotless lamb slaughtered and roasted in the same evening. He told them not to waste a single bite, but to plan to share with their neighbors, as necessary. The instructions were simple and clear: Eat fast and wear your running clothes. I’m about to deliver you to freedom.
Imagine the sound of the communal slaughter that night. Hundreds, if not thousands, of lambs all killed at twilight. How strange it must have been to paint that blood on the doorways—doorways that they would walk out of for the last time, just a few hours later.
There are countless parallels between events recorded in the Old Testament and the things Jesus accomplished in His short life on earth. The Passover started the Exodus, but it is also a picture of what was to come in Jesus. It is no coincidence that Jesus’s crucifixion happened during Passover. It is no coincidence that His blood is now our doorway into freedom. This isn’t a new story: it’s the same story that has been told over and over again, since the beginning of the world. For “He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you” (1 Peter 1:20). What the Israelites started with the blood of lambs, Jesus finished with His own.
As we prepare our hearts to remember and celebrate Jesus’s birth, I’m brought back to the beauty of the Passover and that unleavened bread. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul says boasting in our accomplishments is like adding yeast to a batch of dough (1 Corinthians 5:6–8). If I brag about what I’ve done, that attitude will permeate everything in my life. Like yeast, it will puff me up with air. But God doesn’t need me to be puffed up. He wants me as I truly am. And what I am is a person in need of a Savior."
