The Night the Lamb Stood In

When the three days of darkness were over, Pharaoh could see Moses again, and he did not like what he saw.

"Get away from me!" Pharaoh shouted. "The day you see my face again, you will die!"

"Just as you say," said Moses. "You will not see my face again."

But first Moses gave the king one last message from God. "At midnight, God will go out through all of Egypt. The oldest son in every family will die, from your own son to the son of the slave girl who grinds the grain. But among God's people, not even a dog will growl."

God had told Moses what to do. "Each family is to choose a lamb," God said, "a young one with nothing wrong with it." Each family kept its lamb for four days, then killed it at sundown.

"Put some of the blood across the top of your door and down both sides," God said. "Roast the lamb and eat it tonight with bitter herbs and flat bread. Do not break any of its bones."

(God did not say why about the bones. He was keeping that for later.)

"Eat it in a hurry, with your sandals on and your walking stick in your hand. When I see the blood, I will pass over you."

Israelite houses needed the blood too, or their oldest sons would have died as well. The lamb stood between each family and what was coming.

So that evening, fathers dipped leafy branches in the blood and dabbed it on their doors. Everyone went inside. If you had been a child in one of those houses, you would have eaten supper in your sandals, which is not how anybody usually eats supper.

At midnight it happened. The oldest son in every Egyptian family died, from the palace to the dungeon, and the firstborn animals too. Loud crying went up from house after house.

But behind the doors with blood on them, no son died. The oldest boy was still at the table in his sandals, because a lamb had died in his place at sundown.

That same night Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron. "Up! Leave my people!" he cried. "Take your sheep and your cattle and go. And bless me too." Nine plagues had not moved this king. Now he wanted a blessing on the way out.

There was no time to let the bread dough rise, so the people wrapped their bowls of sticky dough in their cloaks and slung them over their shoulders. (That is why the bread at the Passover feast is still flat, like a big cracker.) Off they went, six hundred thousand men plus the women and children, with sheep bleating and cattle mooing behind.

But a lamb could only do so much. Its blood covered one house for one night, and the next spring another lamb had to die. Year after year God's people kept the feast. Kings came and went, and prophets, and every year the children at the table asked, "Why do we do this?"

Then, one Passover in Jerusalem, while the city's lambs were being chosen, a man with nothing wrong in him walked in through the gate. Within the week he was nailed to a cross, and he died there that afternoon. When the soldiers came to break his legs, he was already dead, so not one of his bones was broken. God had been keeping that for him all along. His name was Jesus, and his blood is enough for every door there will ever be.