The Night the Lamb Stood In

Do you know what it is like to be afraid in the dark, and to hold very still, and to wait?

That is how God's people felt that night in Egypt. For four hundred years they had been slaves. They made bricks until their hands ached and bled. And they cried out, and they wondered, Does anyone hear us? Does anyone love us still?

God heard every word. He had been working a long, long time to bring his people home. And now the night had come.

But it was a heavy night. Nine times God had knocked on Pharaoh's door, and nine times the king said no and shut his hard heart tight. Now the tenth knock had come. So God said that a true and terrible thing was coming. Wherever there was sin, the sorrow would come inside.

God did not say, "Be good enough, and you will be safe."

He said, "Bring me a lamb."

A perfect lamb, a spotless one, with no scratch and no spot, the very best of the flock. Each family was to take their lamb, and keep it close, and care for it. And then, that night, the lamb would die in their place.

Someone had to stand between the people and what was coming. They could not stand there themselves. So the lamb stood in.

And God told them exactly what to do. Take the lamb's blood. Brush it over the top of your door and down both sides. Then go inside, all of you, and stay. Mother and father, the baby, the grandmother, the littlest one with the wobbly knees. No one left outside. Every one of them in, together, behind the blood.

So they did. Every door where God's people lived was marked, red and plain.

And when the sorrow swept through in the dark, it came to those marked doors, and it saw the blood, and it passed over. It went by. Inside, the people were safe. Not because they were the best people. Because the lamb had stood in their place.

That morning they walked out free, out of Egypt, out of slavery, toward home. And God told them, Remember this night. Tell your children. Keep it forever.

But a little lamb is only a little lamb. Its blood could cover one night, one family, one door.

So God kept the picture, and waited, and worked.

Long after, a man named John stood beside a river. He looked up and saw Jesus walking toward him. John lifted his hand and pointed, and I think his voice must have shaken, because all those years had been leaning toward this one:

"Look. There he is. The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the whole world."

All those red doors had been pointing here. Jesus is the true Lamb, the better Lamb, with no spot and no sin, who stood in our place, not for one night but for always, not for one family but for every child God is gathering home.

But on that first morning in Egypt, the freed slaves knew none of this yet. They only knew the door had held. They stepped out into the sunrise, turned their faces toward home, and started walking. Ahead of them, though they could not see it yet, waited the sea. And God had a road in mind, right through the middle of it.