There once was a commercial on TV selling Alka Seltzer to people with stomach problems. The commercial began with a heavy man sitting on the edge of his bed groaning the same words over and over again. Those words? “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.” Every time he said it his voice got weaker and slower as the pain in his stomach consumed him. And from the other side of the bed you hear the disturbed voice of his wife yelling out, “Yes RALPH, YOU ATE IT!” No sympathy there.
This is the feeling and the vision I have in my mind as I try to comprehend the instructions given by Moses as he prepared his people to leave after the final plague. The key verses are Exodus 12:8–11, “That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. … Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. …Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.” Then Moses tells the people, “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord-a lasting ordinance.” This feast becomes and the ordinance to be practiced by all Jews, even today. The feast is nothing less than a symbol of everything God had done to save the people and free them from slavery in Egypt. But the best part of the meal and this history is that the feast is a foretelling of everything God would do to free all people from slavery, the slavery from sin. The WHOLE THING, the whole story is that we must consume (accept) the gift of the sacrificed Lamb of God to receive the freedom from slavery. Yes, we must consume the whole thing.
David Blythe
Extended Scripture: Exodus 12 (NIV)
