"On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his fathere, a lamb for a household...Now you shall kep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. "
God gave specific instruction to the Israelites as they prepared for that first Passover. God was going to come thru the land of Egypt and display His power and liberate the enslaved Hebrews. Each Israelite family was to take a lamb into their home, a perfect yearling and tend to it for four days.
You can imagine how attached the family would become with that little lamb "baaing" around the house. I'm sure in some of the households the little children played with their new little pet, even tucked it into bed with them. Then, at twilight on the fourth day, they were to sacrifice the lamb.
All of the sudden, this sacrifice became very personal. I would guess there were many tears shed that night.
Why would God have them do such a task? He was painting us a wonderful picture of the intimacy of our Salvation in Christ. Standing on the bank of the Jordan River, John the Baptist proclaimed as Jesus was walking into the water, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" (John1:29).
Jesus is our Passover Lamb and we are to receive Him not simply intellectually, but personally, intimately. We are to embrace Him with our whole heart, understanding that He took our sin upon Himself, the perfect sinless lamb became our sin, so that we may become pure before God.
The Bible says, "We love Him because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19)
