Pesach, or Passover, is steeped in biblical history, practice and significance. It is one of the three Feasts for which Jewish men are told to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread following it are a time of remembering God’s deliverance, ceasing from labor and experiencing refreshment. Modern-day celebrations include families and friends gathering not only to share in the Passover Seder but also for traveling, visiting and recreation.

The Passover recorded in the book of Exodus was a very different event. The enslaved, work-weary members of each Jewish household sheltered inside their home that night. They’d shut the door as soon as they’d followed the Lord’s protective mandate to apply the blood of a lamb on their doorframe. Each family in their own home gathered around the table and ate their Passover meal together – while outside, the death angel passed through with one final plague in judgment on Egypt.

This year’s Passover bears eerie yet profound similarities to that long-ago event. All over Israel – in fact, throughout the world – Jewish people will celebrate this Passover limited to their homes. Absent of the usual guests and extended family, members of their households alone will sit around their Seder tables. It will be a very different observance of this familiar Feast.

This, of course, is due to the coronavirus and ensuing mandates that so many nations and cities have established ordering people to “stay home” or “shelter in place.” Virtually all the world will be behind closed doors on Passover, waiting for the threat of death to pass.

Imagine how meaningful this must be for the Jewish people, especially those in the Land of Israel. In a time typically characterized by great celebration and fellowship, this confinement offers an opportunity for a deeper reflection than perhaps ever before on what their ancestors experienced.

Here are a few ways we can pray for the Jewish people during this year’s unique version of a familiar annual event. Please pray for:

• Jewish people to reflect on the meaning of Passover and receive revelation of Yeshua (Jesus) as the Lamb of God
• Believers who will be spending extra time this Passover under the same roof as unsaved household members, that they will be bold in sharing their faith and drawing parallels with the stories of deliverance and redemption found in the book of Exodus and the Gospels
• Believers in Israel and around the world to reach out to Jewish family and friends by phone and online to share the hope of salvation during Passover and this time of isolation
• Jewish people searching for an online Passover experience to encounter live-streamed Messianic Passover Seders and other resources that will point them to Jesus as their deliverer and the way to the Father
• Heart-felt conversations – spurred by any challenges of this time, such as fear, isolation or sickness – to arise about life, death and salvation through God’s appointed sacrifice Yeshua
• Special protection upon the elderly, frail and desperate, as well as front-line caregivers, that God would be merciful, spare lives, and bring about new life through the Good News

Let’s pray:

Father, we are in an unprecedented season for our generation, but You are still the God of miracles. We have heard of Your fame and renown, as in Your deliverance of Your people at Passover. Oh, Lord, renew Your miracles and wonders today, through the healing of nations and individuals, and the spreading of Your Good News worldwide. May revelation of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, as the Lamb of God and Savior spread globally, bringing revival and many, many Jewish people and their neighbors to salvation. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.

“The Egyptians will know that I am Adonai, when I stretch out My hand against Egypt, and bring out Bnei-Yisrael from among them” (Exodus 7:5).

There are far more unbelievers in the world today than Believers. Everything from complacency to cynicism keeps people from searching for God. Many, like the Egyptians who enslaved Israel, fail to recognize the one true God due to their loyalty to false gods. As God works in our lives, sustaining us through trials or supernaturally protecting us from them, He shows Himself to a disbelieving world that He loves.

The world is watching Believers. Some may look on eager to catch us in hypocrisy in order to discount God and justify their refusal of Him. Others may observe us with the desperate hope of seeing more evidence that God is true and good, giving them the courage to trust Him with their own lives.

As God works in our lives to sometimes rescue us from and sometimes sustain us through various difficulties, He reveals Himself to a world that urgently needs Him. As others see His faithfulness to you in your trails and your trust in Him, let us pray that many will be drawn to Him in faith.

God brings us out and through to show the world who He is so that many more can be saved.

“He has put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in Him” (Psalm 40:3 NIV).

“…so you may know that I am Adonai” (Exodus 10:2).

Living in this physical world as we do, sometimes we need reminders of just who our invisible, spiritual God is.

Exodus chapter 10 tells us that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that He could perform more signs before him and his officials – so that Israel would know their God. He told Moses that it was also to enable the Jewish people to share with their children and grandchildren the mighty things God did in the process of rescuing them from centuries of bondage.

When God brings us out of or through various trials in our lives, we have the opportunity to see with fresh eyes who He is. His care and attention to what concerns us are testimonies of His grace and love toward us. When He provides, He reminds us that nothing in our lives is too big for Him to handle.

As He shows us more of who He is – or reminds us of what we have forgotten about Him – through our present-day trials, our faith in Him grows. We learn more deeply that we can fully trust Him to take care of our needs and meet us in our sorrows.

God brings us out and through to show us who He is, creating faith-landmarks for us to remember in the future and encouragement to pass on to others.

“Come and listen, all you who fear God. I will tell you what He has done for my soul” (Psalm 66:16).

From Exodus 12:13: And when I see the blood I will pass over you

I love celebrating Passover every year. But when I was a teenager the biblical account of the Passover became meaningful in a way that touches me to this day. The Lord used that story to help me understand the gift of salvation through Yeshua through a simple Gospel pamphlet. It was about how the children of Israel by faith applied the blood of a spotless lamb on their doorposts and lintels, and once that had been done, the people inside that home were safe. I was struggling with fear that I wouldn’t be able to believe big enough to truly be saved; but this little booklet helped me see that it wasn’t about what I could accomplish. What had already been done through the blood was what mattered and made the difference. Through faith in what Yeshua, the Lamb of God, accomplished through the shedding of His blood, I was safe – and saved!

The story of the Passover is one of the most meaningful in Scripture. It reflects back to the Garden of Eden and the need for Adam and Eve to be covered by the skins of animals that were killed. It reminds us of Abraham not having to sacrifice Isaac because God provided a ram. It tells us about God’s deliverance of His children from cruelty and slavery. And it points forward to the ultimate remedy and provision for sin and death through the sacrifice and resurrection of our Savior, Deliverer and Messiah, Yeshua.  

Doesn’t that fill you with gratitude and hope?  Doesn’t that make you want to TELL SOMEBODY?

Where in the Word: Exodus 12:1–16

Finding hope:

• PONDER: Where do you see yourself in the story of the Passover? Would you be confident or fearful? Why? Where do you see yourself in the story of the Good News?
• PRAY: If you have not received God’s gift of salvation through Yeshua’s sacrifice, talk with God about that now! If you have received Him, pray for someone else who needs to know this Good News.
• RESPOND: Is the Lord asking you to share the amazing story of Passover and the gift of salvation to which it points with someone? Who? Ask God for an opportunity and take it.

Something more to talk about with God, family and friends: Exodus 12:46; Isaiah 53; John 19:33–37; John 1:29

Have you ever seen the beginning of a marathon? Last year, around 40,000 racers lined up en masse to run the London Marathon. Organizers advised runners ahead of time that those at the back of the pack may not cross the start line for 15 minutes after the signal to begin the race.

Now imagine what it must have been like as the Israelites left Egypt in the Exodus. Scholars agree that the crowd probably numbered well over 2 million people. How do 2 million people just leave?

And the Israelites weren’t merely going for a 26-mile excursion; they were leaving Egypt for good. They took with them every possession they owned, including food, household items, animals and carts. Accomplishing the logistics of such an enormous mass escape from bondage is one of many displays of God’s power in Passover and the Exodus.

Beyond their own things, the Israelites also carried some of Egypt’s riches. God had told the Israelites to ask their Egyptian neighbors for valuables. They asked, and Egypt gave. By then, all Egypt was weary of the trouble they endured because of Pharaoh’s obstinance against the Jewish God determined to free His people. Also, Egypt was grief-stricken because each of its families had just suffered the death of its firstborn.

God had spared the Israelites who had followed His instructions from this tenth and final plague. They were to sacrifice a year-old lamb and brush its blood on the doorframes of their homes. When the angel of death came over the land that night, he passed over every house covered by the blood of the sacrifice, sparing them the death of their firstborn. The next day, Moses led the people out of 400 years of bondage.

Passover is the most important holiday in Jewish history. Through this watershed event, God reaffirmed His covenant with Israel’s forefathers and called the Jewish people out of slavery to be a nation unto Himself.

Passover is important to God. He commanded the people to observe its remembrance every year – forever. He wants all generations of Jewish people forevermore to know what He did in that magnificent event.

“This day is to be a memorial for you. You are to keep it as a feast to Adonai. Throughout your generations you are to keep it as an eternal ordinance” (Exodus 12:14).

He instructed us what to say when our children ask us about Passover’s annual observance.

“Now when it happens that your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ You are to say, ‘It is the sacrifice of Adonai’s Passover, because He passed over the houses of Bnei-Yisrael in Egypt, when He struck down the Egyptians, but spared our households’” (Exodus 12:26–27).

Woven into Passover is a powerful picture of another “sacrifice of Adonai’s Passover” – Yeshua (Jesus). The New Covenant calls Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The apostle Paul identifies Jesus as “our Passover” in 1 Corinthians 5:7. With His sacrifice, Jesus delivered all those who place their trust in Him from bondage to sin that had condemned us to spiritual death (Romans 6:15–18).

“But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching under which you were placed; and after you were set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness” (Romans 6:17–18).

From the plagues to deliverance from death to the mass departure of 2 million people, God’s power was on display for all of Israel and Egypt to see. By His mighty hand, He freed His people from bondage and placed an image of His eternal redemptive plan in the account of Passover.

It is Adonai’s Passover, a day to remember forever.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of realities not seen. —Hebrews 11:1

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and shalom in trusting, so you may overflow with hope in the power of the Ruach ha-Kodesh (Holy Spirit). —Romans 15:13

Stop for a moment and think. What are you hoping to be delivered from at this time? It might be something specific, like global pandemic. It might be something more abstract but every bit as real and pervasive, like fear. The book of Exodus has so much to show us about hope amid whatever we are going through and asking deliverance from. The God who delivered the children of Israel and empowered His servant and friend Moses is the same God Who has hope for us today.

Starting tomorrow, journey with us over the next seven days as we explore the theme of Hope that Delivers: Thoughts from Exodus. May these short devotionals and Scriptures stir your hope and build your faith. May we receive a fresh awareness of the goodness of God and place our hope in Him anew.

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me." 

Exodus 20:2-3 (NIV)

How did the children of Israel find themselves in flagrant sin and under God’s weighty wrath in the second half of Exodus 32? No doubt by way of a long slippery slope! Their propensity for idolatry is revealed in numerous passages, including the simple things mentioned in Exodus 16:3 (meat, bread, Egypt). By the time we get to the story of the golden calf, their hope was no longer in God. They forgot the Faithful One who delivered them from Pharaoh and parted the Red Sea so they could pass through safely on dry ground. Instead they asked for new gods (the former gods of Egypt) to lead them. The idols they decided to worship would only lead them to death!

Even after His righteous judgement for their sin, God went on to show them mercy. He gave Moses a fresh promise that His Presence would go with them. And in chapter 34 He gives a revelation of His character and holiness that is regarded as sacred to this day by Jewish people around the world (“The Thirteen Attributes” of God in Exodus 34:6-8). We too are susceptible to idolatry, placing our hope in that which is false instead of in Him who is true. Yet the Lord in His faithfulness continues to reveal Himself to us as worthy of our praise, worship and hope. He will never fail.

Where in the Word: Exodus 32:1–8; 31–35; 33:14; 34:6–8

Finding hope:

• PONDER: How are your current circumstances revealing false idols in which you may be finding comfort or placing your hope?
• PRAY: God’s kindness leads us to repentance, and honest confession and repentance brings renewed awareness of His forgiveness. Talk things over with Him now.
• RESPONSE: Spend some time in God’s presence, renewing your hope in Him through worship.

Something more to talk over with God: Colossians 1:12–20