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Passover at Home

The worried young father holds the precious basin while his son strains to reach to the highest point of the doorway… The homemade brush made from a prescribed kind of bush… The blood of a lamb which had been killed just before sundown, and his blood gathered into the basin, to be used as directed over the doorway…

All the questions of “Why?” from his sweet children are going unanswered. He cannot even allow himself the luxury of asking such questions. “This is all about obedience! We must obey the voice of authority. May the God of Heaven look down upon us and have mercy upon us!” That is all he can say…

In the distance the sounds of cries begin to fill the air. This family, along with a couple of their closest neighbors, huddle together in their house. They must eat the meal standing… They must shelter in place, stay at home, not leaving the house… They must keep their shoes on. The full moon shines down upon a terrifying scene… It is midnight…

This old story has been passed on from Jews and Christians down through the generations of mankind. They are getting ready to celebrate it in just a few days. It is the Passover. The story was made famous in our generation by Hollywood in the movie The Ten Commandments.

Such an amazing story from the Bible caught the eye of the movie producers of big-screen cinema. They thought it would be a big money-maker, and they were right. It did end up being one of the ten most popular movies ever made, both in how much money it made for the producers, and in how many people watched it. Why were people so interested in this story? It has become something that many people watch as a ritual each spring.

The movie vividly depicted that fateful night, so that even people who have never read the Bible themselves are familiar with the story. It was the night the “Death Angel” of a horrible plague passed over the land, with thousands of people dying.

But the miracle is that it did not take the lives of people who were obedient to the prophet of God who told them exactly what to do in order to be safe from the plague. If they would obey, the death angel would pass over them, and then they would be set free from their slavery…

After the miracle happened, leaving God’s people unhurt by the Angel of Death, there was the great and famous “Exodus” into freedom and on to the Promised Land! After that, God commanded his people to always remember this event every year at the first full moon of springtime with a great festival called Passover. They were never to forget how their God had saved them because of their obedience to his directives.

To be safe they must stay at home… “Shelter in place! Do not go outside!” Does that sound familiar? Death was striking everywhere in the country from a plague for which there was no cure. Does that sound familiar? Wouldn’t you desperately grab the brush and put the blood over the door of your house, if that were the remedy for this awful plague?