Revelation 21:5 (TPT)
And God-Enthroned spoke to me and said, “Consider this! I am making everything to be new and fresh. Write down at once all that I have told you, because each word is trustworthy and dependable.”
There are certain themes that run all the way through the Bible. Beginning in Genesis and ending with Revelation, themes such as forgiveness, grace, and love are evident. One of the most powerful themes found in Scripture is God’s desire to offer His people the opportunity to begin again.
In the Book of Genesis, we read about the beginning of the world as we know it. Just a few chapters in, God, brokenhearted by the amount of hatred and violence in the world, made the decision to destroy everything He had created with a flood. While the story of Noah and his ark is often considered a story about judgement, it’s really a story about God’s desire for humanity to begin again.
The thread of new beginnings weaves its way throughout the rest of the Old Testament, into the New Testament, and eventually culminates with the Book of Revelation, a story about the end of the world and the beginning of eternity as God has designed it. In the passage that we just read, God cements His commitment to new beginnings by declaring to John that He makes everything “new and fresh.”
As members of God’s New Testament Church, our lives, both on this side and in eternity are only made possible by the story of the first Easter. Christ’s resurrection from the dead gives us the power to embrace a new beginning.
As we prepare to celebrate Resurrection Sunday and take part in the Holy Week observances that lead up to it, embrace the power of the new beginning that is made possible by the first Easter Sunday.
The Observance of Passover
Exodus 12:1-2 (NIV)
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.”
Matthew 26:17 (NIV)
On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”
The Passover celebration is still one of the most sacred times of year on the Jewish calendar. In order to truly understand the importance of what took place on the first Easter and how it provides us with a new beginning, we have to back up thousands of years to the Book of Exodus.
For roughly 430 years, the people of Israel had been in Egyptian captivity. What started out as Joseph’s family coming to Egypt because he was in a position of authority and there was food there turned into hundreds of years of brutal captivity.
When Moses was born, there had been a decree from Pharaoh that mandated the murder of any Hebrew male babies. This edict resulted in Moses’ mother putting him in a basket and hiding him in the river. Eventually, he was found by Pharaoh’s daughter who raised him as her own. For 40 years, Moses lived in Egypt. After he murdered an Egyptian slave master for brutalizing, he spent his next 40 years hiding on the backside of the wilderness.
After God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Moses returned to Egypt where he reunited with his brother, Aaron. God had told Moses that Aaron would handle speaking for him when Moses offered up his speech problems as an excuse. Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go based on Moses and Aaron’s words, so God intervened.
History teaches us that the plagues that fell on Egypt probably lasted around 40 days. Lice infested the heads of the people. Frogs overran the rivers, creeks, and lakes. Locusts that devoured crops fell from the skies, resulting in chaos. Over the course of those 40 days, life in Egypt fell apart. At one point, things got so bad that God turned the water into blood, leaving the Egyptians with no source of drinking water, no way to bathe, and no way to cook any food that may have been left. Unfortunately, none of that got through to Pharaoh.
The ruler of Egypt was so enamored with his own power, and was so afraid of losing his slave labor, that those plagues didn’t prompt him to change his mind. That’s when God instituted the Passover.
In the verses that we just read from Exodus, God declared that the days that were approaching would be the first month of what would become the new year. God was truly offering Israel a new beginning. However, that new beginning would not come without the shedding of blood.
Every household was to take a lamb, kill it, and eat it. If the household was too small, they were to share one with their nearest neighbor. There were very strict guidelines that covered what type of lamb they could choose. It had to be spotless and perfect in every way.
After the animal had been killed, the Israelites were to take the blood of the lamb and put it over the door of their home. That night, God would pass through Egypt and the firstborn of every home that didn’t have the blood over the door would die. It was an extreme measure, but God was delivering His people.
At that point, Pharaoh agreed to let the people of Israel go. Their new beginning came on Passover because of the shedding of the blood from a lamb.
Fast forward roughly 1,600 years, and the Passover was still being celebrated each year. In the same way that we celebrate the new year every year, the Hebrews continued to celebrate Passover. In fact, they still do.
On the night of His arrest, Jesus observed the Passover celebration with His disciples. Passover is a single day, but the celebration that surrounds it is the Festival of Unleavened Bread. On the first day of the festival, the disciples asked Jesus where He wanted to observe Passover.
Over the next few chapters of Saint Matthew’s Gospel, we read about how Jesus ate the Last Supper, washed His disciples feet, and took them into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. It was there that He was arrested. The events that took place after that arrest encapsulate some of the darkest hours in the history of humanity, but are also the source of our salvation.
Multiple times in Scripture, Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God. That’s not by mistake. In the same way that blood was shed on the first Passover, allowing God’s people to embrace a new beginning, there was blood shed by a lamb on the Passover discussed in the New Testament.
Easter is our celebration of a new beginning. While God told Moses and Aaron that the days that followed the first Passover night would be the first day of the first month in Israel’s new beginning, the resurrection of Christ allows us to start anew. This Easter, thank God for the Passover Lamb that provided you with a fresh start. Our new beginning came through an empty tomb, and that is something to be thankful for.
A Closing Prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank You for the promise of a new beginning. Thank You for the perfect Passover Lamb and the sacrifice of Your Son on the cross. Most of all, thank You for raising Him back to life on the third day just like You said You would. Thank You for offering to me to begin again. Help me to take full advantage of it. In Christ’s name, Amen.