Today's Reading:Exodus 12:31-42
"Leaving Egypt"
Focus Verses: Exodus 12:31-34
31 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the LORD as you have requested. 32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me." 33 The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. "For otherwise," they said, "we will all die!" 34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing.
Insight:
After four hundred years of bondage, the Israelites were finally leaving Egypt. Even as they were leaving, the event had great spiritual significance to them. God had instructed them to reenact this day every year thereafter to remember the significance of the Exodus in their history, AND to contemplate the spiritual meaning and ongoing relevance of the Exodus for their present.
Leaving Egypt was always a picture of deliverance from spiritual bondage. They were to remember that the God who delivered them from Egypt with mighty acts of power could also deliver them from bondage to sin. The bread without yeast became symbolic of a life without sin. They were to remember that in the same way a little yeast worked its way through a whole batch of dough, a little sin could corrupt a whole person and, in fact, a whole nation.
Response and Action:
When I celebrate Holy Communion, I am remembering the deliverance Christ Jesus has given me. The Passover bread Jesus broke with his disciples, and the Passover cup of deliverance he poured, remind me that he was broken, like the Passover lambs, to set me free from sin. Just as the Israelites left bondage to Egypt, Christ calls me to leave behind my bondage to sin. Just as their bread was without yeast, I am called to live a holy life without the corruption of sin.
O God, help me to live for you and through you in thought, word, and deed. Help me to turn away from what is wrong and to do what is right. Thank you for Christ Jesus, my deliverer who has set me free from slavery to sin. By the power and grace of your Holy Spirit, lead, teach, transform, shape, and strengthen me, that I might delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your Name. Through Christ, I pray. Amen.
Proverb for Today: Prov.9:6
"Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding."
New Testament for Today: 1 Corinthians 5:7-8
7Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
In Context: 1 Corinthians 5
Resources:
The Pursuit of Holiness
by Jerry Bridges
