The Passover is a prophetic foreshadowing of the most significant threshold event in all history: the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.

The first Passover was celebrated in Egypt at the end of four hundred years of slavery. God gave the directions for it in Exodus 11:1–13^BSB:

This month is the beginning of months for you; it shall be the first month of your year. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man must select a lamb for his family, one per household. If the household is too small for a whole lamb, they are to share with the nearest neighbor based on the number of people, and apportion the lamb accordingly.

Your lamb must be an unblemished year-old male, and you may take it from the sheep or the goats. You must keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight. They are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.

They are to eat the meat that night, roasted over the fire, along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

Do not eat any of the meat raw or cooked in boiling water, but only roasted over the fire—its head and legs and inner parts. Do not leave any of it until morning; before the morning you must burn up any part that is left over.

This is how you are to eat it: You must be fully dressed for travel, with your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. You are to eat in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

On that night I will pass through the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn male, both man and beast, and I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood on the houses where you are staying will distinguish them; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will fall on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

The directions God gave here were to inform the Israelites He was coming to be their guest. He told them to prepare the feast, put out the welcome sign on the lintels and doorposts so He could pass over the blood and accept their invitation into the household. That invitation was immensely significant: it was a request for God to become their covenant defender and to protect them from all attacks, including a visitation from the Angel of Death.

Look for the free download of Henry Clay Trumbull’s The Threshold Covenant at gracedropswithanne.com to understand that the blood on the lintels and doorposts was not to ward off Death but rather to invite God into the home. 

This is Grace Drops and I’m Anne Hamilton. May Jesus, the Chief Cornerstone, accept your invitation today.

Thank you to Lorna Skinner of www.riversofmusic.co.uk for the background music.