Mom! Dad! There’s a lamb in the house.
Yes, son.
Do we get to keep it?
Only for a couple days.
A few days, oh boy. It’s cute. Can I name it? Can I hold it? I know, can it stay in my room? Can’t we keep it all week?
No, son.
How come, why’s it inside anyhow?
We just need to watch it son. That’s all.
How come?
To make sure it is perfect. We must see that it is not sick, hurt, or damaged in any way. This is the Lamb that God will use to save us.
A Lamb to save us from the giant machine of Egypt? Pharaoh had gotten angrier. With each plague, the work had gotten harder. The people began to resent Moses. But now there was this tenth plague coming. Each family chose a lamb to bring into their house. Some of the elders say they tied their animals on leashes using their bedposts as horse hitches. The next days rolled by filled with preparation, anticipation, and fear. There’s things a lot worse than having a lamb in the house. Things like the work getting harder and heavier and your neighbors hating you.
Or far worse. Would God come as He said He would and destroy the first born of people and animals? It He did, would a lamb’s blood marking the door be enough to save them?
The lamb was the people’s wealth and sustenance. To slay a yearling was to slay all those that would come from the animal. For the faithful in Egypt, the offering of the lamb was saying this, “God we have turned our back once and for all on Egypt. Our future is in You and You only. “
On another Nissan 10 Joshua gathered the Nation of Israel on the banks of the Jordan river as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. There the new generation were circumcised and the Lord declared to Joshua “ Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” (Joshua 5:9) Four days later the people celebrated the Passover. The next day, with unleavened bread still in their hands, they crossed into the promised land.
Nissan 10 is for the testing of the Lamb
Nissan 10 is for the changing of our hearts
Nissan 10 means it is time to clean out the leaven.,
It was Nissan 10, the day that the lambs for the Passover sacrifice were chosen, and Jesus told His disciples to bring Him a donkey from Bethpage. They brought it to Him and He rode toward Jerusalem. The crowds gathered and shouted
“Hosanna to the Son of David.
Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord”
Jesus went to His Father’s house and cleaned it of Leaven. The Priest would have their best business day of the year selling offerings to pilgrims who had traveled too far to bring their own. In the process the worshipful atmosphere of the Temple was turned into more of a carnival. The worshipper may have been overcharged a little for the lamb, but they were cheated in a a far greater way. They were robbed of the opportunity to seek the Lord in the quiet and reverence of His House.
From Nisan 10-14, the Lamb of God taught in the Temple and in the streets of the city. He was questioned by the Chief Priests and the Elders. He was followed by the crowds. Finally, even the Gentiles and proselytes sought to have an audience with Him, sending word through His disciple Philip. On the night before the Passover, a plot of grain was cut and ground into meal for the offering. ON this occasion, Jesus responded to the words sent by Phillip saying, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit.” He knew that He would glorify His Father by dying for the sins of Jew and Gentile alike, and that in His offering, a harvest would come to God from Israel, and from all the nations.
Jesus was observed as a Lamb in the house, and the people, the Priests, even the Gentiles could see that He was a Lamb without spot or blemish. But Jesus was not only there to cleanse the House and to be observed. Joshua circumcised the generation that went into the land on the tenth of Nissan. This speaks not simply of a cutting of the skin, but is a figure for the changing of our hearts. In these four days in Jerusalem, many of the leaders of the people believed on Jesus (John 12:42) but were afraid of the Pharisees. His words, convicted their hearts.
The people observed and they chose their lamb. What was God saying to us in sending us His Lamb on the Passover? God was saying to us, “You no longer need to be enslaved to sin and bound by death. I am giving you and offering, My very best. Because of Him, your future can be with Me.