Passover. This week is a week that has been celebrated for centuries- it goes down to the root of our belief. It’s a moment that we see God continually point to, to remind His people of His enduring faithfulness. When we dive into the book of Exodus, we see a people group who has been enslaved and oppressed by the Egyptians for 400 years. But those slaves aren’t just anyone. They are the descendants of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. These are the people that God said would be blessed. And yet, they are slaves.
But their story doesn’t end there. These Israelite’s cry out to God in the midst of their oppression, and God sends a messenger named Moses to help them in their plight. Moses goes directly to Pharaoh himself and asks for relief for God’s people. Pharaoh proceeds to make their lives somehow more miserable. So God then starts sending plagues down upon Egypt every time Pharaoh refuses to let the Israelite people free. Finally, God says enough is enough, and he tells Moses to prepare the people to leave. But in order to do so, they had to kill a lamb and spread its blood across their door frame in order to be safe from the last plague God would send. And so God sends an “angel of death” to Egypt and every person without lamb’s blood across their door looses their firstborn child…including Pharaoh himself. This causes Pharaoh to finally let the Israelite people be free.
God is a rescuer. He continually shows up to rescue the people that love Him. We see this in not only the Exodus story, but in the story of Jesus as well. When Jesus entered into the town of Jerusalem, he was going there to celebrate the Passover and remember the greatness of our God! But he also was there to rescue us. His life’s mission was going to be accomplished within the week.
As we celebrate Palm Sunday this week, I want you to remember all the times God has rescued you. Everyone’s stories are different in how they found the salvation of Jesus and freedom from sins. But they all have a theme of redemption and rescue, because our God cares for us. Our God is different from most other religions that when we couldn’t get up to Him, He came down to us. And He perfectly lived His life on earth so that we could be free. God holds out his hand to each and every one of us, asking us to believe in what He’s done. Just like the Israelite’s had the chance to free themselves from slavery by believing in their God, we can be free from the shackles of sin and death by believing in what Jesus did on the cross for us.
Grow Anyway 