Do you find that your memory isn’t as sharp as it used to be? Whether it’s age, or you have too much going on, or maybe you are not getting enough sleep, these factors can impact our memory.

I’m increasingly making myself reminders on my phone to remind me where I need to be or what to do at specific times. Some of my reminders have reminders.

Remembrance was among the chief virtues of the Israelites. The instruction to tell every generation of God’s mighty actions is central to their culture.

Knowing what God has done informs us that He can handle our present and future.

Theologian James Edwards said, “The purpose of remembrance was not simply to recall the past, but to represent the past in order to participate in it and extend its effects into the present.”  

In Luke 22, as Jesus is celebrating the Passover with His disciples, this annual celebration serves as a poignant reminder of God’s deliverance from the oppression of Egypt and 400 years of slavery.

If we are not careful, we will forget what God has done and return to what He’s delivered us from.

This Passover would be a transitory event for the Israelites and the world. The elements of this celebration were about to take on new meaning.

This event celebrates how God set His people free. When God heard the cries of His people, He groomed Moses to lead them out of Egypt and into the promised land, yet Pharoah refused to comply with God’s request.

So God performed ten signs to let Pharoah know this was not a human request but a Divine one.

Before the tenth sign, God prepared His people by instructing them to select a spotless lamb to be sacrificed. The people then wiped the blood from the sacrifice onto the doorpost of their home.

The Israelites were to stay inside their homes until God indicated it was time to leave. The final sign to Pharoah was that the firstborn in all of Egypt would die unless the sacrificial lamb’s blood were on the doorpost of a home.

But for everyone who put their faith in God’s provision and did what He prescribed, the LORD would “pass over” their home, and the firstborn would be saved.

But as Jesus celebrates and remembers the Passover, He will give the celebration a new meaning.

Jeremiah 31:31-33 prophetically explains how the Passover foreshadowed a greater deliverance for all people.

This was not deliverance from governments or political authorities but from the power and consequences of sin that plague all people.

I hope you know this truth, but you have a sin problem. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” 1 John 1:8. Sin has infiltrated every fiber of our humanity, causing and leading us to destruction.

Nothing good comes from sin. “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23

Just like the Israelites were powerless to secure freedom from Egypt, we are powerless to overcome sin in our strength.

Jesus celebrating the Passover, just hours before He will be falsely arrested and sentenced to death, is too much of a coincidence. So let’s compare the elements of the Passover to see how they foreshadowed Jesus’ purpose and mission.

First, the spotless sacrificial lamb was central to the Passover, Exodus 12:1-6. Jesus is our Passover lamb. John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:7b

Just as on that first Passover night, every household that had the blood of the lamb on the doorposts indiscriminately would be saved from death, Exodus 12:7.

Jesus’ blood saves us and gives us complete forgiveness for sin, Hebrews 9:22.

Have you ever wondered why a sacrifice had to be made for forgiveness? Why would God not just decree we are forgiven without the mess and pain of sacrifice?

It’s because we must learn that sin costs something. Sin will cost you relationships, trust, love, integrity, maybe a job, and eventually, your life.

• Sin comes at a price.
• Sin costs a family their best, blemish-free lamb.
• Sin costs God His one and only Son.

Thirdly, Jesus drew a parallel between the unleavened bread of Exodus 12:8 and Himself, Galatians 5:9. Leaven, yeast, was a symbol of sin. So unleavened bread, bread without yeast, would be a symbol of sinlessness.

These elements foreshadowed Jesus’ coming and unbreakable covenant with us, which is why Romans 10:13 affirms, “For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

There is no amount of sin that God won’t forgive. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

We are called to live by the Spirit, a life of faith, where our carnal desires decrease, and God increases in us. The appetite we feed will grow, and we starve will die.

Jesus is our Passover lamb, who takes away the sins of the world and heals us of the brokenness sin creates in our life. He gives us a new life now and the promise of eternal life when this life is over. From the beginning, Jesus was God’s plan for the world, 1 Peter 1:20, as the signs pointed to Him as God’s deliverer for all mankind.