09-04-13 Podcast script
[Prepare]
We’ll hear today about God’s provision. You might like to ask God to feed your mind and
heart as you come to his word today.
[Bible passage]
Exodus 12:14–30
Remember this day and celebrate it each year as a festival in my honor. For seven days you
must eat bread made without yeast. And on the first of these seven days, you must remove all
yeast from your homes. If you eat anything made with yeast during this festival, you will no
longer be part of Israel. Meet together for worship on the first and seventh days of the festival.
The only work you are allowed to do on either of these two days is that of preparing the
bread.
Celebrate this Festival of Thin Bread as a way of remembering the day that I brought your
families and tribes out of Egypt. And do this each year. Begin on the evening of the fourteenth
day of the first month by eating bread made without yeast. Then continue this celebration until
the evening of the twenty-first day. During these seven days no yeast is allowed in anyone’s
home, whether they are native Israelites or not. If you are caught eating anything made with
yeast, you will no longer be part of Israel. Stay away from yeast, no matter where you live. No
one is allowed to eat anything made with yeast!
Moses called the leaders of Israel together and said: ‘Each family is to pick out a sheep and
kill it for Passover. Make a brush from a few small branches of a hyssop plant and dip the
brush in the bowl that has the blood of the animal in it. Then brush some of the blood above
the door and on the posts at each side of the door of your house. After this, everyone is to
stay inside. During that night the LORD will go through the country of Egypt and kill the firstborn son in every Egyptian family. He will see where you have put the blood, and he will not
come into your house. His angel that brings death will pass over and not kill your first-born
sons. After you have entered the country promised to you by the LORD, you and your children
must continue to celebrate Passover each year. Your children will ask you, “What are we
celebrating?” And you will answer, “The Passover animal is killed to honor the LORD. We do
these things because on that night long ago the LORD passed over the homes of our people in
Egypt. He killed the first-born sons of the Egyptians, but he saved our children from death.”’
After Moses finished speaking, the people of Israel knelt down and worshiped the LORD. Then
they left and did what Moses and Aaron had told them to do. At midnight the LORD killed the
first-born son of every Egyptian family, from the son of the king to the son of every prisoner in
jail. He also killed the first-born male of every animal that belonged to the Egyptians. That
night the king, his officials, and everyone else in Egypt got up and started crying bitterly. In
every Egyptian home, someone was dead.
[Main point]
Once again God reminds the Israelites that Passover is a day to remember God’s miraculous
deliverance. But why remember it by eating unleavened or yeast-free bread? Yes, there is the
symbolic significance of yeast appearing to have a life of its own and hence being
symbolically another source of life rivalling God, but the ramifications of eating yeast bread
seem a bit drastic!
Have you ever wondered why God asks you to do certain things on your journey with him? Do
God’s commands sometimes seem a bit arbitrary?
I think quite a few Israelites might have been scratching their heads trying to work out why
God had such strict commands about bread. At least he had explained the reasons why they
had to daub blood around their doorways – who would want God’s destructive hand to pass
through your family rather than pass over it? The Israelites didn’t know yet, but the yeast-free
bread they were making to eat for the seven days after Passover night is what would keep
them going on their forced march out of Egypt with an army on their tail, not in their homes in
Egypt!
[Respond]
Reflect for a while on what God has been asking or is asking you to do. Pray that he would
strengthen your trust in him and make you willing to respond.