One night many years ago, the Israelites had locked themselves in their homes.  A plague was spreading across the country, a plague that brought death.  Isn’t that what is happening in the world today, as we face lockdown and COVID-19?

 

Although there was death and destruction all around, God had a plan!  “Take a lamb,” he told them, “and take some of the blood.”  The blood was then to be put on the doorframes of their homes, and the lamb roasted and eaten with unleavened bread.  If they did this, God promised he would ‘pass over’ them.

 

Did they remember how God had provided Abraham with a ram?  We don’t know, but they did exactly what God told them.  These events didn’t only point back to a significant time in their history, they pointed forward.  Another lamb, whose blood would be shed, would be given as a sacrifice. That one was Jesus.

 

The coronavirus can sometimes be deadly, but there is something that is far more deadly, and that is sin.  No-one can recover from sin.  The consequences according to God’s word is always death.

 

Just as God had a plan to protect his people all those years ago, he had a plan to provide deliverance from this deadly virus of sin.  Recognizing Jesus, John the Baptist declared, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

 

The first thing we need to do is apply the blood of Jesus to the ‘doorposts’ of our life, by asking God to forgive our sin.  We are “freed from our sin by his blood,” as it says in Revelation 1:5. 

 

Then God instructed the Israelites to roast the lamb and eat it, with unleavened bread.  The ‘true bread’ is Jesus.  He is the ‘Bread of Life’ and unless we feed on him, we don’t belong to him.  He is calling us into a relationship, where we remain in him.  Although it begins with a one-off prayer, it is far more than that.  It is fully yielding in obedience, day by day, to the One who paid the ultimate price for us.  Then we have truly passed from death into life.