What does it mean that Jesus is the Passover Lamb? When God’s Old Testament people celebrated the Passover, they were looking back to the time of the Exodus. During the last of His plagues on the Egyptians, God killed the firstborn of every family that had not sacrificed a lamb. But those who had made that sacrifice, and had put the blood of the lamb on the outside of their houses, were safe – God passed over them and spared them from destruction.

In the same way, all those who are joined to Christ by faith, all those who have been washed by His blood will not have to pay the price for all our sins. Instead, God’s judgment will pass over us, resting on Him instead.

And from this side of the cross, we can see how many of the details of the Passover celebration pointed to the sacririce of Christ. The lamb was to be eaten by the family all in one night, just as Jesus’ sacrifice was completed on the cross. It is finished – there is nothing left for us to do to accomplish our salvation.

And the Passover was only to be celebrated in one place – the place that Jesus was eventually sacrificed. There has always been only one way of salvation, one way to God, and Jesus is that Way.

During the same season, the people celebrated the feast of Unleavened Bread. This also looked back to the Exodus, for on the night that God slew the firstborn of the Egyptians, God’s people were expelled from Egypt so abruptly that their bread didn’t even have time to rise. Thus, eating unleavened bread reminded them of the swiftness of their deliverance, just as eating all of the Passover Lamb in one night reminded them of its completion.

But the unleavened bread had another meaning that we can also see fulfilled in Christ. For in Old Testament times, yeast was seen as somehow unclean – it was never to be offered to God, for example. So, staying away from yeast for a whole week symbolized the people’s need to avoid sin, to stay in a right relationship with the God Who had freed them from slavery in Egypt.

Jesus of course fulfilled this festival as well. At the moment of His death, He accomplished salvation for all His people, just as He will complete our redemption in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye on the day of His coming. But until that time, those who have been washed by His blood and forgiven of our sins owe Him everything. Thus our response to His grace should be the same thing to which the feast of Unleavened Bread pointed – those who belong to Christ should make every effort to put sin away from us, living instead in complete obedience and devotion to the God Who has saved us from the power of sin and death.

Deuteronomy 16:1-8 (NASB)
“Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
2 “And you shall sacrifice the Passover to the LORD your God from the flock and the herd, in the place where the LORD chooses to establish His name.
3 “You shall not eat leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat with it unleavened bread, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), in order that you may remember all the days of your life the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.
4 “For seven days no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory, and none of the flesh which you sacrifice on the evening of the first day shall remain overnight until morning.
5 “You are not allowed to sacrifice the Passover in any of your towns which the LORD your God is giving you;
6 but at the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His name, you shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening at sunset, at the time that you came out of Egypt.
7 “And you shall cook and eat it in the place which the LORD your God chooses. And in the morning you are to return to your tents.
8 “Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD your God; you shall do no work on it.