Eating the Passover in Haste

When the Lord instructed Israel on the slaying and eating of the passover lamb, He withheld its purpose until the end. The last instruction He gave the children of Israel was this: "ye shall eat it in haste."

In that statement was an encapsulation of the urgency and crucial importance of the passover lamb. God's explanation then immediately followed: "it is the Lord's passover."

They were to eat the lamb fully ready to leave Egypt, because that lamb's blood displayed was their only hope of escaping the wrath that would sweep across the whole land that night. Only the houses marked by the blood of the lamb would escape the judgment of death.

There would be no running from the judgment. The wrath would wash over the land - thus the urgency of the sacrifice, and the marks, and the blood, and the eating in haste.

It would be their last meal as slaves in Egypt. The very next meal they ate, they would all be free!

So too was the last passover eaten by the Savior when He ordained His Supper. It would be the last meal He would eat before He saved His people by His blood shedding at Calvary! It was the last meal His disciples ate before they were set free and redeemed! They ate of food that pictured the sacrifice by which they were about to be rescued.

God promised that Israel would be spared the wrath against Egypt. Only at the last did He disclose the means by which they'd be spared: by the blood of the sacrifice.

So too our Savior declared salvation to all who trust in Him. But it was at that last meal that He finally disclosed the means: the offering of Himself as our substitute in the judgment for our sins.

What a glorious Supper it is to us today!