Exodus is a book of hope and victory! It is a narrative about how the people of Israel found hope.

It’s also about how they experienced victory over their oppressors.

How do we experience hope and triumph over what’s oppressing us?

We’ll use Exodus 12 to help us with that.

Let’s begin by looking first at the chapters before what we’ll be using for our reflection today.

A quick overview of chapters one through eleven

I’m going to divide chapters one through eleven into three section. The first section has to do with chapters one and two.

It is a continuation of the last chapter of Genesis. You can read it on your own. Also, it gives us an overview of how the Israelites grew in numbers in Egypt.

The Egyptians who would then inflict a lot of oppressions on the Israelites. The reason why they did so was with the hope of preventing the Israelites from expanding. This section also tells us about Moses’ birth, childhood, and adulthood.

It describes how Moses was born and raised. It also discusses how and why Moses fled from Egypt and where he would spend the next years of his life. The section ends with Moses settling in Midian.

The second section covers chapters three and four. In these chapters, we read the story about Moses’ encounter with God through the burning bush.

Out of the burning bush experience, God called Moses and sent him to Egypt for the Israelites’ exodus.

In this part, we also read about God’s promises of Israel’s deliverance from the Egyptians.

The last section is the time between God’s promise of salvation (deliverance) and when it would come to pass. It covers chapters five through eleven. In other words, the section is about what happens between DREAM (vision) and REALITY.

God used plagues to convince Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go free. But, it will take the tenth plague for God’s promise of Israel’s freedom to finally become a reality.

Chapter twelve describes how that came to be.

God has chosen to send His angel of destruction. For their protection, they had to follow God’s instructions.

These instructions are now a part of God’s Word we use today. The following lines describe God’s instructions. They also offer us how to move from vision to reality.

Hold onto God’s dream for your life

Applying God’s Word to your everyday living will move you from a dream to its reality.

Read verses 1-2.

This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Verse 2. ESV.

To apply God’s Word is to add God’s promise (Word) to your everyday living. Here’s how you should do it.

• First, start your day, week, month, and the year with God.
• Second, let God direct your steps. Allow God to define your calendar.

When God determines the times and circumstances in your life, don’t resist it. Nor you should deny it.

The critical thing in this text is that God wants the people to use God’s calendar instead of what they knew.

God wants them and us all to focus on the Pasch (sacrificial lamb) of the Lord. That time of the year coincides today with Spring.

You can’t do it alone

Moving from your dream (vision) to its reality requires you to involve other people. Do it with other people: family and neighbors.

Read verses 3-6.

Two things you learn from these verses:

• First, whatever you choose to do, do it with family, neighbors, and congregation.
• Second, do what you do with what you have. Do what you can manage or handle.

It’s an Act of Worship

Moving from a dream to its reality is an act of worship. Worship implies fellowship through a meal. You share it with family.

But, also God encouraged the Israelites to invite their neighbors. Read verse 4,

If there are not enough people in his house to eat a whole lamb, he must share it with his closest neighbor, considering the number of people.

Here you see another element that comes with worship: inviting.

It was not any lamb God wanted the Israelites to select for worship. Here are the instructions God gives them about that (see verse 5):

The lamb must be a one-year-old male that has ·nothing wrong with it [no blemish]. This animal can be either a young sheep or a young goat.

One more thing they had to do with the lamb was about the use of the blood. Part of this act of worship is to apply the blood of the lamb on the two doorposts and lintel of their homes. See verse 7,

The people must take some of the blood and put it on the ·sides and tops of the door frames [doorposts and lintels] of the houses where they eat the lambs.

Note that using the blood of the lamb happens before the meal. The blood comes first before a good fellowship and inviting others.

In the New Testament, this lamb without blemish refers to Jesus Christ.

John, the Baptist, according to John 1: 29, says these words when he saw Jesus coming toward him for baptism:

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” ESV. 

Based on the four gospels in the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the lamb of God. We experience Exodus through faith in Jesus Christ, the lamb of God. God sets us free from sin as a result of believing in Jesus Christ.

Sin represents anything that separates you from God. It is bondage of any kind in your life. It has implications on who you are and how you relate to other people.

How do you then apply the blood of Jesus on the doorposts of your home? What does that even mean for us today?

Take a look at this text from Scripture,

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Revelations 12: 7-11. ESV.

Pay attention to verse 11 from Revelation 12,

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

Victory over Satan becomes possible through the blood of the lamb. Satan, according to the Bible, and the text above represents the ancient serpent.

Some commentators think of Satan as the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve. Read Genesis 3.

Also, Satan is the dragon and an angel who rebelled against God. Since the beginning, Satan has been the enemy of God and anything that has to do with God, including God’s Church.

Victory, over Satan and his angels, comes out of applying the blood of the lamb on our lives. It’s combined with the word of our testimony.

This exercise is a spiritual discipline. I look at this whole discipline as putting on the spiritual armor. Paul talks about it in Ephesians 6: 10-20.

It is a great Scripture that you can read on your own. Using the above Scripture, first, this victory through the blood of the lamb is a spiritual thing.

Take a look at this verse,

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

According to Paul, we all need the whole armor of God. These are the elements of this armor:

• The belt of truth.
• The breastplate of righteousness.
• The readiness given by the gospel of peace.
• The shield of faith.
• The helmet of salvation.
• The sword of the Spirit.
• Praying at all times in the Spirit.

We will take a deeper look at the armor of God in another blog post.

Expectancy and Anticipation

Expectancy and anticipation create in you some sense of readiness and urgency.

That’s the only way you can bridge your dream (vision) with reality. Read verses 10-11,

And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner, you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. ESV.

God wanted the people of Israel to have this attitude: expectancy and anticipation. God wants the same for you and me.

It also implies faith. The Bible defines faith as,

the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11: 1. ESV. 

Here’s another way this verse reads: 

Faith means being sure of the things we hope for and knowing that something is real even if we do not see it. EXB.

Faith creates hope and confidence in us. It is the bridge between the dream and its reality.

Faith also reminds us who’s in charge: GOD. Exodus 12: 11d, “it is the Lord’s Passover.”

Even though we are the ones, who believe in God. The One doing it all, yet, is God.

It’s that faith, which makes us begin visualizing the victory God has already described to us.

Leave it up to God

One last thing to do is to leave it all up to God. Read verses 12-14,

For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. ESV.

Faith is also what helps us believe that God is fighting the battle on our behalf. 

Do you recall when Moses wanted to take care of things on his own?

He ended up becoming a refugee taking care of someone else’s flock. In other words, he went from being a prince to become a servant of someone who happens to be his father-in-law.

When we want to take charge instead of letting God be the one to do it, things do not go well. When Moses entirely surrendered to God, God then revealed Himself to him through the burning bush.

Moses surrendered to God. He left everything up to God. He gave up on his dream and chose to be a part of God’s vision: The Exodus.

God is the one One Who can take us from a dream to its reality. God, Himself, is the bridge between one point in life to the next.

Bringing it together

God is our Hope. We have to trust God by doing what He asks of us through His Word. Trust in God means several things. First, we hold onto God’s dream (vision) in our lives. Next, we acknowledge that we can’t do it alone. Third, we make it all an act of worship. Fourth, we embrace an attitude of expectancy and anticipation. Last, we leave everything up to God. That’s how we find hope, no matter what we go through in life!