Passover v. Promised Land

[Part A: Getting the people out of Egypt]

My pastor once asked me what thoughts captivate me while I worship. What about God is so inspiring as to write songs and set apart time on a Sunday service to simply rejoice? What are we rejoicing over? What am I, David Ulrich, praising God for?

Among the infinite aspects of God’s excellence – the apostle Paul in 1 Peter commends the Christian to “set your hope fully on the grace to be revealed to you when Christ Jesus is revealed." But grace – like much of Scripture, is a kaleidoscope of wondrous dimension. Within God’s grace is His mercy – and together the two reveal a matrix of unimaginable Love: namely, salvation. And the two are different. Gloriously and perfectly different.

During Israel’s bitter years of enslavement – God chose to unveil this truth in a radical way. Lets start with Joseph. As his father’s favor increases – so does his brothers’ envy [Genesis 37]. An elaborate series of events follow that transform Joseph from treasured son to Potiphar’s slave to Pharaoh’s chief advisor. Joseph later reconciles with his brothers when they come to purchase grains, and his family settles in the Egyptian province of Goshen. After a few generations of peace and prosperity, a new Pharaoh takes the throne “who did not know about Joseph,” and in fear of Israel’s great numbers,  “put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor” [Exodus 1:8, 11].

So the Lord calls Moses to be His servant, saying “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt…So I have come down to rescue them…Now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt” [Exodus 3:7, 10].

So God pours out His wrath on Egypt. He Tells Moses in chapter 11:

"Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt… Then [he] will know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.”

There is distinction between Egypt and Israel. He begins the greatness of Mercy – for the wrath to be poured out on the people is dreadful. But the Lord spares for Himself a remnant. In chapter 12 – we read that only by the blood of a spotless lamb with God pass over His people. “It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians” [Ch 12:26].

Jump ahead to Christ. “All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God,” says Romans 3:23. In His perfect Justice – all man is deserving of death – but in Fatherly Love, God’s mercy passes over a remnant, those He “Redeemed… with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” [1 Peter 1:18].  The remnant has been redeemed with the blood of the Lamb. As for the rest of Egypt, “There will be loud wailing…worse than there has ever been or ever will be again... For there [will not be] a house without someone dead” [Exodus 11:6, 12:30]. And herein lies mercy.

Mercy is the withholding of deserved punishment. Christ tells a parable of a two men who were pardoned of debts that neither could repay. His illustrates that with great forgiveness comes great gratitude: one man owes a larger amount. The deeper a well is cut into the earth, the more water it holds when the floods come. This man loves his pardon far more than the man who owed little, for his debt is far deeper.

When I am in my sweetest, most sincere times of worship: I think of mercy. It is not God who is the debtor. He was not obligated to pass His wrath over Israel. We do not have a right to redemption. “But God, who is rich in mercy… even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” [Ephesians 2:4-5 NKJV, emphasis added]. It was in mercy that the Lamb was slain.

But had God been Merciful alone – our story would have ended at Passover. Christ would have stopped at burial. The cisterns of sin would have been packed full of dirt and forgotten. But not so with the Living Water – for His greatest Glory awaits in the flood of Grace.

“Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied...”