As Passover approaches, I find myself drawn again to the words of John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). The crowd of Jewish pilgrims gathered may have immediately thought of the Passover lamb, whose blood marked the doorposts of their ancestors’ homes in Egypt, sparing their firstborn sons from judgment. The Passover season offers us a beautiful opportunity to trace the golden thread that winds from Exodus 12 to the Messiah’s sacrificial death and beyond.
A Portrait Outline
In Exodus 12:5–7, God gave Moses detailed instructions for that first Passover night in Egypt. On the tenth day of Nisan, each household was to select a lamb. For four days, they would keep it, observing it carefully to ensure it was without blemish. Then, on the fourteenth day, they would sacrifice the young and unblemished lamb at twilight and apply its blood on the doorposts and lintel of their homes. When the angel of death passed through Egypt that night, every home covered by that blood would be spared.
These instructions formed a prophetic outline and foundation for a magnificent, full-color oil painting of redemption God would reveal in the future. This early drawing is something of a charcoal outline, begging to be filled with nuance and color to create a portrait of the One who would come as our perfect Savior.
Adding Color: The Arm of the Lord Revealed
The painting takes on colors and more beautiful hues in the writings of the prophets. In Isaiah 53:7, the prophet describes one who would be “like a lamb that is led to slaughter” and who, “like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth.” But the chapter opens with a striking question: “To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Isaiah 53:1).
That Hebrew word for “arm”—zeroah—echoes throughout the Passover story. In Exodus 6, God promises to redeem Israel “with an outstretched arm” (Exodus 6:6). To this day, a roasted shank bone representing that zeroah sits on the Seder plate as a reminder of God’s mighty deliverance. Isaiah is telling us that the suffering servant—Jesus, the lamb led to slaughter—is Himself the outstretched arm of God, reaching into human history to deliver His people from a bondage far deeper than Egypt’s chains: the bondage of sin and death.
Understanding the Hebrew Calendar
In the Hebrew reckoning of time, a new day begins at sunset, not at midnight. What we call Thursday evening and Friday daytime are actually part of the same Hebrew day. This detail becomes crucial when we trace the events of Jesus’ final week.
The Gospel of John provides us with chronological markers that, when understood through the lens of the Hebrew calendar, reveal an astonishing correspondence between the Passover lamb of Exodus 12 and the Lamb of God.
John tells us that “six days before the Passover” (John 12:1), Jesus came to Bethany. If Passover fell on the fourteenth of Nisan, then six days before would place Jesus’ arrival on the eighth of Nisan—a Friday. He would have completed His travel during daylight hours, to not violate the Sabbath by traveling after sunset. That evening, as the Sabbath began (now the ninth of Nisan by Hebrew reckoning), Jesus shared a meal with His dear friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. That day would have passed quietly in rest and worship.
Then came Sunday, the tenth of Nisan, and the action picks up!
The Lamb Selected
On that day, something remarkable happened. John records that “the large crowd who had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel’” (John 12:12–13).
The slow march to Calvary began on the tenth day of Nisan as Jesus traveled from Bethany—the same day every household in Israel identified and presented their Passover lamb (Exodus 12:3). As families in Jerusalem were choosing unblemished lambs from their flocks, God was presenting His chosen spotless Lamb to the nation just a short distance away. Jesus entered the Holy City not as a conquering warrior, but as a humble king, riding on the foal of a donkey in fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9. The crowds greeted Him with words from Psalm 118—the very psalm that Jewish tradition associates with welcoming the Messiah, recited on the Jewish festival of Tabernacles.
On the day Israel chose its lambs, God chose His.
The Lamb Examined
According to Exodus 12, households were to observe the selected lamb from the tenth until the fourteenth of Nisan—four days during which the family would examine it carefully, ensuring it was healthy and free from any blemish or defect so it could qualify to serve as the Passover sacrifice.
During these same days—from Sunday the tenth through Wednesday the thirteenth of Nisan—the religious leaders peppered Jesus with questions designed to trap Him. The Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians all took their turn, testing Him from every conceivable angle, searching for some flaw, some inconsistency, some weakness they could exploit.
However, Matthew records that after this barrage of testing, “no one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question” (Matthew 22:46). Even Pilate, after his own examination, would declare three times, “I find no guilt in this man” (Luke 23:4).
Like the unblemished Passover lamb, Jesus was found faultless.
The Lamb Sacrificed
On Thursday evening—the beginning of the fourteenth of Nisan—Jesus gathered with His disciples in an upper room for the Passover Seder. This was the meal commanded in Exodus 12, the annual remembrance of God’s deliverance from Egypt. “Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance”(Exodus 12:14).
But on this night, Jesus invested the ancient elements with new and deeper meaning. Taking the unleavened bread, He broke it and said, “This is my body, which is given for you” (Luke 22:19). Taking the cup, He declared, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood” (Luke 22:20). The very One who instituted the first Passover meal, which had always pointed forward to a greater deliverance, was now fulfilling it.
The following morning, still the day of Passover, Jesus was led to Golgotha. At 9:00 in the morning, He was nailed to the crucifixion tree and, for six hours, hung there, bearing the weight of human sin.
At 3:00 in the afternoon, Jesus cried out, “It is finished,” and breathed His last.
The ninth hour, 3:00 pm, was the hour of the evening sacrifice at the Temple. It was the very time when, according to tradition, the Passover lambs were slaughtered in Jerusalem, their blood poured out at the base of the altar. At the precise moment when countless lambs were dying as substitutes for the people, the Lamb of God died as an atoning sacrifice for all humanity.
John, an eyewitness at the cross, records one more detail. When the soldiers came to break the legs of those crucified, they found Jesus already dead. So, they did not break His legs. John tells us explicitly that this fulfilled Scripture (John 19:32–36). He points us back to Exodus 12:46, where God commanded concerning the Passover lamb: “nor are you to break any bone of it.” Not a single bone of the true Passover Lamb was broken.
A Work of Art and Grace
The blood of the Passover lamb was applied to the doorposts and lintel of each home, and when death passed over, the firstborn sons were saved. In the same way, when we place our faith in Jesus, the Lamb of God, His blood covers the doorposts of our hearts, the judgment we deserve passes over us, and we pass from death into life.
Exodus 12 contains a beautiful detail that often goes unnoticed. God instructed that foreigners who wished to participate in Passover could do so if they were circumcised and identified with the community of Israel. From the very beginning, God’s redemption was never meant for one people alone. Today, Jewish and Gentile people together—all who have circumcised hearts cleansed by the blood of the Lamb—share in this promised redemption and gather around the Lord’s Table as one family.
Celebrating Together
This Passover season, I encourage you to gather with your family and experience the richness of the Seder. Elsewhere in this newsletter, you will find a Passover guide and Haggadah designed to help you walk through the meal together, tracing these beautiful connections between the ancient story of deliverance and its fulfillment in our Messiah.
As you break the matzah and lift the cup, may you see with fresh eyes how every detail of that first Passover night pointed forward to Jesus. The lamb selected on the tenth, examined for four days, sacrificed on the fourteenth, His blood applied to the doorposts, His bones unbroken—all of it was preparing us to recognize the true Lamb, Jesus, when He came.
May you hear afresh the words that echoed across the Jordan two thousand years ago: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Dr. Mitch Glaser 