Behold the Lamb
Why Easter and Passover Tell the Same Story
Good morning and Happy Easter, brothers and sisters.
Easter morning. The tomb is empty. The stone is rolled away. The sun is rising on the most important day in human history.
Before you head to church, before the family gathers, before the celebration begins, take a few minutes with me this morning. I want to show you something about the cross that you may have never noticed. Something hiding in the details. Something that, once you see it, will make Easter morning hit differently than it ever has before.
It starts with a single sentence spoken by a wild man in the wilderness.
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“Behold, the Lamb of God”
When John the Baptist sees Jesus walking toward him along the banks of the Jordan River, the very first thing he says is this:
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, NKJV)
We hear that phrase so often in church that it washes right over us. “The Lamb of God.” We nod. We move on. We’ve heard it a thousand times.
But stop and think about who John is talking to. He’s talking to Jewish people. People who have celebrated Passover every single year of their lives. People who know exactly what a sacrificial lamb is, what it does, and what it costs.
When John says “Lamb of God,” every person on that riverbank hears Exodus 12. They hear the story of the night God delivered Israel from Egypt, the night the angel of death passed over every home marked with the blood of a lamb.
John isn’t using a metaphor. He’s making an identification.
This man walking toward you? He is the Passover Lamb. The real one. The one that every lamb slaughtered in Egypt and every lamb sacrificed in the temple has been pointing to for more than a thousand years.
The Lamb Written into the Details
Paul states it plainly: “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7, NKJV).
That’s not a poetic comparison. It’s a theological declaration. And when you go back to Exodus 12 and lay the details of the original Passover next to the details of the crucifixion, the connections are staggering. God wasn’t making this up as He went along. He was writing the story of the cross into the Passover more than a thousand years before Calvary.
Consider what God commanded about the Passover lamb and what happened to Jesus:
The lamb had to be without blemish. “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year” (Exodus 12:5, NKJV). Jesus was sinless. He was examined by Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin, and none of them could find fault in Him. Peter later wrote, “You were redeemed... with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19, NKJV).
Not a bone of the lamb was to be broken. “Nor shall you break one of its bones” (Exodus 12:46, NKJV). When the Roman soldiers came to break the legs of the crucified men to hasten their deaths, they broke the legs of the two criminals on either side of Jesus. But when they came to Jesus, He was already dead. They didn’t break a single bone. John records this and tells us exactly why: “For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, ‘Not one of His bones shall be broken’” (John 19:36, NKJV).
The blood was applied with hyssop. God told Moses, “Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts” (Exodus 12:22, NKJV). Hyssop. A humble, scrubby little plant. This is what delivered the blood of the lamb to the doorposts of Hebrew homes on the night that death passed over Egypt.
Now listen to what happened at the cross. When Jesus said “I thirst,” the soldiers took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, “put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth” (John 19:29, NKJV).
Hyssop. The same plant. At the first Passover, hyssop carried the blood of the lamb to the doorway of salvation. At Calvary, hyssop was lifted to the lips of the Lamb Himself.
Augustine of Hippo noticed this connection centuries ago. He wrote that hyssop is “a mild and humble plant, but it has very strong and penetrating roots,” and connected it to Paul’s prayer in Ephesians that believers would be “rooted and grounded in love” so as to comprehend “the breadth and length and height and depth” of the cross. The humble plant that delivered salvation in Egypt points to the humble Savior who delivered salvation at Calvary.
The blood on the doorposts. In Exodus 12, the blood was applied to the two side posts and the top beam (the lintel) of each doorway. Some have observed that this pattern, blood on the left, on the right, and across the top, with the blood dripping downward, would have formed something resembling the shape of a cross. I wouldn’t build a doctrine on it, but it’s a striking image. In Egypt, the blood of a lamb on the wood of a doorframe saved Israel from death. At Calvary, the blood of the Lamb on the wood of a cross saves us from eternal death.
All leaven had to be removed from the house. Before the Passover meal, every household had to search for and remove every trace of leaven, because leaven in Scripture represents sin and corruption (Exodus 12:15; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8). The Passover was eaten in a house cleansed of all corruption.
In the same way, Jesus is the sacrifice that cleanses us from all sin. “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2, NKJV). The Passover lamb was consumed in a purified house. The Lamb of God purifies the house.
The lamb had to be entirely consumed. God commanded, “You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire” (Exodus 12:10, NKJV). Nothing was to be left over. The sacrifice had to be complete.
And Jesus’ sacrifice was complete. He was crucified, died, and was buried before evening fell. His body did not remain on the cross overnight. The sacrifice was finished in its entirety. As He Himself declared with His final breath: “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Τετέλεσται. Tetelestai. It is accomplished. It is completed. The debt is paid in full.
Easter and/or Passover?
I’ll be honest with you. The deeper I’ve gone into Scripture over the past couple of years, the more convicted I’ve become that Easter isn’t the only way Christians should celebrate what Jesus did on the cross. I believe Passover deserves a place in our lives too.
I know that might sound strange coming from someone who attends a modern evangelical church. But think about it. Jesus Himself celebrated Passover. The Last Supper was a Passover meal. When He broke the bread and poured the wine and said, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” He was taking the elements of a Seder and infusing them with their ultimate meaning.
Jesus is our Passover Lamb. Paul says so explicitly. So why wouldn’t we celebrate the feast that God designed from the very beginning to point to Him?
I’m not saying you need to become Jewish. I’m not saying Easter is wrong or inadequate. I’m saying that when you sit down at a Passover table, when you taste the bitter herbs that represent the bitterness of slavery, when you eat the unleavened bread that represents freedom from sin, when you see the lamb and remember the blood on the doorposts, you experience the Gospel in a way that no Sunday morning sermon can replicate. You taste it. You feel it. You live it.
I’ll be transparent. I wanted to begin observing Passover this year, but some unexpected expenses made it impossible for me to fully prepare for a proper Seder. Next year, God willing, my daughter and I will sit down to our first Passover table together, and I can’t wait. I want her to taste the story. I want her to see Jesus in every element on that table. I want her to understand that our faith didn’t begin at Calvary. It began at the Exodus, when God first showed us what a lamb’s blood could do.
If you’ve ever considered observing Passover as a Christian, I’d encourage you to explore it. You might be surprised at how powerfully the Spirit meets you when you celebrate the feast that Jesus Himself celebrated on the night before He became our sacrifice.
And if you want to go even deeper, Diane Ferreira over at She's So Scripture just published a beautiful piece on the Counting of the Omer, the ancient practice that connects Passover to Shavuot (Pentecost). What most Christians don’t realize is that the disciples were in the middle of this very count when the Holy Spirit fell in Acts 2. Diane’s post includes a printable guide for counting the forty-nine days from Passover to Pentecost yourself.
I honestly can’t recommend it highly enough! Check it out below:
What This Means for You This Easter Morning
Here’s the thing about the Passover in Exodus: the lamb’s blood had to be applied. It wasn’t enough that a lamb was slaughtered. The blood had to go on the doorpost. Each family had to act in faith. If the blood wasn’t applied, the angel of death didn’t pass over that home, no matter how much the family inside believed in God.
And the same is true for us. It’s not enough to know that Jesus died. It’s not enough to admire Him or even to believe that He existed. The blood has to be applied. By faith, personally, to the doorpost of your heart. That’s what makes Easter more than a holiday. That’s what makes it salvation.
So this morning, wherever you are, whether you’re heading to a sunrise service or sitting in your living room in your pajamas, take a moment to marvel at what God has done.
He wrote the story of the cross into the Passover more than a thousand years before Jesus was born. He put it in the unblemished lamb, in the unbroken bones, in the hyssop, in the blood on the doorposts, in the leaven swept from the house. Every detail was a promise. Every element was a prophecy. And on that fateful afternoon outside Jerusalem, every last one of them was fulfilled.
The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
That’s not a metaphor. That’s not a title. That’s the man who loved you enough to become your Passover sacrifice, so that when death comes to your door, it will pass over you.
He is risen. He is risen indeed.
Happy Easter.
Now go celebrate. Hug your family. Worship with your church. And carry this with you today: the same God who planned every detail of the Passover planned every detail of your salvation. Nothing about the cross was an accident. Nothing about your redemption was an afterthought. God has been writing your rescue story since Exodus.
He who is mighty has done great things for you. Holy is His name.
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The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
That’s not a metaphor. That’s not a title. That’s the man who loved you enough to become your Passover sacrifice, so that when death comes to your door, it will pass over you.
Incredibly grateful is an understatement. Resurrection Sunday is y New Year. There is nothing more worthy of celebrating.