GOD'S MIRACLE

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb.  Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the basin and put some on the top and on both sides of the doorframe.  When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter the houses and strike you down.  Exodus 12:21-27

God is about to perform a miracle that Jewish people still celebrate some 2,800 years later, the Passover. He has just performed lesser miracles to show his people that he has powers over all the world, bringing plagues on Pharaoh and the Egyptian people and sparing his people from most of them.  The Jews had been in Egypt for 300 years or so and had drifted away from God.  God needed to do something spectacular to bring them back.  On the night of Passover, his angel of death flew over Egypt and killed the first born of all the Egyptians but not of the Jews who had followed Moses' instructions to put lamb's blood on their doorways.  God followed this miracle with his parting of the Red Sea to allow the Jews to escape from Pharaoh's grasp and head back to their promised land.  Two wonderful miracles, but not enough to keep his people from drifting away again and again.  Not even punishing his people by taking away their promised land was enough to bring his people back to obeying his laws permanently.

    But God had one more miracle to come that dwarfed the Passover and the parting of the sea, which brought us all back to him for good. He sent his son to earth to save us, to die for us and take all our sins upon himself.  The Passover and parting of the Red Sea were just a hint of what was to come, of God's love for us.  He brought us all back to him for good and for always and for all eternity in Jesus.

Dear God, help us all to live up to the two great commandments Jesus gave us "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind".  And also, "Love your neighbor as yourself".  And when we fail, help us to know that our failures have already been recompensed by Jesus going to the cross.  God's love for us is infinite.  Amen

                                                Paul Starke

                                                paulsstarke@aol.com