1-12-15  Exodus 12:43-51. Be Part Of The Community Of Faith By God’s Grace– my devotional

Exodus 12:43-51                                      Kevin E. Jesmer

Key Verse 12:48                                      1-12-15

 “A foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat it.”

In Exodus 12: 43-51 the Lord gives Passover regulations, “43 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “These are the regulations for the Passover meal: “No foreigner may eat it. 44 Any slave you have bought may eat it after you have circumcised him, 45 but a temporary resident or a hired worker may not eat it. 46 “It must be eaten inside the house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones. 47 The whole community of Israel must celebrate it. 48 “A foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat it. 49 The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you.” 50 All the Israelites did just what the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. 51 And on that very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions.”

There are several important spiritual principles that can be found in these regulations.

First, anyone participating in the Passover meal must be fully devoted to the Lord and to the fellowship of believers. Look at Exodus 12:41-43, “The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “These are the regulations for the Passover meal: “No foreigner may eat it. 44 Any slave you have bought may eat it after you have circumcised him, 45 but a temporary resident or a hired worker may not eat it.”  There were lots of foreigners among the Israelites. They came out of Egypt with the Israelites. That was OK. They could be with God’s people in the Exodus. They tasted freedom along with God’s people. They were recipients of God’s grace. But they were excluded from the Passover meal if they were not fully committed to the Lord and the body of God’s people.

It is like this among Christians. God has redeemed us from our slavery to sin. He has saved us from the power of sin and death. He has rescued us from this Fallen world, from the grave and from hell. He has given us grace, forgiveness, clear life direction and a living hope in the Kingdom of God. This was all accomplished through the Gospel. It was all because of what Jesus accomplished though his suffering, death and resurrection. Our conversion, because of the grace afforded us through the Gospel, is our Exodus. We are set free to be children to God.

Jesus is our Passover Lamb. (John 1:29) We are called to remember what he has done for us during the Lord ’s Supper. We eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance of Jesus. Jesus once said in John 6:52-54, “52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (NIV)

We remember our Lord and Savior until the day he comes again to take us home to the Kingdom of God. The bread we eat represents his body broken for us. The wine represents his blood spilled out upon the cross for us. When we partake of the Lord’s Supper we repent of known and unknown sins. We accept God’s grace of forgiveness. We take Jesus into the very core of our being…our heart, mind and soul. We internalize Jesus. He fills us with his presence. We are his and he is mine. In order to properly partake of the Lord’s Supper we need to surrender to Jesus. We need to come to him in humility and with thanksgiving.

Anyone who is not a Christian, or who is not seeking to know Jesus, or are stubbornly holding onto sin, or are not inclined to have Jesus being their all in all, can never partake of the Lord’s Supper in a worthy manner. They just don’t “get it”. They are like a temporary resident or a hired worker. (45)  In fact the Bible has a warning for those who try to partake in the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner. 1 Corinthians 11:26-29 read, “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. 27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.” (NIV)

That is why I believe that God told the Israelites that the foreigners could not eat the Passover meal without their whole family being circumcised. Look at verse 48, ““A foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat it.”  It does not mean that they could not eat the Passover. It means that they needed to plunge in and make the God of the Israelites their own God. They needed to devote their all to the God who redeemed them also from slavery in Egypt. Then they become Israelites and they can eat the Passover. Likewise, anyone who comes to Jesus by faith can become one of God’s people. They can partake of the Lord’s Supper in a worthy manner. God extends his hands of grace to all peoples’ of all nations.

Second, partaking of the Passover was not a private affair, but a community affair. Look at verses 46-47, “It must be eaten inside the house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones. 47 The whole community of Israel must celebrate it.” (NIV)  The people could not just prepare a lamb feast in the privacy of their own tents and eat it alone or just with their nuclear family. They needed to come out of the privacy and the comfort of their own homes and prepare the feast and eat it all together. It brings all people of all racial, economic, social, and educational and spiritual levels together to worship the Lord.

How easy it is for us to bypass the fellowship of believers. We only think that our faith is a personal affair that we partake in privately. If they could, there are some people who would make church an event that they only watch on television and they get the Lord’s Supper sent to them in the mail or make their own in their kitchen. God knows our tendencies. And so he told the ancient Israelites to come out of their house and celebrate the Passover as a community. The same goes for Christians today. We need to make the effort, in the midst of our business, in the midst of cold weather, in the midst of a myriad of inconveniences, we need to deny ourselves and join the community of believers to at least share in the Lord Supper. It is just that simple.

Prayer: “Lord, thank you for making one of your children by faith in Jesus. I want to make Jesus my all in all. Help me to celebrate the Gospel with others in the church.”

One word: One of God’s people by faith.