Remembering Carefully

Remembering Carefully
Words of Faith 10-26-2022
Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy © 2022
Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com
Faith Fellowship Church - Melbourne, FL
www.faithfellowshipweb.com
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Exodus 12
[43] The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "These are the regulations for the Passover:
"No foreigner is to eat of it. [44] Any slave you have bought may eat of it after you have circumcised him, [45] but a temporary resident and a hired worker may not eat of it.
[46] "It must be eaten inside one 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] "An alien living 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 of it. [49] The same law applies to the native-born and to the alien living 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.

Anything worth doing is worth doing the right way. This is why we ritualize some things. This is also what these regulations were about.
The Passover meal came to be called Seder, which simply means "order." This would be ritualized as a service led within families following an order called Haggadah or "telling" or re-telling. It is all about remembering correctly and carefully the great works of God.
While it would later become a common blessing to invite an outsider to the Passover Seder offered in your home, this was for the Israelites only. This was the very first Passover meal. Later there would be millions of such meals in homes.
The Seder was always to be a family-style meal. Each home was to mark and remember the miraculous deliverance given on the night of the Passover. A paschal lamb was to be selected and sacrificed. Dividing up the sacrifice to share was not the purpose of this meal. The deliverance at the first Passover came home-by-home and house-by-house. The Lamb was not to be divided and eaten in separate homes. This was a fellowship meal stressing the unity and joy of the participants.
We don't want to miss that no bones of the paschal Lamb were to be broken. We see here a prophetic type and shadow of Jesus, the Lamb of God. Psalm 34:20 describes the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus: "He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken."
John's Gospel tells of this final Passover sacrifice: "But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: 'Not one of his bones will be broken'" (John 19:33-36).
This was not a neighborhood get-together. It was a meal for the Covenant Community of God. Circumcision was the symbol of the blood Covenant made by Abraham with the Lord. This was the delineation of the Covenant people of God from all others. Only those who identified themselves by faith with God's people could participate in this observance. If a Gentile wanted to identify himself in belief with Israel, he was welcome.
We see similar delineations within the Body of Christ and the celebration of the Lord's Supper. The Sacrament of sharing in the Bread and Cup is a re-telling and remembrance of the great sacrifice made by Jesus on our behalf.
The Lord's Supper is not a casual thing for anyone who happens by. It is for believers who join in remembering the great price paid for our salvation. Everyone is welcome, but we participate only based on His grace. This is why many churches exclude those who have not declared their faith publicly by baptism. Water baptism is the Covenant delineation of Christian believers. Believer's baptism is our Covenant mark.
Are you a believer? How do you remember the great deliverance that God has provided? Have you been marked as a believer by Covenant Baptism? Do you regularly remember within the community of faith by sharing in the Lord's Supper?

Father God, I never want to forget how great You are and marvelous Your lovingkindness is. I choose to be close to Your heart. I desire to be near to Your people. I choose to remember. In Jesus' Name.

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© Jeffrey D. Hoy 2022
Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy - Faith Fellowship Church (EFCA)
2820 Business Center Blvd.
Melbourne, Florida 32940 (321)-259-7200
Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com
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The Words of Faith devotion is published five days a week by E-mail, excluding Federal holidays. Please feel free to forward this devotion to a friend who might be blessed by this devotion. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is quoted from the New International Version (R) of The Holy Bible. Copyright (c) 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Words of Faith (c) 1997, 2022 Jeffrey D. Hoy. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward this copyrighted material or use portions of it with appropriate notation of the source for non-profit purposes.