| “And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians” (Exodus 12:26-27). |
| The Israelites kept the Passover the night the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt and delivered the Israelites. But they were told to keep it every year, as a remembrance of what the Lord had done for them, and how He had passed over them because of the blood on the door. |
| As time went on, children would be born who did not remember the first Passover, and of course they would ask what it meant, when their parents kept it every year. Their parents were to explain to them how the Lord passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, but killed all the firstborn of the Egyptians. Then the children would in turn explain it to their children, and so on throughout many generations. |
| Sadly, the Israelites did not keep the Passover every year, as they were asked to do. As time went on, they turned away from the Lord and worshiped idols. Sometimes they had an ungodly king who brought idols into the country, and then they did not keep the Passover. At other times it seems that they simply got careless and forgot about it. We can be thankful for the times that they did keep it, but there were many years when it was not kept. |
| Perhaps some of you go with your parents to a meeting on Lord’s day where they remember the Lord Jesus in His death, using a loaf of bread and a cup of wine. We no longer keep the Passover, but rather the Lord Jesus showed His disciples how to remember Him with a loaf of bread and a cup of wine. If you do not understand all this, you should do as the Israelite children did; they asked their parents what the Passover meant. You can ask your parents what the remembrance of the Lord means. The Lord Jesus values it very much when we remember all that He did for us, in dying for us on the cross. |
