""AND thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD’S passover.” This night was to mark the close of the long servitude that had bowed the children of Israel under the whip of their taskmasters. Under the cruel power of a hostile Pharaoh their lives had been identified with the slime pits and brick kilns of Egypt, from which, humanly-speaking, deliverance was impossible. But now God was about to work in mighty power and their release from slavery was nigh.
True, God’s judgment against man’s sin must fall before deliverance would be known, and those who sought the shelter of the blood of the slain lamb would be spared that judgment. When the night was past they would be free from their oppressors and already on their way to the better land that God had promised to them.
We can see in this a picture of the world and the bondage in which Satan holds all who through sin are enslaved by him, yet deliverance from this hapless lot is offered by a gracious God to all who by faith own the atoning work of Christ and His precious blood as a propitiation for their sins. All who have Christ as their Substitute are set free from bondage and are on their way to that heavenly home prepared for them. What a wonderful change this is! “Even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us,” the Apostle tells us (1 Cor. 5:77Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: (1 Corinthians 5:7)). How well then for us, as believers, to understand the meaning of this feast and its bearing on the Christian life.
The attitude of the people when eating this feast on that Passover night was very suited to the promises of God in connection with their deliverance, and spoke of that which was becoming to a redeemed people. Their loins were girded — speaking of their separation from the scene in which they had been so long held captives, and readiness for service, any hindrance to their going forth being removed. Their shoes were to be on their feet — properly shod for the pathway before them. Their staff was to be in their hand a token of their pilgrim character and need of support in their weariness as well as an instrument to remove obstructions in the way.
Above all, they were to eat it in haste. Redeemed by blood, they were now no longer citizens of Egypt, but strangers in a foreign land. From henceforth they would not move at the bidding of a cruel Pharaoh, but their pathway would be the loving direction of Jehovah. How appropriate it was then that they should be fully prepared when the summons came! And this is the pattern for the Lord’s people in our day. Our whole behavior and attitude should manifest a readiness to follow His command without hesitation and without any attachment to this world, that would hinder our obedience or mar the joy of marching toward that “inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” 1 Peter 1:4,54To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:4‑5).
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