An ugly truth exists. I live in Egypt! I don’t want to. It certainty isn’t the place I desire to call home. But then, again, is that true? Have I not beautified this “gods-filled” land – a land which beckons at every turn … promising so much. What keeps me here?
A familiar comfort woven within the toil.
I am mired in Egypt’s sod, covered with its clay, bruised and battered by its bondage, every bit as much as those ancient Hebrews Jehovah visited on a day long past. Cruelly scorched by Egypt’s sun, together we are called to twilight.
Then He speaks. Not because I’ve changed – nor let loose the errors of my way. He simply speaks.
“When I see the blood, I will pass over you.”
Twilight! That moment of passing from the old into the new.
We’ve forgotten that, with our modern reckoning of days. But the painful scorching of the sun lost its vicious hold as twilight fell, and with twilight’s arrival, blessed relief descended.
We’re called to live within twilight’s promise. Live in that moment of ‘choosing’ the Pascal lamb as our own. Of remaining ever beneath twilight’s provision … of setting not a foot beyond the protection of that doorpost. Of turning from the cruel hold of Egypt’s day, by choosing to dwell in the rest of God’s twilight provision.
No work of my hands will turn aside God’s judgment as He passes over my Egypt, nor release me from the bruising of its bondage. Neither can I beautify the Egypt of my making, thereby gaining freedom from its toil. Yet I can choose, this day, each day, to stand beneath the comfort of a doorpost ever stained at twilight by sacrifice's scarlet hue.
Abiding there, in every whisper that falls upon my ear I’ll hear I AM’s enduring promise, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” Abiding there, dwelling there, all I AM will ever see is that precious blood, covering me, from head to toe.
Bruised and battered, bondage will, at last, give way as I’m freed to walk beneath a yoke that is only easy, and a burden that is always light.
(Reflections on Exodus 12 – the sacrifice at twilight of the Pascal lamb and the LORD’s resultant Passing Over of each doorway bearing its scarlet stain)
Thank you so much for sharing this. I could just feel the blood running from head to toe in my mind's eye as a reminder that I am free and covered. Thank you.
