Deliverance Over Failure

“It [is] a night to be much observed unto the LORD for bringing them out from the land of Egypt: this [is] that night of the LORD to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations.” (Ex 12:42 AV)

You have probably guessed, but this verse regards the establishment of the feast of Passover.  It was a night to remember.  It is a night to remember in a particular manner.  The more removed from the bondage of Egypt this nation became, the less the actual bondage could be remembered.  It is a matter of historical fact.  But there would come a generation that never experienced that bondage.  The great-grandchildren of the slave-generation that came out would never know what bondage was like.  What they could always experience and remember is the deliverance.  Because God brought their ancestors out of bondage, they were free.  Other than to read the account in the word of God, future generations would never have known the hardship from which their forefathers were delivered.  But they could know and experience the deliverance that followed.  They were free and delivered because their forefathers were.  Therefore, Passover should emphasize deliverance and not bondage.  What does that mean for us?

There is a politician who came out recently and threatened her opponents with their past.  She stated that if her colleagues ever got control of their government, they would do a deep-dive search into the lives of those contrary to her beliefs and find or manufacture crimes for which they could be put away for life.  She threatened to ignore her country’s statute of limitations.  She promised to help pass laws that made non-criminal behavior criminal, and prosecute retroactively any and all manufacture crimes to completely dismantle and opposition to her and her ideology.  In short, a person’s past, to her, is never gone, and no matter how innocent they had been, there would be something which she could manufacture to make innocence a punishable crime.  This takes a sick person!  To hate your opposition to the point of destroying them over thoughts and opinions, no matter what, is not a good thing.  It is a sickness of hatred.

Yet we do the same thing when we remember our past and forget the deliverance.  When the failures of the past are more pressing that the elation we should experience at deliverance is a sick kind of self-loathing.  Yes, one I was a enemy of God and did things that I would never mention.  Yes, there were times as a child of God that I miserably failed Him.  I have brought shame to my LORD and Savior by some of the choices I have made.  As remorseful and full of regret I might be over those things, joy at deliverance should be greater.  When they celebrated the Passover meal, there were bitter herbs added to remind the Hebrew his ancestors served with bitterness.  But the psalms that followed spoke of God as a great deliverer who brought them out with a mighty hand.  The book of Exodus spends only a few chapters describing the bitter bondage.  The rest of the Exodus is about deliverance.  At some point, the reality of our deliverance must be greater than the bitterness of our sin.  Then and only then can we truly understand the spirit of the Passover.