A beginning, and its answer
The First Passover
The first Passover is the night Israel is set free: a lamb slain, its blood on the doorposts, and death passing over every house that trusts the sign. Paul draws the line straight to Christ, our Passover.
“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.”Exodus 12:11
The first
The first. On the eve of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, God gives Moses and Aaron instructions for a meal unlike any before it. Each household is to take a lamb "without blemish, a male of the first year" (Exodus 12:5), keep it, then kill it at evening. "And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post" (Exodus 12:7). They are to roast and eat it in haste, dressed to travel, "it is the LORD'S passover" (Exodus 12:11). Then comes the promise and the peril: "For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn ... And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you" (Exodus 12:12-13). That night the LORD passes through, and in every house without the blood the firstborn dies, but Israel is spared. By morning Pharaoh drives them out, and the long-enslaved people walk free. God commands them to keep this feast forever as a memorial (Exodus 12:14).
What it means
What it means. The first Passover establishes redemption by substitution. The firstborn deserve no better than the Egyptians; what spares them is not their worth but the blood of the lamb standing between them and death. Judgment is real and it is near, passing through the whole land, yet where the blood is applied it does not strike. Salvation comes to those who trust and obey the sign, taking the lamb God provides and marking their door. The Passover also founds Israel as a redeemed people; their national life begins with a rescue they did not earn, and they are told to remember it every year so that children will ask, "What mean ye by this service?" and hear the story again (Exodus 12:26-27). The feast teaches that God saves through a substitute, that blood makes the difference between death and life, and that the redeemed are to remember. Every later sacrifice and every Passover kept in Israel looked back to this night and, though they did not yet know it, forward to a greater Lamb.
How it points to Christ
How it points to Christ. Paul makes the connection unmistakable: "For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast" (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). Jesus is the Lamb without blemish, and John the Baptist hails Him as "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). He died at Passover, and John notes that not a bone of Him was broken (John 19:36), fulfilling the command that no bone of the Passover lamb be broken (Exodus 12:46). As the lamb's blood on the doorposts turned away death, so "ye were not redeemed with corruptible things ... But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter 1:18-19). At the Last Supper, keeping the Passover, Jesus took the cup and said, "This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many" (Matthew 26:28). The first Passover freed Israel from Egypt; the true Passover frees all who trust Him from sin and death.
Questions people ask
Why did the blood have to be on the doorposts?
The blood was the appointed token. God said, when I see the blood, I will pass over you (Exodus 12:13). Salvation came not by feeling but by trusting and applying the sign God gave, placing the lamb's blood between the household and judgment.
How is Jesus the Passover lamb?
Paul says plainly, Christ our passover is sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7). Jesus is the spotless Lamb who died at Passover, whose blood redeems and whose bones, like the lamb's, were not broken (John 19:36; 1 Peter 1:19).
Why did God command Israel to keep the feast forever?
As a yearly memorial so the redeemed would never forget how God rescued them (Exodus 12:14). The remembering pointed backward to the exodus and, in God's plan, forward to the greater deliverance in Christ.