A Message From Our Pastor

Good Friday is a time for deep contemplation and reflection. It is a time for us to exclaim boldly with John the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Our finite minds grasp and understand difficult things better with pictures and mental images. To help us understand the deeper significance of the “Lamb which taketh away the sin of the world,” our wise and merciful God gave us in the Old Testament the elaborate feast of the Passover.
The Passover was a kind of sacrament, uniting the nation of Israel to God on the ground of God's grace to them. The slain lamb typified the "Lamb,” the unleavened loaves, called "bread of affliction" (Deut 16:3) reminds them of past affliction and symbolizes the new life cleansed from the leaven of the old Egyptian-like nature (1 Cor 5:8). A strict ritual must be followed to celebrate it.
The Passover is not only commemorative (to mark the Israelites’ deliverance from Egypt), but also typical (i.e. it typifies the great salvation that was to come.) I would like to share its characteristics and significance (adapted from Smith’s Bible Dictionary) for our contemplation this Good Friday.
(1) The Paschal Lamb typifies Christ, the "Lamb of God." According to the divine purpose, the true Lamb of God was slain, at nearly the same time as, "the Lord's Passover" at the same season of the year; and at the same time of the day, as the daily sacrifice at the Temple. (2) The unleavened bread ranks, next in importance to the Paschal Lamb. While it may stand for several things, the best is given by the apostle Paul in 1 Cor 5:6-8: that it is an emblem of purity. (3) The offering of the omer, or first sheaf of the harvest (Lev 23:10-14) signifies deliverance from winter: the bondage of Egypt being considered as a winter in the history of the nation. (4) The consecration of the first-fruits, the firstborn of the soil, is an easy type of the consecration of the first born of the Israelites, and of our own best selves, to God.
For the early Israelite the Passover was useless unless eaten. For us Good Friday would be useless if we do not live upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It was eaten with bitter herbs, as we must also eat ours with the bitter herbs of repentance and confession. As the Israelites ate the Passover all prepared for the journey, so do we with a readiness and desire to enter the active service of Christ, and to go on the journey toward heaven.
Would you “behold” and let Him “take away your sin?”
In Christ,
Rev Robert Chew