“The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ‘This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you’” (2:1-2). “First” . . . one definition is, “foremost in position, rank, or importance.” Or how about: “most important,” “of greatest importance,” or “of prime importance?” What is going on, here, that makes this first month so important? It is “the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover” (12:27). It is the remembrance that, on that night, the Lord said, “I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt . . . no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. This day shall be for you a memorial day” (12:12-14). For all generations, the people would remember how God delivered them from oppression in Egypt.
You know, we, as believers, have our Passover. Paul wrote, “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). As the Jewish Passover recalls Israel’s deliverance from slavery, so we recall that Christ has delivered us from death and the slavery of sin. Charles Spurgeon commented, “The more you read the Bible, and the more you meditate upon it, the more you will be astonished with it. . . . Especially will you find this the case with the typical parts of God's Word. Most of the historical books were intended to be types either of dispensations, or experiences, or offices of Jesus Christ.” That’s Spurgeon’s way of saying that, as the Passover points to Christ, we find Christ in all the Bible.
Upon God’s miraculous deliverance of Israel through the sea, the great hymn writer, Moses, sang, and we sing along with him:
The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
my father's God, and I will exalt him. –Moses (15th century B.C., Exodus 15:2)