The Smell of Sacrifice; the Taste of Salvation

There’s nothing quite like the smell and taste of a barbeque, is there?

The smell of baby back ribs glistening with BBQ sauce? That pork brisket you’ve had in your smoker for the past 8 hours? Or the taste of those lightly salted veggie-cabobs turning on the grill?

But the smell and taste of a good barbeque does far more than trigger your tastebuds: the smell and taste of a good barbeque triggers memories.

The smell of a barbeque seems to evoke all the vibes of summer in an instant – leaving you hungering for Spring to come and go already! The taste of barbeque takes you on a nostalgic trip to backyards and block parties past. It conjures up memories of Community Picnics and County Fairs. The smell and taste of a good barbeque impress memories that can last a lifetime.                                           

Exodus 12 drops us in the middle of a barbeque. A barbeque in the land of Goshen – the backyard of Egypt. And like any good BBQ, the smells and tastes of this BBQ were meant to impress lasting memories on the hearts and minds of people.

But this barbeque smelled and tasted differently.

The Smell of Sacrifice

It was a barbeque you must have been able to smell for miles. A nation of millions of Hebrews – all having a barbeque at the same time? The smell of roasted lamb was everywhere.

But the burning flesh of lambs wasn’t all you would smell at this Mediterranean BBQ.

You’d smell blood.

And when hundreds of thousands of households are all slaughtering lambs at the same time and painting that blood all over the doorframes outside their homes, the smell of lamb’s blood was everywhere, too.

It’s a smell that certainly brought recent memories to their minds – memories almost as fresh as the blood dripping outside their homes. It reminded them of the smell of the Nile River, when God had turned it to blood.

That was the first of nine divinely orchestrated plagues they had seen inflicted upon the Egyptians – the consequences for the Pharoah’s refusal to let the Hebrews go. After that came the plague of frogs.

Then the plague of gnats.

Then the flies.

Then the livestock of the Egyptians began to die of illness.

Then boils broke out on both their animals and the Egyptian people themselves.

Then came the hailstorm that brought the breadbasket of the world to its knees.

Then came the locusts.

And finally, then came the plague of total darkness over the land of Egypt.

But with every plague, Pharoah’s heart only continued to be hardened: the king of Egypt would not let the enslaved people of Israel leave.

With every one of these signs and wonders, you can almost see the Israelites salivating for freedom.

“Will this be the plague that finally breaks the camel’s back? Will this be the plague that finally changes Pharoah’s mind? Will we finally be free?”

God, through Moses, warned Pharoah that one final plague was coming: at about midnight, the LORD would pass through all of Egypt, and strike down the first born son of every household – unless that home had the blood of a perfect lamb painted around its door. If, while the LORD passed through the land of Egypt, he saw the blood of a lamb dripping from a house’s doorposts, he would not enter: the LORD and his judgment would pass over that family.

The Taste of Salvation

And here is where the festival of the Passover finds it’s beginning. On the evening of the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nisan, the Israelites would have a barbeque.

They would dine – no longer on the luxurious buffets of Egypt – but on unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and roasted lamb. While they ate, they were to be dressed and ready – not to work the farms and labor in the fields of Egypt – but dressed to leave Egypt forever.

With tied sandals and staff in hand, families who trusted the LORD huddled within their blood-painted homes to eat the LORD’s Passover meal in peace.

That night, they were effectively sinking their teeth into God’s grace.

They could taste the tangible assurance that they would live.

They would inwardly digest the very lamb whose blood would deliver them – not from Egypt – but from God’s judgment.

That blood was a God-given sign for them – a sign juxtaposed against the signs and wonders employed against an unbelieving Egypt. This sign was a tangible sign of God’s grace.

And on the first month of their new God-given worship calendar, they would commemorate their liberation from the bondage of slavery with this Passover meal. That meal was to be a lasting ordinance for them. For generations to come, the smell of blood and roasted skin of lamb and the taste of lamb meat would forever be associated with God’s saving, redemptive love.

Smelling the Need for a Better Sacrifice

But the smell of the blood of animals was meant to remind them of something else, too: these sacrifices served as an annual reminder of sins (Hebrews 10:3) – and that without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22); and yet, the smell of these slaughtered lambs also reminded them that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats and any other animal to take away sins (Heb 10:3, 4).

Put yourself in the sandals of the ancient Hebrews. Every single year, on the 10th day of the Jewish month of Nisan, you and your family would select your lamb for the Passover; and on the late afternoon of the 14th of Nisan, that lamb was slaughtered for you.

And you would do this again and again, year after year, decade after decade.

Can you smell the blood? The gallons upon gallons of blood from innocent lambs sacrificed for the sins of the people?

This Passover meal reinforced a stark, painful reality of a bondage far worse than the chains of slavery – that being, the bondage of sin and death. This Passover meal beckons us to take a step back and see ourselves and our lives in view of a grander narrative – a narrative that viciously grapples with the existential question “How can I, a broken sinner, possibly be at peace with a blameless, holy God?”

The smell of blood from that Passover lamb was meant to emphasize a desperate need for a greater rescue – not from enemy nations, but rescue from us dying as God’s enemies under the knife of God’s wrath and punishment.

The taste of that Passover lamb was meant to leave the Jews longing for something greater – a greater Passover Lamb, who would – once and for all – be sacrificed for the sins of all the people – whose blood would forever cover over them and bring them peace with God.

And 1,500 years later, the promise embedded in the celebration of Passover is being tangibly fulfilled in real space and time. Except, on this Passover, God would not only provide the Lamb: he would be the Lamb.

Tasting the Assurance of Absolute Salvation

1,500 years after the very first Passover, on the 14th of Nisan (when Passover lambs were slaughtered for the evening meal) another Lamb is being slaughtered outside the city of Jerusalem. But this Lamb changes everything.

Like every Passover lamb, not one of his bones would be broken; but this Lamb would not need to die again the following year. This Lamb would bleed once and for all – never to bleed again – for our sins. This Lamb would endure the fires of hell on the spicket of the cross – so that all who huddle in faith behind his blood will have life and life to the full. This Lamb gives up his body into death – not just for one nation, but for the entire world. This Lamb is Jesus – God veiled in flesh and blood.

There, on Calvary, the promise of Passover finds its fulfillment in the body and blood of Christ.

As Jesus and his disciples finish their Passover barbeque that Thursday, Jesus institutes a new meal, a greater meal, when, with bread and wine, he says “Take and eat. This is my body…take and drink. This is my blood.” Whenever we eat this bread and drink this cup, we not only proclaim the Lord’s death, we are miraculously receiving the same body and blood of Christ, the Greater Passover Lamb!

Why would Jesus intimately link his perfect life, suffering and death to this new meal? Why would he give us his true body and true blood in, with, and under bread and wine? To personally assure you that your Savior died for you. So you can sink you teeth into God’s grace. So that you can inwardly digest the very Lamb whose body and blood delivered you. So you can tangibly taste your salvation.