This past week I walked over to a friend’s house with my grandson. We hadn’t been there for too long when I got a call from my wife–only it was not her voice on the other end. Our neighbor said, “You need to come home right away. Your wife’s been in an accident and she needs to go to the hospital.” I rushed home and found my wife in the backyard with blood on her head and face and all over her clothes. Wind had knocked over the pole holding up our sunshade and hit her on the top of the head. My friend had taken my grandson across the street, so the first thing my wife asked was where he was. Then, as we were getting her ready to get her into the ambulance, she was worried about the blood she had gotten on the neighbor’s door when she was trying to get help. As I reflect back on the accident, I am so thankful for the help we got from our neighbors and God’s hand of protection in the whole situation as she was cared for and cleared to go home.
As I washed the blood off my neighbor’s door, I was reminded how God once protected his people from a terrible plague by asking them to spread blood from a spotless lamb over the doorpost of their homes. “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.” (Exodus 12:12-13) This event would be commemorated with the yearly celebration of Passover, when the Israelites were finally set free from their bondage in Egypt. It was also a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross freeing us from sin and death. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. (1 Corinthians 5:7) When we accept that Jesus died for our sins, our names are written in the Lamb’s book of life– “the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.” God planned from the beginning to sacrifice his one and only son to redeem us.
God got my attention this week and reminded me of what was truly important in life–the love of family, the love of neighbors and the immeasurable love of God!
