When the children of Israel went out from bondage in Egypt, they fled with haste. The angel of death had gone through the land, and from every Egyptian household arose lamentation for the first-born. Pharaoh's spirit was broken. The heir to the throne lay mute witness to the fact that Israel's God was on the side of Israel; for death had not entered the door whose posts and lintels the blood of the lamb had stained.
Israel's leader and ruler was Moses, and they obeyed him blindly. They were enjoined to take a lamb without blemish, break no bone of its body, and to leave not one particle undestroyed or unburned at morning or daybreak. The rite was a prophecy of the Christ, who was to lead— and is leading—the spiritual Israel out of bondage and darkness, thereby bridging the gulf of death; hence, the Passover from mortal beliefs to the sure inheritance of Life. Material Israel was content to reach material freedom—the inheritance or land promised to Abraham and his seed. Moses' understanding and faith were their shield and support. Like children they murmured, and complained, and questioned; asking material comforts from a spiritual God. They wandered forty years in the wilderness of doubts and beliefs of mortal suffering, laying their burdens upon the shoulders of their leader, who in turn, as a mother carries a sick and fretful child, laid them at the feet of his God and their God. He comprehended God's patience and reflected God's love towards them.
We also have been led up out of Egypt and bondage; but cannot, as did the children of Israel, rest upon the understanding of our Moses. "The times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth every man everywhere to repent." Mortal sense is our Egypt, and our task masters in our own households,—our ambitions and envys, our fears and doubts. With the Israelites, the coming out from the nation's gods to the one God was an experiment; and only as this God proved Himself (to their childish comprehensions,) the victor did they yield Him allegiance. Moses and Aaron on the contrary, saw the spiritual significance; saw the Christ that was the end of the law for righteousness; saw that man was to be led triumphantly through to his spiritual rest and inheritance.
