To continue the mission of Jesus Christ
Date: 13-04-25
Preacher: Ps Chen Mengxia
Title: Two Passovers
Two Passovers
Ps Chen started her message by stating that the timing for the celebration of the Jewish Passover is close to that of Good Friday. If we trace the origins of these 2 events, blood was a common theme.
On a similar note, she also shared the bloody story behind ‘The House of a Thousand Terrors’, an old corner house in the marketplace of Rotterdam, Holland.
During the sixteenth century, the Dutch people rose in revolt against the cruel King Philip II of Spain who sent an army under the Duke of Alva to suppress the rebellion. Rotterdam held out for a long time but finally capitulated.
From house to house the victors went on to massacre the citizens in their homes. A group of men, women, and children were hiding in a corner house when they heard soldiers approaching. A thousand terrors gripped their hearts.
A young man took a goat in the house, killed it, and with a broom swept the blood under the doorway out into the street. The soldiers reached the house and began to batter down the door. Noticing the blood coming out from under the door, the soldiers decided to move off thinking that all in the house had been killed. Thus, the people inside the house escaped.
With that as the backdrop, Ps Chen then went to frame the First Passover which recorded the event when God freed the Israelites from the Egyptians. Ps Chen highlighted the feast which the Israelites had before God wiped out every first born in Pharaoh’s Egypt but sparing the families of all Israelites by having them marked with a cross on the doorway of their homes using the blood from a slaughtered year-old male lamb without defect.
The Second Passover took place when Jesus was betrayed and with it the Last Supper was held but this time, the lamb that was sacrificed was Jesus himself.
In her reflections, Ps Chen said that only the precious blood of Jesus was able to redeem the sin of man and we are to respond with grace and gratitude. She then closed with the story of John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, as a testimony of one who responded with such gratitude when God saved his life.