If the family is too small for a lamb, then share it with a close neighbor. Exodus 12:4
As it is with most things, it’s the sensational side of God that makes the headlines. Like when He parted the Red Sea or when he asked little David to fight Goliath or when he sent down a chariot to whisk Elijah into heaven. It’s not that I don’t like these stories, but sometimes I feel they shroud my God in an awesome, holy glow that make me feel unworthy and hesitant in His presence.
That’s why my favorite stories are the obscure ones, the ones that take just a verse or two to tell, those that make the back page and not the headlines. These brief stories speak to me of a Father God, someone who is sensitive, understanding and extremely reasonable. Such is the story told in the first few verses of Exodus 12–It’s time for the last plague, the death of the first born. The only way to escape death is to sacrifice a lamb and smear its blood on the door post.
I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a single Hebrew family that was going to risk losing a child. Every family is determined to get a lamb, no matter the cost. One lamb per family was not much of God to ask on the eve of their freedom.
They are willing, but God makes a concession–God takes into account that one lamb per family may be too expensive for some, that a whole roasted lamb may result in wasted food. So this mighty awesome God of mine, who is in the middle of delivering an entire nation out of slavery, takes some time out to pay attention to something comparatively insignificant. And He tells the people to share a lamb if needed.
God makes time for the little things. He’s concerned about my food budget, my dying garden, my bulging waist. I love that my God doesn’t expect me to just suck it up and look forward to the Second Coming. No, He sends me His Holy Spirit to help me in the mundane human activities too.
Says Fyl 