The Doorpost

Deut. 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

She asked us why God would have had the Israelites write these words on the doorposts.  That same day a question was posed on the Christ Fellowship page about the correlations between Passover and N.T. communion.  My mind got to thinking…and suddenly BANG!!  POP!!!  CRACK!!  Lightning had struck.  An apostrophe! epiphany!  A thunderous roll echoed between my ears as the smoke cleared…and this is what God revealed.

Okay.  So, apparently God has a “thing” about doorposts.  First He has the Hebrews prepare for their inaugural Passover by painting the doorposts of their houses with a lamb’s blood.  And then, when they are out of Egypt and ready to enter the Promised Land He has them write these words of the law on the doorposts of their homes.  What is it with the doorposts??

The doorposts represent the way.  The way in and the way out.  They represent the way in to our “homes” – our inner sanctum, our most private place, our heart – as well as our way out into the world, our places of business, our community.  Our days are filled with going through doorposts – whether it be from one room to another, or from one location to another.   Writing the Shema on the doorposts provides a constant reminder of how I am to conduct myself, whether at home with my family, or out in the world conducting business.  As I pass through the door, I am reminded to make sure that my actions INSIDE my home match my actions OUTSIDE my home…that I am displaying in front of my children and husband the same integrity of character and love for God that I show to the world…or vice versa.  It’s also a reminder to those coming into my home of just exactly Who is in charge.  Who I serve.  And Who they should be expecting to see.

And it’s because of what the Passover doorposts signify that makes the Shema so important.  You see, when the Hebrews painted the lamb’s blood on the doorpost, God told them specifically to paint the top and the sides.  Unlike paint, blood is a very thin liquid, so when you paint the top, some is going to drip onto the ground.  And when you connect the blood-splattered dots – from top to bottom, from side to side – what shape emerges??  Yes.  A cross.  You see, the Israelites were literally painting the sign of the cross with the blood of the lamb to protect them from death, rescue them from slavery, and set them free.  As they walked through their doors that dreadful morning, they walked through the blood of the lamb.  It was that blood that protected their family.  It was that blood that allowed them to walk out of Egypt forever, as free men, free women, and free children.  It was that blood that provided a new life in a beautifully abundant land prepared just for them.  But they had to walk through it.

Years later,  the Lamb of God stretched his bloodied hands out to the side…His bloodied head rested at the top of the cross, while the blood from the nails in his feet dripped onto the ground beneath.  The blood of God’s precious Lamb stretched side to side, top to bottom, just like the doorposts at Passover, because HE is my way.  He delivered me from the angel of death…freed me from my bonds of slavery and sin…and will one day end my sojourning and bring me to a beautifully abundant land prepared just for me…if only I will walk through the blood.

I get goosebumps just thinking about the awesomeness of our God.  I love Him so much.