Center for Creative Ministry A research organization and research center for Seventh-day Adventist pastors and their congregations
Passover
This past week, Bryan Kohberger, who confessed to the brutal stabbing murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, received four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole or appeal.
The impossibility of parole plays into the likelihood that Kohberger’s motive will never surface. Although not a requirement for assessment, a parole hearing often considers the convicted party’s expressed remorse–including accountability by disclosing motive for and details of the crime.
Although subjective in nature, positive remorse assessments result in many prison rehabilitation programs.
One prison that creates successful rehabilitations is Norway’s maximum-security Halden Prison. Its staff affirm the convicted inmates’ ability to change. One of its officers has summarized, “When you want to take someone out of prison, you must help take prison out of them.”
Emphasizing human rights by offering education and job training for successful reintegration into society reduces chances of recidivism. The very layout of the prison is even intended to work toward improving inmate’ physical, mental, and spiritual health.
Steen Gissel, an architect who helped bring Halden Prison to life, shares that the core of Halden’s design philosophy stresses personal responsibility.
To those of us raised in countries that still reward death penalties, Norway’s leniency toward its worst criminals can seem strange, and even unjust.
The truth is that death is always the just reward, but when love and forgiveness reign, we’re each offered a second chance.
Even hard-hearted Pharaoh, who proclaimed himself to be a god-king and persecuted those who believed otherwise, was offered chance after chance to repent and change his ways.
Although death was the only just, appropriate answer to his conduct, especially in response to Egypt’s prior attempt to slaughter all of the firstborn Hebrew boys, Pharaoh’s story did not need to result in the tragic deaths of Egypt’s firstborn sons or his possible demise in the Red Sea.
Prior to the death of the firstborns, God provided Pharaoh with nine plagues, each of which was to prove which Deity truly held power. Each was also designed to push Pharaoh into realizing his own need for the Creator God. Furthermore, during the ninth plague, God gave Pharaoh three days to consider his need to repent and turn to the Lord (Exodus 10:21–29).
But Pharaoh refused.
The wages of his sin was death (Romans 6:23, Exodus 11), but even still God provided a substitute for those who believed.
This substitute would take place in the Pesach–Passover–which included a symbolic Seder meal (Exodus 12–13:16). Each Hebrew home was to take a lamb without blemish, slaughter it at twilight, and paint its blood along the doorposts and lintel of the house. The meat was to be fully consumed, along with unleavened bread (yeast represented sin) and bitter herbs (representing bondage under Pharaoh). This was to be their covenant with God. Interestingly, the first Pesach also established the people of Israel with its own national identity.
The lamb was not only a meal but a substitute, a life-saving provision for God’s people. Like the flawless, firstborn lamb of Pesach, Jesus Christ, the sinless and firstborn son of Mary and Joseph, would die for the sins of the world. At Pesach with His disciples, Christ explained that the meal would come to represent His broken body and shed blood (Matthew 26:17–30, Mark 14:12–26, Luke 22:1–20 and John 13:1–30). Additionally, Christ’s death and resurrection birthed a new covenant between God and Israel; a new identity was bestowed upon those who believed in Christ and lived according to His example.
God provides ample opportunity for each of us to accept grace and mercy. It’s up to us to live like we have been set free from the bondage of sin. If we want to be freed from a sinful life, we must allow God to remove sinful desires from us.
For Reflection
Connecting: If you were a jury member in Norway, would you be in favor of leniency for Bryan Kohberger?
Sharing: Should Christians observe Pesach?
- There is no harm in it (for omnivores) as long as they remember it points to Christ’s sacrifice
- Its purpose is now obsolete
- Yes, God said it was to be observed by Israel, which now includes all who believe in Christ
- By partaking in communion and footwashing, we observe Passover
- I don’t know
- Other
Applying: Following the 10th and final plague, could Pharaoh have repented and been redeemed?
Valuing: What areas of bondage–habits, sins, attitudes–do you need God to remove from your life? What spiritual prisons might you still be living in? What would living “set free” look like for you?
~ Stefani Leeper
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