Why hyssop?
Throughout Scripture we see our God do mighty works of justice, mercy, and grace. He uses people, places, and even things - like plants - to accomplish His will.
There’s a plant that is used throughout Scripture as a tool in bringing about God’s grace in the sacrificial and in the cleansing process.
This tool is a plant referred to as ‘Hyssop’. Throughout my research on this plant, I have become convinced that I want the Lord to use me, and my writing, as He used the hyssop plant. I want Him to use me to bring His grace and His will into the world. The savior isn’t Hyssop itself, it is the person of Jesus Christ and all that He has done. He is the vine, we are the branches (John 15).
That’s why hyssop!
Stay tuned for more stories and a deeper explanation of the plant and its uses.
It started in Exodus…
“Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
“Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped. The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.
Exodus 12:21-28
I was thirsty in the morning, I drank thoroughly from the water that ran deep underground. I could see my family all rising after their morning drink, but some of them shrunk. They shrunk. What could have caused that? It was all of those who were closest to the river. The tall, strong ones, they were drooping. What was wrong with them?
The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. Blood was everywhere in Egypt.
Exodus 7:21
I saw the surprise from others, they swayed as they spoke to one another. The water was poisoned! It was no longer good, clean, or life giving. The water that once gave them life was choking them to death.
“Don’t drink it! Don’t drink it!” They cried out to one another.
“It’s blood!”
“Look! Even the fish are dying!”
None of us understood this thing which was happening, but we all knew something was terribly wrong. As the day went by we realized that some water was still good. Not everyone was being drowned in the blood. Our friends by the river did suffer during that time, but everyone felt that it would soon pass, and it did.
Until…
A week later the frogs came.
Work in Progress
Come back soon!