Jesus Christ: A Double Passover Sacrifice?

     There is this amazing Messianic prophecy in Zechariah:  Zech 12:10 (NKJV)  "And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they have pierced.  Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn."  This is clearly a reference to the intended sacrificial death of the Messiah, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was a Passover death.  Think of this, if you will:  at the first Passover, for the Israelites to be freed from their bondage to their masters, the Egyptians, there were two required sacrifices.  First, there was the perfect Passover lamb, whose blood on the doorposts saved the Israelites from the passing death - it "passed over" the houses where the lamb's blood was posted.  Most Christians know and understand some of that sacrifice.  But there was a second sacrifice, an unwilling one, which actually freed the Israelites:  the Passover death given to all of the firstborn in Egypt.  It was only after the deaths of all the firstborn of their Egyptian masters that the Israelites under Moses were hurried out of the land.

     Now think of Jesus' death.  Not only was His shed blood the saving blood of the Lamb of God, shed on Passover as the ultimate Lamb of salvation, but He was also the Firstborn Son of the true Master of Israel (and all of us), Father God Almighty.  So the question might be:  as there was for Israel's freedom from bondage in Egypt, were two sacrifices needed to free Israel (and all of us) from bondage to sin and mortality - the death and saving blood of the Perfect Lamb, and the death of the Firstborn of the Master?  Certainly, Jesus' death on the cross was both of these.  Was that what Zechariah 12:10 was prophesying?

     Getting back to Zechariah 12:10, we may also ask, who was it in Exodus who "grieved for a firstborn?"  And just who is it that will grieve and mourn the most for that Firstborn Son "whom they have pierced?"  That is something for us to ponder on.