Exodus 12:1-14 Commentary

Illustration

Back-to-School season has evolved since my day.  A trip to Walmart for a Trapper-Keeper and new colored pencils, maybe a special new outfit has been elaborated with specific first-day-of-school social media posts, maybe a clap-in at school, a “Blessing of the Backpacks” at church.  None of it is wrong … it’s just become elaborate, like another holiday—4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter—each with very specific rituals attached.

The process of preparing for Passover is similarly elaborate. You have to get your lamb on a special day, it has to be perfect — 1 year old male without defect — slaughter it *at twilight* on another specific day. Meanwhile you have to clean the pantry and cupboards of every crumb of leaven. You have to figure out how much you can eat because leftovers are not allowed. The food is meant to be prepared in a specific fashion. The side-dishes are not arbitrary. Each is specified for a purpose.  Even the way you are dressed as you eat is prescribed: shoes on, cloak ready, walking stick at hand.

Commentary

Lasting Ordinance

And the blood smeared on the doorposts so that, God tells the people, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.” But isn’t that a bit odd? As though GOD needs a visual cue to remember who lives in which house and whether they belong to God’s people or not?  The whole focus of the preceding, escalating plagues has been the enormous power of God to accomplish what Egypt’s most cunning sorcerers could not conjure.  God manages to keep the lights on in Goshen (where the Israelites live) while the rest of Egypt is plunged into palpable darkness.  He doesn’t need flares or flags to indicate which houses to smite and which to relieve.  And the truth is, God doesn’t need these rituals or symbols now.

This “lasting ordinance” isn’t for God.  It is for God’s people. God is clear in his instruction to Moses & Aaron: “The blood shall be a sign for you.” God doesn’t need blood smeared on the doorposts and lintels.  God’s people need it. When Moses delivers these commands to the Israelites, he tells them, “You shall observe this rite as an ordinance for you and for your descendants forever.”

Ritual as Identity Formation

We become who we are through the practices that we undertake.  And it starts when we are children. We mimic the actions of our grown-ups. We become like them, part of a family, before we understand doctrinal propositions.  And as we grow, we can lean into our identity formation, choosing these practices for ourselves or we can set ourselves apart from these practices and observances and refuse the identity that they create for us.

The questions of the 4 sons in the Passover Haggadah (liturgy) help to explain—for the wise and innocent sons as well as the son who doesn’t yet know to ask—in age and ability appropriate language. But there is also a wicked son and he asks: “What is this worship to you?” Very explicitly, to you — not to me, not to us.  The Haggadah goes on to explain: “And since he excluded himself from the collective, he denied a principle [of the Jewish faith].” The most wicked thing the son can do is deny his identity, deny his place in this story, deny that these people are His people, that their God is His God.

A time to reflect on oppression/bondage in the story

When God’s people celebrate the Passover, it is a time to reflect on the oppression and bondage in the story.  When the human heart is hardened in opposition to God — as Pharaoh’s heart was hardened — oppression and bondage are the result.

While the Exodus story begins with the oppression and bondage of the Israelites in Egypt, these themes of oppression and bondage don’t just trickle, they run like high water, overflowing their banks throughout human history.  And so the Passover becomes a time to reflect: where do I see bondage and oppression in the world? What are the oppressions in my own life?  And in what ways do I contribute to the oppression of others?

A connection with the past/present/future.

Which brings us to the third reason this “lasting ordinance” is regularly celebrated by God’s people and that is so that this ritual, this liturgy can function as what theologian NT Wright calls “a thin place”, where the veil between heaven and earth, the veil between past, present and future grows sheer.

The Passover Seder doesn’t just tell the story of something that happened a long time ago to some distant relations.  By celebrating the meal, Observant Jews experience a strange — timeless, mysterious, transcendent — notion that they belong to this story too.  It shapes identity, it creates a way to see and name the realities of the world in this moment.  It is a point of connection with all the other people around the world who do the same actions and say the same words.

Celebrating the Passover to Jesus

As Christians, we can — and SHOULD — learn with and from the Jewish practice of the Passover Seder.  And we will necessarily interact with this story differently.  We can’t help but celebrate the Passover with Jesus, his story shaping our understanding of that story.  And his celebration of the Passover creates the Christian celebration of the Eucharist, communion, the Lord’s Supper.

In fact, on one level, sacrament a just a Christian way of saying “lasting ordinance.”  We call this celebration a means of grace, a timeless, intergenerational, global event where the veil between heaven and earth grows sheer and we celebrate with all those who have celebrated before us and all who will celebrate after us.  We celebrate with Christians around the world.  We remember our sin at this table — though perhaps we would do well to think of sin not just as individual, discrete acts but as our participation in oppression and bondage.  Our participation as both victim and perpetrator.

So we do not simply celebrate the Passover with Jesus.  As Christians we celebrate Jesus in the Passover. Do you remember the claim at the beginning of this sermon? That God doesn’t need the blood. WE need the blood. We need a sacrificial Lamb to cover over our sin, so that God will not count us guilty forever for our perpetuation of violence, oppression and bondage. We need a sacrificial Lamb to cover over the sin that is done against us and so that God may heal us in all the ways that we have been wounded by violence, oppression and bondage.