By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow
This sermon is based on Exodus 12:1-14
An audio version of this sermon is available here
Sometimes you see something in a scripture story that you’ve never seen before, something that’s been there all along but you’ve never noticed, and it changes the whole way you understand that story. That kind of interpretive discovery can be a great gift from God.
That’s what happened to me as I was looking over our first reading today, the Exodus account of the institution of the Passover meal. This is one of those stories I’ve read dozens of times — even preached on a few times. It is part of our lectionary for Maundy Thursday, so every year during Holy Week I’ve heard and reflected on it again. I thought I knew it pretty well. But in looking over it this time, it occurred to me that this story tells of the first time the people of Israel ever had a ritual, a sacrifice, a ceremonial meal, that they all had in in common, that they all did at the same time and in the same way and for the same reason. To be sure, there are rituals and ceremonies in the scripture stories before this. Noah made a sacrifice to God after the flood. Abraham built altars at places where he had significant encounters with God, and he offered sacrifices on them. Jacob set up a pillar and ceremonially anointed it with oil where God appeared to him at Bethel. There are plenty of rituals in the scriptures before this. But all of those were personal rituals, household ceremonies, sacrifices that marked important moments in the lives of individuals or families, but didn’t really reach any farther than that. The institution of the Passover meal is the first time in the story of the people of Israel that they have a specific ritual, a shared ceremony, that reaches beyond the individual, the household, the clan, the tribe, to unite the whole people in one identity as the people of God.
And that’s important, because shared ceremony is one of the strongest ways to bring people together and give them a shared community. Think about it: before this, what did the people of Israel really have to hold them together? They had stories they could tell, stories of Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel and Leah and Bilhah and Zilpah, and Joseph and his brothers, the twelve sons of Israel. But all of those stories were generations old by the time of Moses; they were good stories, but they didn’t give the people much of a sense of what they could do together to be a people. By the time the people had multiplied in Egypt, as we heard in our First Testament reading a couple of weeks ago, I’m sure their sense of tribal bonding from ancient parents had become somewhat attenuated, and the only shared reality they felt was the reality of brutal oppression and hard labor. In fact, some historians suggest that the Hebrew people enslaved in Egypt did not in fact have a common ancestral background at all — that some had stories of their ancestor Abraham, and others had stories of their ancestor Isaac, and still others had stories of their ancestor Jacob, and it was only later editing that put those stories together and made them successive generations — but in Egypt all they really had in common was that they were slaves and they wanted to be free. Some historians argue that this ragtag bunch of West Semitic slaves wasn’t really a people at all, until God acted to make them a people.
However that may be, whether the people really were twelve tribes descended from common parents or whether they were historically distinct ethnic groups, the point is that by the time of Moses the only thing they had in common was being oppressed, the only thing they had in common was their suffering. But God acted to change that. God acted to liberate them. And the first step in that liberation was when God gave the people a new way to think about themselves, a new way of knowing themselves as the people God saves, a new identity, not as slaves, but as God’s own. And the core of that new identity is that they are the people who do the Passover.
Think for a moment about what the Passover ceremony says about the people who do it. They are to celebrate the ceremony in the first month of the year, at the beginning of the calendar — which says that this ceremony is for them a new beginning of time, the beginning of a new time in a new life with God. They are to eat the Passover with their sandals on and their walking sticks in hand, dressed for the road, ready to go at a moment’s notice — which says that they are a people who pay attention to God’s call and will follow God’s lead. They are to take the blood of the Passover lamb and put in over the doors of their houses as a sign — which says that they are a people God saves from death and rescues from destruction. The Passover ceremony unites the people in a ritual way they’ve never been united before; and it tells them something about themselves, about who they are as God’s people, and what that means; and it calls them forward into a new life of freedom and covenant and living God’s mission in the world.
And if we think of the Passover that way, what can it tell us about our Eucharist? Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that Jesus began the Eucharist at a Passover Seder, so of course there is that very deep connection. But beyond just that historical connection, I think these two ceremonial meals do much the same things for us who celebrate them. As the Passover did for the Israelites, so our Eucharist brings us together and unites us in ritual reality, and it tells us something important about who we are as God’s people, and it calls us forward into freedom and covenant and living Christ’s mission in the world. We celebrate our Eucharist on the first day of the week — which says that this great thanksgiving is the beginning, the origin, the reference-point of all our works and days in Christ. We recognize in this ritual meal the Body of Christ, the substantial presence of Jesus with us, and the Blood of Christ, the essential power of Jesus’ life in us — which says that we are people saved from death and empowered to love as Jesus loves and be wise as Jesus is wise and live as Jesus lives. We receive this bread and wine as food for the journey — which says that we know ourselves to be called and sent to bring Christ’s love to all the world. Our Eucharist ceremony, like the Passover in Exodus, is the sign of God’s call to us to be a new people living a new life.
Sometimes you look at something familiar and discover in it something new. May this familiar Eucharist ceremony be a new discovery for us this day — may it be a new gift of God’s saving and creating grace for us all. Amen.
This sermon is based on Exodus 12:1-14
An audio version of this sermon is available here
Sometimes you see something in a scripture story that you’ve never seen before, something that’s been there all along but you’ve never noticed, and it changes the whole way you understand that story. That kind of interpretive discovery can be a great gift from God.
That’s what happened to me as I was looking over our first reading today, the Exodus account of the institution of the Passover meal. This is one of those stories I’ve read dozens of times — even preached on a few times. It is part of our lectionary for Maundy Thursday, so every year during Holy Week I’ve heard and reflected on it again. I thought I knew it pretty well. But in looking over it this time, it occurred to me that this story tells of the first time the people of Israel ever had a ritual, a sacrifice, a ceremonial meal, that they all had in in common, that they all did at the same time and in the same way and for the same reason. To be sure, there are rituals and ceremonies in the scripture stories before this. Noah made a sacrifice to God after the flood. Abraham built altars at places where he had significant encounters with God, and he offered sacrifices on them. Jacob set up a pillar and ceremonially anointed it with oil where God appeared to him at Bethel. There are plenty of rituals in the scriptures before this. But all of those were personal rituals, household ceremonies, sacrifices that marked important moments in the lives of individuals or families, but didn’t really reach any farther than that. The institution of the Passover meal is the first time in the story of the people of Israel that they have a specific ritual, a shared ceremony, that reaches beyond the individual, the household, the clan, the tribe, to unite the whole people in one identity as the people of God.
And that’s important, because shared ceremony is one of the strongest ways to bring people together and give them a shared community. Think about it: before this, what did the people of Israel really have to hold them together? They had stories they could tell, stories of Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel and Leah and Bilhah and Zilpah, and Joseph and his brothers, the twelve sons of Israel. But all of those stories were generations old by the time of Moses; they were good stories, but they didn’t give the people much of a sense of what they could do together to be a people. By the time the people had multiplied in Egypt, as we heard in our First Testament reading a couple of weeks ago, I’m sure their sense of tribal bonding from ancient parents had become somewhat attenuated, and the only shared reality they felt was the reality of brutal oppression and hard labor. In fact, some historians suggest that the Hebrew people enslaved in Egypt did not in fact have a common ancestral background at all — that some had stories of their ancestor Abraham, and others had stories of their ancestor Isaac, and still others had stories of their ancestor Jacob, and it was only later editing that put those stories together and made them successive generations — but in Egypt all they really had in common was that they were slaves and they wanted to be free. Some historians argue that this ragtag bunch of West Semitic slaves wasn’t really a people at all, until God acted to make them a people.
However that may be, whether the people really were twelve tribes descended from common parents or whether they were historically distinct ethnic groups, the point is that by the time of Moses the only thing they had in common was being oppressed, the only thing they had in common was their suffering. But God acted to change that. God acted to liberate them. And the first step in that liberation was when God gave the people a new way to think about themselves, a new way of knowing themselves as the people God saves, a new identity, not as slaves, but as God’s own. And the core of that new identity is that they are the people who do the Passover.
Think for a moment about what the Passover ceremony says about the people who do it. They are to celebrate the ceremony in the first month of the year, at the beginning of the calendar — which says that this ceremony is for them a new beginning of time, the beginning of a new time in a new life with God. They are to eat the Passover with their sandals on and their walking sticks in hand, dressed for the road, ready to go at a moment’s notice — which says that they are a people who pay attention to God’s call and will follow God’s lead. They are to take the blood of the Passover lamb and put in over the doors of their houses as a sign — which says that they are a people God saves from death and rescues from destruction. The Passover ceremony unites the people in a ritual way they’ve never been united before; and it tells them something about themselves, about who they are as God’s people, and what that means; and it calls them forward into a new life of freedom and covenant and living God’s mission in the world.
And if we think of the Passover that way, what can it tell us about our Eucharist? Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that Jesus began the Eucharist at a Passover Seder, so of course there is that very deep connection. But beyond just that historical connection, I think these two ceremonial meals do much the same things for us who celebrate them. As the Passover did for the Israelites, so our Eucharist brings us together and unites us in ritual reality, and it tells us something important about who we are as God’s people, and it calls us forward into freedom and covenant and living Christ’s mission in the world. We celebrate our Eucharist on the first day of the week — which says that this great thanksgiving is the beginning, the origin, the reference-point of all our works and days in Christ. We recognize in this ritual meal the Body of Christ, the substantial presence of Jesus with us, and the Blood of Christ, the essential power of Jesus’ life in us — which says that we are people saved from death and empowered to love as Jesus loves and be wise as Jesus is wise and live as Jesus lives. We receive this bread and wine as food for the journey — which says that we know ourselves to be called and sent to bring Christ’s love to all the world. Our Eucharist ceremony, like the Passover in Exodus, is the sign of God’s call to us to be a new people living a new life.
Sometimes you look at something familiar and discover in it something new. May this familiar Eucharist ceremony be a new discovery for us this day — may it be a new gift of God’s saving and creating grace for us all. Amen.
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