Passover

Exodus 12:1-13, 21-28 (NRSV) The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the LORD. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go, select lambs for your families, and slaughter the passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood in the basin. None of you shall go outside the door of your house until morning. For the LORD will pass through to strike down the Egyptians; when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down. You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children. When you come to the land that the LORD will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. And when your children ask you, 'What do you mean by this observance?' you shall say, 'It is the passover sacrifice to the LORD, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.'" And the people bowed down and worshiped. The Israelites went and did just as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron.  The day after John the Baptist calls Jesus "The Lamb of God" in the gospel reading, this is the text we get for the day.  This is what happens to the lamb of God. The Passover story has always been one that has sparked my imagination more than many others in scripture.  I can remember as a kid being invited to the Seder at one of my father's co-workers at Passover.  Everything about the prayers and the meal enthralled me.  I wondered then why we didn't get to celebrate it and felt a bit of envy that kids sometimes get when they feel like they are missing out on something. Yet in every real way as Christians we aren't missing out.  The connections between Passover and Holy Week/Easter have been made over and over.  The blood of our Lamb and the salvation through the cross are our new Passover.  (I never really noticed before that even the markings on the door of the Israelites has a cross like shape). Death holds no sway any longer. Making connections between Old and New Testament stories (and specifically their symbols) has never been my strong suit. It was always the personal element of the stories that grabbed me. And nothing could be more personal than our Lamb of God.  "This is the Lamb of God," John the Baptist says, and in that phrase there are many possible meanings. Lambs were symbolic in many ways.  The passover story gives us one powerful one. But our Lamb, regardless of why John called him that, from that moment on made everything personal.  He connected with outsiders personally.  He took on suffering personally.  He loved and loves us personally. I still love the Passover story and sometimes wish we had the deep, personal and communal connections that the Seder meal offers our Jewish sisters and brothers.  But we have our Passover lamb.  And everything about him is personal and communal. Lamb of God, you love and save us daily.  Thank you.  Amen.