The Passover of the Lord

Sermon by Jamie Howison on Exodus 12:1-14 and Matthew 18:15-20

Before moving to the story from Exodus, I want to make a brief comment on the gospel teaching. Jesus is dealing with conflict between two persons in the church community, and of course what he would have been anticipating is something closer to a house church than to a modern congregation. People all would have known one another, and known one another well, which is not unimportant. There are a series of steps set out as to how to approach the conflict—one to one, in the company of two or three others, in the presence of the whole gathered house church community—and if the offending person refuses to budge, "let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector." I think the interesting thing is to ask, "and how did Jesus treat Gentiles and tax-collectors?" Seems to me that he bent over backwards to reach out to tax-collectors, and, particularly after the challenge he received just three chapters earlier from the Canaanite woman seeking healing for her daughter, he doesn't close the door on the Gentiles either. I don't believe that this is a teaching that supports or encourages excommunication or shunning, but rather one that ultimately asks the community to think deeply about how conflicts must be truly resolved.

So on to the Exodus reading, which continues the long arc of Old Testament stories that we began in early June and will continue to track into October. It is good to spend such a sustained period of time in these ancient stories, as while they reflect a world very different from ours they are our foundational stories, with characters who often struggle with some of the same very human things that we do.

Last Sunday Rachel dealt with the story of Moses' call, in which God was revealed in the burning bush and Moses was told that the name of our God is YHWH: "I am" or "I will be there." Moses, go to the Pharaoh with the message, "Let my people go." Moses is anxious and fearful—and rightly so—but over the chapters that unfold between last Sunday's reading and tonight's he has found his feet, and has taken message after message to the Pharaoh, always with that call to free the people.

You may recall the story. There are a series of nine "plagues" or what Everett Fox calls "blows" with a tenth signalled in tonight's reading. There have been infestations of frogs, lice, and locusts, people have been afflicted by boils, there's been devastating weather... each time Pharaoh basically says to Moses, "okay, I surrender. Get your god to call it off, and the people can go to make their sacrifices." And then each time once the plague is lifted Pharaoh reneges on the deal and refuses to let the people go. Why is he so stubborn? Let me read to you a reflection by the Old Testament scholar Rolf Jacobson, from his little book, The Old Testament: Israel's In-Your-Face Holy God:

The text has a curious detail. Repeatedly in the narrative it says both the "the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart" but also that "Pharaoh hardened his heart" or sometimes simply "Pharaoh's heart was hardened." This... is a condition of the soul. It means that Pharaoh will not change his will—his desire to keep his slaves, his desire to slug it out with God. He has decided to fight to the very end. But does God make him do this? Does Pharaoh do it himself? Is it both?

The plain meaning of the text seems to be that it is both God's desire and Pharaoh's desire to fight this confrontation out to the end. Maybe the good news is that God will not compromise with evil. Maybe. In the end, I have to admit that I'm not really sure what to make of this. It is a good thing that eternal life does not rest on solving theological problems.

Thank you, Dr. Jacobson, for your honesty in writing that... for it is a tricky piece in the narrative, and particularly so when we come to this, the tenth of the blows against Egypt: the striking down of every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both humans and animals. While freedom to the enslaved Hebrews is something the text makes one long for and a theme that has been of a particular significance in the African American church tradition, it remains hard for me to ponder the deaths of all of those children of Egypt. That simply needs to be said.

Our text tonight focuses specifically on the meal that is to be eaten on the night that the Egyptian first-born will be taken, and it is what Michael Chan calls "a wartime liturgy." "Designed for adverse conditions," Chan notes, "these verses constitute a liturgical response to the demonic, trauma-inducing reign of Pharaoh." This meal with its strange details of placing lamb's blood across the two doorposts and the lintel of their houses is shot through with symbols, and to this day is quite probably the most significant meal shared in Jewish households. Casey Thornburgh Sigmon reflects helpfully on the meaning of the meal. She writes,

The meal itself is also symbolic. They will eat bitter herbs (12:8), a sensory reminder of bereavement and suffering to be tasted, chewed, swallowed, and digested. The flat bread (12:8), made without yeast, is a bread of haste and readiness. The instructions for cooking the lamb are specific (12:9). Neither raw nor boiled: the waters of Egypt have been a source of death. The Israelites will leave those waters behind. Instead they shall cook their meal in the fire, reminder of the fire of God’s presence in the burning bush, and foreshadowing of the fire that will lead them through the wilderness to new life. When they eat of the lamb, they shall leave nothing over (12:10) — there will be no waiting, no holding back, no returning.

When Pharaoh awakes to the devastation of those deaths, he will finally let them go... and they are ready, sandals on their feet, staff in hand. Yes, Pharaoh finally lets them go, only to change his mind and chase them down to the Red Sea, where his soldiers will face a devastating defeat. The waters of that sea are a place of new birth to the Hebrew people—their crossing through a point of their dramatic new beginning—but the same waters mark another confrontation with death for Egypt. After so many decades as oppressors, that kingdom now knows what it is to be broken. While I suppose there is some justice in that—poetic justice and otherwise—there is nothing pretty about it.

And it won't be an altogether easy new beginning for the Hebrews either. As the sea takes the Egyptians, Moses and his sister Mariam sing songs of freedom, praise and liberation, and then the people begin to look at where this crossing has landed them: in the desert wilderness of the Sinai. They worry, they grumble, and soon some of them start talking about wanting to just go back to Egypt. It will take them 40 years to learn to trust this God named "I Will be There," but that's getting too far ahead.

I want to take you back for a minute to that meal and its symbols. It is that symbolic story meal—that Passover meal—that Jesus is sharing with his disciples on the night of his arrest. Gathered around that food and drink, they would have been telling the story according to the ritual tradition, marking it by tasting the bitter herbs, savouring the roasted lamb, sharing that unleavened bread, and drinking wine. As they ate that ever-so familiar symbolic story-meal, Jesus did something utterly unexpected. Taking that Passover bread, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them to eat, and as they did he said, "this is my body, given for you." What? What's he saying?

And then he took the cup of wine, blessed it and had them drink from it, saying "this is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many." Your blood, rabbi? They couldn't begin to understand; not that night.

They were expecting only to hear the story of the first Passover, taste all of the tastes and smell all of the smells that signified freedom from enslavement and the forging of a new people. What Jesus gave them instead was that story-meal retold, and this time death was not going to come to the oppressor's first born or to their soldiers, but to Jesus himself; the one who Paul will later call "the firstborn of all creation" in his letter to the Colossians.

"I am about to face something agonizing, I am about to confront death itself," Jesus is saying to them. "But I believe it is not for nothing; I know it is not the final word. But remember this night, and when you gather share bread and wine like this, telling and retelling this new Passover story. For in me, all of humanity is being invited to crossover from death to life. Ever and always. Amen.

But how long until we can do that again? Well, we're working on that, and hopefully will be able to tell you more by the time we're back here next Sunday night. For now, savour the story, and call upon our God whose name was revealed as "I will be there."