A Day of Remembrance - A Reflection for Holy Thursday (Exodus 12)
Exodus 12:1-14 New Revised Standard Version
(NRSV)
12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2 This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 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. 4 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. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7 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. 8 They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10 You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 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. 12 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. 13 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.
14 This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.
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Holy
Thursday is inextricably connected to Passover. Whether the day of or the day
before, Jesus gathered with his disciples for one final meal. We don’t know who
was there, though it’s clear that Judas was present, as he left early to tend
to business. Christians will gather across the world this evening to remember
that meal that Jesus shared with his disciples, a meal at which he spoke of the
bread as a sign of his body and the wine as a sign of his blood, noting that he
would not drink again until he drinks it a new in the kingdom (Mark 14:12-25). It
is Paul who gives us the official institution of the supper, to be continued as
an act of remembrance (1 Cor. 11:17-22). As we remember Jesus meal by breaking
bread and sharing of the cup, it is good to remember the feast that stands
behind it, and that is the Passover Festival.
As
I have been reflecting on the first reading from the Hebrew Bible as part of my
lectionary reflections, I am choosing to address the reading for Holy Thursday,
taken from Exodus 12. The lectionary allows for the omission of verses 5-10,
though I think they are helpful to include. As a caveat, I understand why some
Christians choose to observe a Seder
on this evening, but I’m not sure it is appropriate to reconfigure another
tradition’s sacred rite. If you have the opportunity to participate in a Seder, that is hosted by a Jewish family
or a synagogue, make use of that opportunity, but let us not appropriate the
rite for Christian observance.
We
return to the Exodus story. It is time for Israel to depart from Egypt. The
moment of liberation has arrived. God reveals to Moses and Aaron that the
people should set aside a time, in the first month of the year, on the tenth
day, to take a lamb, and keep it until the fourteenth day, when it is to be
slaughtered, so that the family (or group of families) can eat of the lamb (sheep
or goat does not matter). Then they are to take the blood of the lamb and place
it on the doorposts and the lintel of each home. This is to be a sign to the
angel of death to Passover, as the angel of death makes its way across Egypt,
culling the first born of Egypt.
Here
is the word of liberation. When they eat this meal, they should be prepared to
leave immediately and hurriedly. That is, eat the meal with your loins girded,
and with sandals on your feet. There is no time to lose.
Then
comes the word to those who follow. “This day shall be a day of remembrance for
you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD, throughout your
generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance” (vs. 14). In the
Christian reflection on this meal of liberation, we hear the call to remember
Jesus’ own meal, his death, and his resurrection. He is the Lamb of God, who
takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).
While
the Seder as practiced today has been
modified greatly since these early days, which reminds us that Jesus didn’t
observe the current version. We don’t know his liturgy. But he did use this
meal as a call to his disciples to remember forever his life, his death, and yes,
his resurrection (but let’s not get ahead of ourselves). We must be careful with
typologies when it comes to the Passover, but Jesus did connect his own death
with the Passover. His death on the cross would become a means of liberation, a
breaking of the bonds of sin that hold us, keeping us from embracing God’s call
to enter the realm of God. Both the Passover and the Lord’s Supper, as Jesus
established it, witness, as William Danaher suggests, “Like the remembrance of
the past at contemporary Jewish observances of Passover, these sacramental
actions provide a window through which to view God’s future acts of solidarity,
liberation, and deliverance mediated through the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ.” [Feasting on the Word,
p. 262].
If
you are a Christian, I invite you to remember. Remember Jesus and the meal he
shared with his disciples. Remember the intimacy of that night, which John
suggests Jesus used to wash the feet of his disciples, as a sign of humility
and service (John 13:1-35). Remember the cross, and the death that revealed our
true hearts, hearts of violence and sin, and remember the resurrection, which
declared God’s victory over death. That is, it proclaimed God’s liberation of
humanity from the bonds of death.
Picture Attribution: Passover, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55441 [retrieved March 28, 2018]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andelsbuch_Pfarrkirche_-_Chorfenster_3a_Opfer.jpg. |
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