A Festival of Remembrance—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 15A/Proper 18A (Exodus 12)
Exodus 12:1-14 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
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 with fire. 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 I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, and 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.
***************
The God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob heard the cries of the Hebrews living in slavery
in Egypt. God appeared to Moses from the midst of a burning bush, commissioning
Moses to go to Pharaoh and liberate the people (Exod. 3:1-15). This is the same
Moses who was pulled from the Nile and adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, and later
fled Egypt into the desert, where he took up the life of the shepherd (Exod.2). When Moses heard the call of God, he somewhat reluctantly agreed to go back
to Egypt and begin the process of liberating Israel. That process included ten
plagues, which finally got Pharaoh’s attention. We pick up the story in Exodus
12 after Pharaoh relented and agreed to Moses’ terms.
As the
people prepared to leave Egypt and head off to the Promised Land, Moses
revealed to them a festival that would mark the day of their liberation. It
would also mark the beginning of the year for Israel. In other words, this
would be the foundational story. This festival came to be known as Pesach or Passover,
and it continues to be celebrated by Jewish families and congregations to this
day. For as we read here in Exodus: “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” (Ex. 12:14).
After
receiving a word from God concerning their departure from Egypt, Moses and
Aaron instruct each family (or if the family is small to join with other
families) to find a yearling male lamb (either sheep or goat) that is without
blemish. The festival begins on the tenth day of the month and then on the
fourteenth day of the month, having watched over the lamb, the families (or groups
of families) are instructed to slaughter the lamb and divide it into appropriate
portions so that all might eat. They are then instructed to place the blood of
the lamb on the two doorposts and the lintel (top beam above the doorway) of
the house. Having placed the blood on their houses, they are instructed to eat
the meal that very night. They are to roast the lamb over fire, along with
unleavened bread and bitter herbs. God is quite specific—they are to roast the
lamb, not boil it in water or eat any of it raw. God wants to make sure nothing
goes to waste, so the head, legs, and entrails are included. Well, everything
but the blood. If anything is left over
the next morning, it’s to be burned. What we have before us is the foundation
for a seder, though not the seder as we would know it today. Rituals develop
over time!
The
meal described above is akin to a last supper. At least it’s the last supper to
be observed in Egypt. That’s because they are about to depart for parts
somewhat unknown. This Last Supper has connections to another Last Supper, the
one Jesus celebrated. For both meals and rituals were observed/established in a
context of oppression.
Moses and Aaron instruct people to
eat the meal with their loins girded, sandals on their feet, and their staff
close at hand. This will not be a leisurely dinner. They have permission to eat
quickly. But this is to be a Passover/Pesach offering to the LORD (Yahweh). In
other words, this is a protective offering, a sign for Yahweh to pass over the
house, as Yahweh goes about Egypt, killing the firstborn of Egypt. Not just human
firstborns, but animals as well. God is about to take revenge on Egypt and its
gods. God seals this command by self-identifying as “I the LORD” (Exod. 12:14 Tanakh).
This
final line of the reading is extremely challenging and problematic. It’s a bit
of the old “eye for an eye” form of judgment. It should be noted that in this
passage, God doesn’t seem to make a distinction between male and female. While
Pharaoh ordered the killing of Israel’s firstborn, he did so out of fear. He
also seemed unwilling to let the people go, even after numerous plagues. Perhaps
Pharaoh needed one more reminder that God stood with the Hebrews. Nevertheless,
it is a rather distressing message. We can take solace that is God who acts,
not the people of Israel. This is not a call for people to kill others, even if
this doesn’t sit well with a vision of God being love.
The
danger here is to get caught up in this word about God taking the lives of the firstborn
and concluding that this is another example of the Old Testament wrathful God,
who needs to be contrasted with the loving God of Jesus. In other words, we
must beware of our tendency to embrace Marcionism by distinguishing the God of
the Old Testament from the God of the New Testament, with one being wrathful
and the other loving. Perhaps we would be better served to follow the advice of
Ron Allen and Clark Williamson, who suggest we think of this account of the
killing of the firstborn (along with the entire plague scenario) as a
historical parable. This parable offers a lesson: “The fate of authoritarian
dictatorships hostile to freedom and well-being is always destruction” [Preaching the Old Testament, p. 84]. So as not to fall prey to Marcionism, Allen and
Williamson remind us that in both Testaments, God is associated with
destruction. But, as a parable with a message, they suggest we take from this the idea that “the alternative to God’s way of life and well-being (blessing) is death
and destruction and that our choice is between the two” [Preaching the Old
Testament, p. 85].
The
story of Passover continues through Exodus 13, so we have before us just the
opening paragraphs of a larger story that commemorates the primal story of the
nation of Israel. This story reminds the people of Israel that God does in fact
hear the cries of the oppressed and that God will deliver and redeem them. Barbara
Lundblad writes that “Exodus is a story of reversals, of slaves, set free and
the powerful thrown down. This story has sustained Jewish people through
pogroms and the holocaust. This story became the freedom song of African
American slaves in America” [Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, p.
382]. There is, of course, the shadow side to this story, as we’ve already
noted. Thus, she poses a good question for our reflection: “Can there be
freedom for some without destroying others?” (p. 382). Do acts of liberation
ultimately lead to the destruction or displacement of others? The story we have
before us doesn’t answer that question. Historically, movements of liberation
often find themselves turning to some form of violence to overcome injustice. While
we struggle with this word about the avenging God, we must not lose sight of
the revelation that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a liberating God. This
passage invites us to worship this God by celebrating God’s liberating action.
When it comes to the festival and
its meaning for us, Walter Brueggemann writes that the “verses provide an opportunity
to reflect on the cruciality of worship for the maintenance of the identity of
a historical community and on the importance of doing worship rightly”
[“Exodus,” New Interpreter’s Bible, 1:778]. He points out that our worship
experiences provide us with opportunities to tell the stories that define our
identity by connecting us to our primal past. That’s what happens here. They
are to remember this act of liberation in perpetuity on specific times/dates.
He also suggests that we avoid the temptation to over-explain. He notes that “much
Christian worship is either excessively doctrinal and rational or excessively
moralistic and didactic. In either case, it is excessively self-conscious.
Worship entails a willing suspension of disbelief, a reentering of a
definitional memory, and a readiness to submit to the memory as
identity-bestowing for parents and children [NIB, 1:778]. We needn’t
understand every element of the primal story to be formed by it. Regarding the
Passover experience, the rite/ritual carries the story. It involves the
slaughter of a lamb, the painting of doorposts, and a feast of roasted lamb.
It’s to be experienced with one’s shoes on and quickly because we need ready to
go when God is ready to lead. We might use this opportunity, as Christians, to
reflect on and remember our primal stories so that we’ll be ready to go when
God leads.
We must
remember, as Christians, that the passion narrative is built, at least in part,
on the Passover narrative. Consider Matthew’s version of the Last Supper. Jesus
and his followers gathered in the upper room to celebrate the Passover meal.
When Jesus shares the bread and cup with the community, he speaks of these
elements as signs of the blood of the covenant poured out for the forgiveness
of sins (a form of liberation) (Matt. 26:17-29). While Passover had nothing to
do with addressing Israel’s sin, like the cross, Passover, speaks of
liberation. In John’s Passion narrative, the connection of Jesus to the
Passover Lamb is even more explicit. John pictures Jesus being crucified on the
day when the Passover lambs are sacrificed in preparation for the feast (John19:14-30). Thus, for John, Jesus is the Passover Lamb, whose death provides for
liberation.
Our
calling as the people of God is to continually share the good news that the God
we worship and serve is a liberating God. As we share this good news, we can
invite others to share in this act of divine liberation.
Comments