Sermon from August 8, 2010
"Passover"
Exodus 12-15

Christians believe that the central event in the history of the world is the death of a crucified Jew. The salvation of the world hinges on that event. His resurrection certified its centrality, but the event itself stands at the center of things. What kind of God do we believe in, who would make the death of Christ the central thing it is?

The religious authorities who wanted Jesus dead accused Him of leading their people astray. The secular authorities justified His execution on grounds of sedition against Caesar. The apostles of the Church said that the death of Jesus was the wisest and most powerful thing God ever did.

How could they say that? How could anything make that right? How could anyone say that the salvation of the world hinges on His death? The early Christians had to answer those questions. Where could they go for answers? They went to their Bible, which we call the Old Testament.

Jesus had taught them to look there. They looked, and I think they were astounded to find how often those ancient words made sense of the life of Jesus. That’s why, for example, you read over and over in the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus did something in order that what was said in some Old Testament passage might be fulfilled – and then Matthew quoted the Old Testament passage.

References to the Old Testament permeate the New Testament like the smell of fresh-baked cookies permeates the rooms of a house. The story of the Passover that we read today is a case in point. It helped to shape the New Testament explanation of the death of Christ and of the God, who made His death the central thing it is. Let’s look.

The Preparations
Nine times Moses said to Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” Nine times Pharaoh said no. Pharaoh finally pushed the Divine patience one refusal too far. Exodus 11:1: Now the Lord had said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely.” You won’t have to ask to leave. He’ll ask you. He’ll insist that you leave.

Verses 4-7 send a chill across the years to chill the heart with what it means to fall into the hands of the living God. So Moses said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt – worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any man or animal.’ Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.”

The people of Israel had to get ready for the event themselves. The preparations were specific. Exodus 12:3-4: So, Moses said, “Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are.” Verse five calls for the best of the lambs to be sacrificed. The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.

Verse seven is central to the story. They are to slaughter the lambs, and then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. Verses 12-13 say so much. “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn – both men and animals – and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. (That’s where the name comes from.) No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.”

The Passing Over
The storyteller interrupts his story in verse 14 to talk about how to celebrate the Passover in the future. He could do that. It was his story, and we’ll come back to that. But you and I want to know what happened next. Verse 29 picks up the story line.

At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead. Egypt became a morgue, and in the middle of the night!

Verse 31: During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.” That’s a nice touch from the king who once said: “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go” Exodus 5:2. He knows Him now. He even seeks His blessing through His servant, Moses.

He also had plenty of company urging the Hebrews to leave. Verse 32: The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!” They were in a panic.

Verse 34: So the (Hebrew) people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. That culinary fact lay behind the way the Passover came to celebrated in later years. Daily bread took on new meaning. We’ll come back to that bread and its new meaning.

Verse 35: The Israelites did as Moses (had earlier) instructed (them) and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians. That’s how afraid the Egyptians had become and how badly they wanted the Hebrews to get out of Dodge.

And once again in verse 40, the storyteller interrupts his story to talk about how to celebrate the Passover in the future. He could that. It was his story. But you and I want to know what happened next. Exodus 13:21 picks up the story with a famous line. By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Then came something old, something new; something good, something blue.

The Parting of the Sea
Exodus 14:2b: the Lord tells Moses that the Hebrews are to encamp by the sea, the Red Sea. Verse three: “Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.’ And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.”

Verse five takes you inside the Situation Room of the Egyptian White House. When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!” A lot of people have died, but if we lose all that cheap labor, a lot more people are going to die.

Verse nine: The Egyptians – all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops – pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea. It was a bad moment for the children of Israel. Verses 10-12: As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses what every leader can’t wait to hear, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? (Actually, I don’t remember hearing any such thing.) It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Verse 14 summarizes Moses’ response, and I think you’ll agree that Moses has grown in stature as a leader: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Well, we don’t have much choice about being still. We’ve got the sea on one side and the Egyptians on the other. We’ll see how the Lord fights for us.

But He did. First the pillar of cloud that guided them by day settled between them and the Egyptians so that, says the end of verse 20, neither went near the other all night long. Then, the wind picked up. Was it, as verse 21 puts it, because Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, or was it because of a high pressure system moving in from the Mediterranean that all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land? It was a curious coincidence, don’t you think? Verse 22 says that the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

The Egyptians pursued them into the sea. The Lord threw the Egyptians into confusion. Verse 25: He made the wheels of their chariots come off so that they had difficulty driving. Must have been Chrysler products. No more bailouts for them!

The Egyptians panicked. They began to retreat, but so did the waters of the sea. The water was too swift. Verse 28: The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen – the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

Egyptian horse and chariot
     And Pharaoh’s willingness to fight
Lay drowned beneath the Red Sea wave,
     While Israel’s tents do shine so bright. (See William Blake, The Scoffers.)

The children of Israel looked back, and Egypt was behind them. The sea was behind them. The desert was before them. The future was before them.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
“Give us this day our daily bread,” we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. It is the most down-to-earth petition in the Lord’s Prayer; not many things are more basic than bread. God took that humble necessity and made it into a sacrament of the Kingdom of God. That takes us back to Exodus 12:14.

This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord – a lasting ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. Verse 17 explains why: “Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.”

Why did it have to be bread made without yeast, what Jews call matzah? Remember Exodus 12:34? So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. Unleavened was a tangible reminder of liberation from the house of bondage.

And so for 3400 years at Passover the Rabbi or the father raises the tray of matzah bread and says, “This is the bread of affliction that our fathers ate in the land of Egypt. Whoever is hungry, let him come and eat; whoever is in need, let him come and conduct the Seder of Passover. This year we are here; next year in the land of Israel. This year we are slaves; next year we will be free people.”

At one of those Passover meals Jesus of Nazareth took the matzah bread and said, “This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me” – 1 Corinthians 11:24. “As this bread has reminded Israel generation after generation that God liberated them from bondage in Egypt, let this bread remind you who believe in me, as long as the world stands, that God liberated you from sin and death when my body was broken on the cross. Jesus was announcing a second Exodus; only this time it was not political liberation from a tyrant but liberation from sin and death. The Apostle Paul reflected this understanding of the death of Christ in Galatians 1:4. Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age.

John the Baptist came and applied the Passover imagery to Jesus in another, unforgettably new way. “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” – John 1:29. Passover illuminated the meaning of Jesus Christ, and the Christian faith, thus illuminated, could become the faith for all humanity.

Are you confident that Jesus Christ defeated sin and death? Are you confident that He is humanity’s Passover Lamb, whose blood shed on the cross will cause the angel of death to pass over you at the final judgment? That is the gospel. That’s why the death of Christ is the central event in the history of the world. That’s why the salvation of the world hinges on that event. That’s why the death of Jesus is the wisest and most powerful thing God ever did. The Church, this church, exists for the primary purpose of proclaiming this gospel and nurturing the faith of those who believe in this gospel.

People sometimes ask what religion we are. It is a dreary question, and we usually give our dreary answers. “I am a Protestant. I am a Baptist. I am an evangelical.” What I really want to say is: “I am a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb, whose blood shed on the cross will cause the angel of death to pass over me at the final judgment; and whose body broken on the cross liberated me from sin and death.” Everything else plays a supporting role at best and at worst becomes dispute, tedium, and religious nonsense.

I say to all those gathered here: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be forgiven and liberated from sin – partially now, fully hereafter. Believe and be at peace!