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Exodus 12: 1-14 September 4, 2005
“You Were There!”
One of the TV shows I remember from my childhood, had a lot of action and drama. My parents must have watched it a lot, because I heard the introduction enough that it was ingrained in my memory.
For 4 years from 1953 -1957, for 144 Sunday afternoons, Walter Cronkite on CBS hosted an half-hour TV program recreating historical events like the Trojan Wars in the 12th century BC, Joan of Arc, Ghandi, Christopher Columbus, and even Jesse James.
And every week… Walter Cronkite, in that famous voice, began and ended the program with this mantra:
“What kind of a day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our time… and You were there!”
That fascinated me! Through the medium of TV I was participating in an historical event… I could be there… see the clothes they wore, the food they ate, the battles they fought, see what those places in history looked like. But .. the fact that this TV personality was bringing it home to me… making ME a part of the story… that hooked me!
In the same way, THIS story of the Hebrew Passover, is not just a story. It is NOT just a Cecil B. DeMille old movie that shows up each spring on our TVs. No, this story of a pivotal night in all of history is a story that WE replay every time we take communion .. every time we take in the events of Jesus’ last Supper, Good Friday, and Jesus’ crucifixion … every time there is a baptism.
It is OUR story, and We were there, and we are there.
This is the story of the Passover. This is the central story that set so many things in motion that still reverberate today: historically, socially, religiously and politically.
We are in the Biblical book of Exodus: the 2nd book of the Bible. The first book Genesis told us about creation, and Noah and the flood, and God calling Abraham.. and all his famous descendants.
Finally Joseph settles his sheep-herding, nomadic family in Egypt. They prosper and grow in their adopted country.
And one day a few hundred years after they had arrived, a Pharaoh looks around and says…. “wow, these immigrants… these aliens… keep having a lot of children. They keep their own language. They look different than we do! There’s so many of them, they’re changing the whole dynamic of our country! We’ve got to do something!” And so Egypt pressed the Hebrews into hard service .. less than minimum wage slavery… doing all those jobs they couldn’t ask Egyptians to do.
Now, during all this time, the Promise and the Story were told and kept alive. “God promised our ancestor Abraham that one day we would have a place to be a people.” Perhaps they lost sight of that Promise when things got comfortable in Egypt. There was always plenty, and they prospered. But things had gotten worse and worse. It was like a hurricane hitting and hitting, and everything you’d ever depended on being wiped away.
Who would save them? Where was this God?
· God had not forgotten… but neither would God come in and “make it all better,” like some magician behind the curtain fiddling with the dials; and……
· God had an eye and a hand on a non-descript baby born in the poverty and suffering of God’s people; and…..
· God moved the baby’s mother to extraordinarily give her child to the enemy.. to be raised to forget his own people; and …..
· God raised this boy Moses to be a part of two cultures: Hebrew by birth; Egyptian by culture and family; and…
· Even when this Moses literally took things into his own hands and murdered and had to flee for his life, God kept the Plan alive; and ..
· In due time, God came to Moses and set the Plan before him. And Moses had to decide … Yes or No. It was his choice; and …
· Moses, though reluctantly, took God up on the Plan… and went down and presented the Plan to the Pharaoh, who laughed in his face. In spite of nine plagues to show God’s Power, Pharaoh would not acknowledge that there was any higher power than himself. It didn’t matter what his advisors said… or public opinion ..the Pharaoh could not see anything beyond his own world view of himself; that things would not only stay the same… that he would continue to prosper on the backs of these who were not his equal; and ….
· So, the stage is set for today’s scene: the tenth and last plague… the death of any and all first-born children.
Now there was nothing magical in the Hebrew DNA that would spare them this tragedy. It would come upon the whole land. But there was a provision.. a way out … something that each Hebrew person could decide to do, to tell God they trusted, believed, and were ready to follow where ever that might take them.
They were to take a lamb or goat and slaughter it and take the blood and paint it on the door frames of their houses. That would be a sign for that last plague of death to Pass Over.
And… they were to be ready to MOVE…. As soon as possible. Take food, but don’t think there’s time to raise bread… get your sandals on, your bags packed, and simply mix flour and water and bake it quickly on the hot stone… as much and as quickly as you can.
This night… was pivotal in their faith.. their history… and OUR history.
WHY does this obscure little happening on the grand landscape of history to a people so globally insignificant 3,000 years ago, have anything important to do with us … other than a nice Bible story, and the basis for a great epic movie? And why reenact this story every year?
At the heart of the Jewish faith is this Story… this is the Story of God saving and freeing them… not to wander .. but to come to the place where they could stand upright and say Yes! To this God!
Freedom from slavery and the Pharaoh was not a license to do whatever they wanted… it was the freedom to choose.. choose the old way or the new way.. choose the Pharaoh or God. Freedom was the CHOICE… not the lifestyle.
Jesus took this central Story of his faith… and he became the Story for his disciples, and for us:
· It was the Celebration of the Passover in Jerusalem where Jesus told his disciples to go and prepare the room; and….
· It was at the Passover dinner, where Jesus took the unleavened bread and said that this now was his body that would be broken (slaughtered, sacrificed); and …...
· It was at this Passover dinner, where Jesus took the ordinary wine from dinner and declared that it was his blood… that he in essence was the Passover Lamb, sacrificed… and his blood would save them from death; and ….
· And it was at this Passover dinner, where he told his disciples that he, as a new Moses, would lead them .. out of this hostile land of competing Gods; where only wealth and status and fame gave you a name; and …..
· As the New Moses, he – Jesus would lead them out ..not to some far distant Promised Land… but to that which already surrounded them (for those who had eyes to see): The Kingdom of God.
From the very first Passover, Moses gave the Hebrews instructions not only on how to prepare that original night for Passover… but how they would reenact it every single year for the rest of existence! iI was that important!
And this new celebration wouldn’t just be a tradition of reading a story, singing songs, sending cards and giving gifts.
Each year, according to strict procedure, the People would again slaughter the lamb, prepare the food, say the words…. make their commitment and accept the promise. Even today, 3,000 years later at each Passover, every Jew remembers “they were there.”
And so we come to our celebration of Holy Communion. It was to be so important that Jesus said, as often as you gather to break bread and drink this wine… do it in remembrance of me!
Remembrance is an act of being there. It is identifying with our faith Story and our faith ancestors. It is taking on the choice for ourselves, and realizing once again, that we are part of that Story. We still choose to choose: slavery to one god, or freedom in another.
And so we remember and re-en-act… that we were there, and God is here! And the Story continues …. And the People of God continue.
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Many of us felt this last week, like we “were there” in the events of Hurricane Katrina. We watched the images, read the stories, heard the cries, as if we were there first-hand. And no doubt we asked ourselves the questions: what would we do if we were physically there… there as survivors… there as government officials … there as volunteers and able to help?
Our reality is not limited in time and space to what we can see and touch and taste and hear and smell right now. God extends our reality as wide as God’s love.
What kind of a day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our time…. And You are there!