Exodus 12:1-14 "Remember"

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         And the story of Moses continues.  We first met this greatest of Israel’s leaders two weeks ago as an infant floating down the Nile River in Egypt.  Saved from certain death by the King (Pharaoh’s) princess daughter, the babe grew to be a man and was forced to flee his adopted homeland as a middle-aged adult.  He settled in a foreign country, and the years went comfortably by.  However, when he was long into his retirement, Moses was tapped on the shoulder by God/Yahweh/the Great I Am.  When Moses thought that only golf and the Golden Years lay ahead of him, the Almighty called him into service. 

         God told Moses that his job was to get the enslaved Hebrews out of Egypt.  His task was to lead them on a journey (which would turn out to be a long and frequently dispiriting 40 year trek) to the Promised Land, to the land bequeathed to their ancestor, Abraham, in the dim reaches of pre-history. 

         Moses was not particularly excited by the thought of such an immense responsibility.  He hemmed and hawed before that burning bush on the heights of Mt. Sinai as God made his demand. 

Moses agreed to it, but only very tentatively and with a glaring lack of self-confidence.  However, God had assured Moses that the Holy One would be there to guide and protect him in his dealings with the Pharaoh – and what more could he ask for?

         And so Moses returned to Egypt, this place that had once been his home – where, as a child, he had swum in the river, played hide-and-seek in the olive groves, and laughed with all his princeling buddies.  Egypt had not changed all that much over the years. 

         The architectural wonders built with human hands still glittered in the glare of the afternoon sun.  The Hebrew slaves whose human hands were doing that building still groaned under the hard labor set before them day in and day out.  The Egyptian taskmasters were still grim and often violent.  After all, to give the Israelites even so much as a taste of freedom was to potentially set the stage for mutiny and rebellion, and the Pharaoh would most definitely frown at that.

         Moses saw all this – and remembered.  Then, shaking his tired head, he made his way to Pharaoh’s palace, that place that had once been his home, where he knew all the secret passageways and staircases, where he had climbed into his grandfather Pharaoh’s lap at night and listened to stories of Ra, the powerful Egyptian sun god, and Isis his wife, and her consort, Osiris. 

         And it was there in the Pharaoh’s royal court that God/Yahweh/the Great I Am and Moses (accompanied by his brother Aaron) made their case.  “Let my people go.”

         But the Pharaoh was a stubborn man – and did not want to give up his enslaved labor force on a whim.  So there was a certain amount of boasting and trash talking before God got down to business. 

         Aaron threw down his walking stick, which turned into a snake.  “What do you think of THAT, Pharaoh?”  Then Pharaoh’s magicians turned their walking sticks into snakes as well.  “Take THAT, Moses!”  But Aaron’s snake ate the other snakes.  “Put THAT into your pipe and smoke it!”

         However, the Pharaoh was a stubborn man – and perhaps that was his downfall because God/Yahweh/the Great I Am had little patience for stubbornness and soon got serious about freedom for the Hebrews. A series of disasters befell Egypt, some of which the Pharaoh’s magicians could match, but many that were beyond their parlor tricks. 

         The Nile River turned to blood, and all the fish died, and the stench was unbearable.  Then frogs turned up everywhere, leaping from the river by the thousands to make their homes in beds and ovens and cooking pans.  Then a zillion gnats were formed from the dust and buzzed and bit unmercifully – followed by a plague of flies. 

         All the animals died, leaving the Egyptian people to starve, and then men, women, and children were beset with boils and open sores.  Infection was rampant, and the death statistics soared. 

         In spite of the toll being taken on his own people, still the Pharaoh did not relent.   Hail beat down on his subjects and their crops - precious harvests like flax and barley - were ruined.  The wheat harvest survived the hail, but it too was destroyed when locusts swarmed across the land and ate everything in their path.  Not a green leaf was left on any tree or plant.

         Pharaoh was worried as he watched his fellow Egyptians suffer, but he remained a stubborn ruler.  At times, he seemed to relent but always went back on his word. 

         Then God sent darkness, a thick blackness that covered both the land and a people who had been born into never-failing, brilliant sunshine.  Pharaoh tried to broker a deal with Moses then : Take your people but leave your animals.  Not a chance, and so negotiations broke down, and God/Yahweh/the Great I Am, through Moses, announced the worst punishment of all: Death to the firstborn males of all Egyptians and the firstborn of whatever might still remain of their animals.

         And it is at that dreadful moment that our Scripture reading picks up today – but perhaps not in a way we might have expected.  In the midst of the drama of boils and frogs, locusts and darkness, the author seems to take a step back and relates a series of detailed and extremely precise instructions about the formation of the Jewish calendar, the slaughter of unblemished lambs, and how and what to eat for this last meal before the Hebrew slaves flee. 

         Have your bags all packed, eat with your sandals on and with your walking stick in your hand, and, by the way, this last supper is to be a religious festival celebrated year in and year out until the end of time.  Do not forget.  Do this always in remembrance of me, Yahweh/God/the Great I Am who delivered you out of Egypt and into freedom. 

         Do this to remember me, to remember this experience because it is like no other you will ever have.  Do this to remember your exodus to freedom, to remember my power and my love for you.  Do this to remember me. 

         As Christian blogger, Rick Morley wrote, “This meal would begin to form them into a new kind of people, almost like a group process exercise on a high ropes course. And, the fact that God would ask them to have this meal over and over again into perpetuity would solidify their new identity.” 

         An oppressed, dispirited group of slaves are molded into God’s chosen people, people who would be a light to all the nations.  As Episcopal priest Charles Hoffacker notes, “Some three thousand years later, the Exodus experience and the Passover celebration remain at the heart of what it means to be Jewish.  The Jewish people recognize that their God acts in history, liberates (God’s) people from bondage, leads them into freedom.”

         “The Exodus experience and the Passover celebration remain at the heart of what it means to be Jewish.”  Fast-forward now a thousand years to Galilee and to an itinerant rabbi preaching to the peasant masses. The rabbi’s name is Jesus, and because he was devoutly Jewish, the memory of the Exodus experience was ingrained ever so deeply into his soul, and the Passover celebration was part of who he was.

         And it is precisely there that the relationship between who we are Christians and this ancient – much of it mythical but in the very best and truest sense of the word – where who we are as Christians and this ancient story of Moses intersect – in these 12 verses where the author of the Book of Exodus outlines the foundation of the Passover celebration.

          “On the tenth of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one lamb to a house. If the family is too small for a lamb, then share it with a close neighbor, depending on the number of persons involved. Be mindful of how much each person will eat. Your lamb must be a healthy male, one year old…Keep it penned until the fourteenth day of this month and then slaughter it…. You are to eat the meat, roasted in the fire…along with bread, made without yeast, and bitter herbs. Don’t eat any of it raw or boiled in water; make sure it’s roasted—the whole animal, head, legs, and innards.”

         Lamb bone, unleavened bread (we call it matzo), bitter herbs:  If you have been to our Seder meal on Maundy Thursday, then you know what Jesus and his disciples were doing that last night before he was executed a thousand years after the Exodus of the Hebrew slaves. 

         Jesus and his friends ate bread without yeast.  They drank wine, and they talked about the time of slavery in Egypt.  As Baptist pastor Timothy McGhee notes, “The Lord's Supper has ancient roots.  It is steeped in history and symbolism.  They grow deep in the fertile soil of the Old Testament and Judaism.  Indeed, we find the origin of the Lord’s Supper in the Jewish Passover.  The Lord’s Supper was initiated at the close of the Passover meal. “

         We may not all believe quite the same things about the meaning of this last supper.  Some may see it as a memorial meal where we re-enact what Jesus did on that final night of his life.  Others may see Jesus as the one sacrificed.  Still others may see him as symbolic of the unblemished perfect lamb that goes to the slaughter as part of God’s plan to save the Israelite people from death, that goes to the slaughter, to the cross, as part of God’s plan to save us from ourselves. 

         But though our theologies might differ – and many of us may not be quite sure what we believe when it comes to this sacrament (and that is OK) – still we are invited to this table to remember:  To remember that just as God acted in history and brought the Hebrew people to freedom thousands of years ago, so God continues to act in history, offering us freedom from all that enslaves us and binds us to who we are rather than who we might be as sons and daughters of the Holy One. 

         We are invited to this table to remember:  To remember that just as Moses brought to Israel the commandments of God, so Jesus brings to us a new commandment:  “Love one another as I have loved you.” 

         We are invited to this table to remember:  To remember that God was faithful to the Hebrews in spite of how unfaithful they could prove themselves to be to God, and so God is faithful to us even in our times of distraction and unfaithfulness. 

         We are invited to this table to remember:  To remember that God is with us today – and will be for all the tomorrows to come, no matter how dark or beset with plagues those tomorrows may be.  Where there is darkness, our God will bring light.

         We are invited to this table to remember:  To remember that this man, Jesus, devout Jew, presider over the ancient ritual of Passover on the night before he died, embodied everything that God is – powerful and empowering, faithful and calling us to faithfulness, loving and calling us to love.

         A loaf of bread.  A cup of wine.  Do this in remembrance of me.  Come, this is the Passover Meal, made over for us, to prepare us for our own exodus, to prepare us to leave the old behind and seek the new, to nourish us as we walk in the way of the One who first shared the bread and the cup with his family, his friends.  Do this to remember me.  Come, all of you, for the feast is ready.  

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church, U.C.C., Raymond, Maine