Tyranny of Time
Central Verse:
“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.” Exodus 12:14 NRSV
Central Truth:
This is a text that is primarily focused on the liturgical notion of faith. The story of Moses has been action packed up to this point and here at the culmination of the plagues we stop not just to be told about something the people of Israel are supposed to do, but how they are to do it. Typically the image we carry of this text is the Charleston Heston movie. This image is of people seriously eating together attempting to avoid accidental death by God.
Viewing this text through the lens of a popular movie has, instead of breathing life into the text, solidified it as a significant historical event with very little meaning outside of its time. When we take the events out of their context like the movie but place it back into the context of liturgy we can then creatively engage with the actions being portrayed. Much the same as when we celebrate communion, we can see it portrayed in a movie but it doesn’t approach the scope of meaning that it should have if you participate in communion.
Theologically there has been a lot done here with the idea of the Passover lamb and identifying it with Jesus and Jesus’ role on the cross. The initial work of seeing Jesus as the Passover lamb was done in the life of the early church as embodied in Paul’s writings. However, there is a serious theological issue we must address. In some circles, today Jesus’ sacrifice is talked about in terms of payment for sin and this image of Jesus as the Passover lamb, a sacrificial lamb, is sometimes appealed to.
There are problems with this view. One is that the penitentiary view of atonement, which is what this style of belief is, is not as common as it likes to think in scripture. Paul and other New Testament authors typically reference Jesus’ resurrection as our salvation not the death on the cross or a notion of sacrifice based on atoning for sin. Another issue is that the Passover lamb as told in this story is not a sacrifice for atoning of sin. In the text, we read today there is no mention of sin being the reason for the death of the lamb. The blood is a sign of God choosing a new people, and the tradition is forging a new community with a shared past and shared understanding.
What if we view the text of the Passover as a creation of a new community. A community that God continually calls to renewal, faith, and trust. When viewed as the formation of a community we are able to see the call for us today. Our liturgies, communion and baptism, our forms of worship are to call us to community and faith in God. It is often challenging but then things that are worth having often are challenging.
Food For Thought: (questions about the text)
The word used in Hebrew for Passover and pass over are two different words. Beware of sermons and word studies trying to say that they are the same thing. While the sermon may be interesting it is not textually based.
Throughout church history the Passover and communion have been seen together. This is helpful as Christians because of the reminder that communion, like Passover, is an event that we participate in the past and in the future. Worship and liturgy can hold both in tension.
Passover serves to remind the Hebrew people of their salvation, hence the instruction to celebrate it.
This text focuses on four different things, time, community, cooperation, and remembrance.
There is a problem that we need to confront in this text and story. That is the death of innocent people by God. While the Pharaoh is the villain in the story the first born of the poorest who would have had very little to do with the ruler still died. This begs us to question what is the role of God in suffering and cautions us to approach these texts with respect for those who suffer.
Connections: (time with our society)
The tyranny of the deadline. All of us experience again and again the ever-driving presence of deadlines. Sometimes this takes place in work, in my experience Sunday comes whether I’m ready or not, other times deadlines are birthdays or preparation for celebrations. Deadlines even come with daily meal preparation, I know if I have dinner to late my children are ready to sacrifice the dog to satisfy their hunger, that is unless I have snacks available.
The Passover and the instruction to celebrate the Passover remind us of the freedom that God has provided for the people of Israel and for us. It is easy to get caught up in all the deadlines in our lives, in calendars, cellphones, and emails. We forget that when God formed the people of Israel into a new community he freed them from slavery. When Christ formed the church, he freed us from the slavery of other’s expectations and the slavery to our own faults and sins.
It is equally important to remember the foundation of our faith is not one of needless bloodshed. The foundation of our faith is the willing sacrifice of Christ that marks us into new community. This new community is called to the task of actively remembering God’s call to us.
While we will still have to deal with some deadlines it is important to remember that the call to be a community takes precedent over the deadline. A conversation with someone in need is more important than completing the next task. Who knows, after the conversation you may have an extra set of hands to complete the task before you.
Application:
Discussion
Questions
Where to you see the four different areas at work in this text? Time, Community, cooperation, and remembrance. Seeing all these areas at work which speaks most to you? Why?
Close in prayer:
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