April 17, 2003
Exodus 12:1-8,11-14 + 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 + John 13:1-15
It is Passover for Jesus as he sits with his companions. The experience of God’s liberating love is real for them. Egypt is past. Their slavery is at an end. They sit together and with ritual words and foods, to remember, and they acknowledge the covenant Moses made with God. It was a Covenant that secured their place in God’s heart and God’s place in their lives. They eat that meal in symbolic readiness to depart from their enslaved condition.
Tonight we do the same. We sit in symbolic readiness to depart from our slavery. We have passed forty days cleaning up and cleaning out our lives It is as though we were moving, and having sorted through what we needed and what we did not need, the garage sale is over, the dumpster is full, and our bags are packed. If we did it any more symbolically, there would be luggage in the aisles. The best of us would have packed lightly.
They ate unleavened bread. There was no time for it to rise. They sprinkled the blood of the lamb on the entrance to their homes so that the angel of death might pass over them. We do the same. No time to rise, this bread we bring is eaten in haste. We save only enough for tomorrow, and we care for it more preciously than anything else we have, and tonight we keep watch and guard lest it be taken for granted. The blood of the Lamb we consume so that the angel of death might pass over us.
This day is our Passover Feast, and we sit with companions here and everywhere. Our slavery to sin and death is at an end. Our Egypt is past. We sit together and with ritual words and foods, to remember, and acknowledge the covenant the new Moses, Jesus, made with God. It is a Covenant that secures our place in God’s heart and God’s place in our lives. Tonight we eat this meal in very real readiness to depart with Jesus for the journey into his death and resurrection: the ultimate and final Passover. The old sign of one’s share in the covenant of Moses was circumcision. That old covenant and its sign held those people together until God’s final act and ultimate plan came of age. The sign of this new covenant is love made visible by service and forgiveness: the washing of feet and the reconciliation of those estranged. It is both our privilege and our duty to wash and to heal, to love and forgive, to serve and to remember.